In time it became rather clear to me that most EA architects usually labour at describing simple capabilities, design solution architectures, police the development of solutions, establish architecture principles - but not the full EA framework -, specify IT strategy and spend a lot of time justifying themselves and selling Enterprise Architecture. What is missing? The Enterprise Architecture itself.
Can you judge a solution architecture outside the context of an Enterprise Architecture? While we do it all the time, the EA big picture would still save time and reduce the costly errors of missing parts and connections.
Can you specify best strategy without the picture of the whole? A strategy not based on EA would most probably be incomplete and inconsistent and as such would be satisfactory only to parts of the enterprise.
The truth is that no two architects have the same understanding of EA, use the same methodology or achieve similar results. Still, why so many architects claim success and when asked to share the results shy away?
The answer may be as simple as that. We don't do anything new. We describe the enterprise in bits and shards, as we always did, which are not integrated.
That is because there is no Architecture framework in the sense of a frame where the EA parts fit in to render the whole. I often wondered how can we deliver an Enterprise Architecture without a proper EA framework.
TOGAF is effectively a process template plus lots of advice. Zachman a model of systemic thinking. DoDAF a method of description...
Nevertheless, they do not provide a framework to which you can fit the parts of the Enterprise to give the whole.
In the absence of this framework, what do we deliver then? Parts. But not integrated in the EA whole. We do this all the time. We do it now without an Enterprise Architecture. We have the bits of the puzzle but not the big picture. In the end, the implementation of the target enterprise state would not work properly as a whole since the parts/solutions are not integrated, the strategy covers just pieces...
A proper EA framework would enforce parts compliance to the whole and their interconnection enabling the proper discovery, design and implementation of a consistent and complete whole.
The EA is about describing, roadmapping and improving the Enterprise as a whole of parts rather than describing... parts in isolation as many architects did and do today claiming they do EA.
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