Successful EA Change Management Requires Five Key Elements

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Research

Publication Date: 26 December 2007 ID Number: G00153908

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Successful EA Change Management Requires Five Key

Elements

Richard Buchanan

Change, in all its many aspects, is a critical aspect of the enterprise architecture (EA) process. Organizations will increase their chances for EA success if they view enterprise architects as change agents, and adopt formal organizational change management strategies — including models, tools, control mechanisms and incentives — to channel the activities of business and technical professionals toward the creation of a unified EA.

Key Findings

• Most organizations find it difficult to marshal and coordinate the critical mass of tools, control mechanisms and incentives needed to refine actionable behavior from the raw, unfocused pressure to change.

• Five elements must be present for EA change to occur: vision, talent, incentives, investment and implementation plans. The effect of these elements is cumulative — if any piece of the puzzle is missing, the change initiative will suffer.

Recommendations

• Adopt a change management framework and approach, use it to diagnose problems, and train managers and employees in its use.

• Target EA efforts toward the most profound changes that will affect the enterprise's fate to focus the impetus for change.

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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Formal organizational change management efforts will minimize business risk and enhance financial returns for EA and systems designed within that framework. Organizations that couple change management with the EA process will avoid confusion, sidestep fear, reduce frustration and prevent implementation errors. Firms that fail to see architects as change agents will waste their investments in architecture. EA planners need to adopt a straightforward change

management approach, use it to diagnose problems, and train all managers and employees in its use. Moreover, to remain relevant and problem-focused, EA efforts should focus on the most profound changes that will affect the enterprise's fate. Risk management strategies should address change dynamics — such as the total cost of change and the opportunity costs of delayed change — as part of their analysis.

ANALYSIS

Organizational change is a critical aspect of the EA process. To optimize returns on their investment in EA, accelerate infrastructure development, and create new, technologically sophisticated business strategies, large organizations must view their enterprise architects as organizational change agents.

For many enterprises, the EA process effort casts a powerful spotlight on the inadequacies of their legacy systems and processes. It becomes a catalyst for contentious debate about the need for profound changes in business strategy, organization structures, processes and budgets. Enterprise architects must step up to the challenge of managing change proactively or risk being undercut by the fear it can spawn.

Gartner research indicates that only 35% of organizations with architecture efforts under way have adopted formal change management strategies — including models, tools, control mechanisms and incentives — to channel the activities of business and technical professionals toward the creation of a unified EA. We believe that 40% of architecturally active organizations will adopt formal change management mechanisms by 2010.

Barriers to Change and the Need to Overcome Them

Organizational change faces two high hurdles. First, only a limited number of individuals are capable of the abstract thinking required to imagine the shape and dynamics of a new

organization. Second, organizations are rarely able to marshal and coordinate the critical mass of tools, control mechanisms and incentives needed to refine actionable behavior from the raw, unfocused pressure to change.

In a survey of more than 100 CIOs about the top barriers to change, respondents cited culture, priorities and politics as the principal roadblocks (see Note 1). These are all "soft" issues, which many people believe cannot be managed as one would manage a project or process. But EA leaders, CIOs and other executives must be able to manage these issues, or enterprise change will be left to chance.

A Framework for Architecture Change Management

Figure 1 describes a framework for understanding the elements of architecture change

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Figure 1. EA Change Management Framework

Unfocused Pressure to Change Strategic Intent EA Process Enablers Requirements Organization Enablers Governance Policies Resource Strategy Implementation Planning

Status of Architecture Efforts

Successful Change Plans Investment Incentives Talent Vision Implementation Errors Plans Frustration Plans Investment Confusion Plans Investment Talent Incentives Fear Plans Investment Incentives Unfocused Pressure to Change Unfocused Pressure to Change Strategic Intent Strategic Intent EA Process Enablers Requirements Organization Enablers Governance Policies Resource Strategy Implementation Planning

Status of Architecture Efforts

Successful Change Plans Investment Incentives Talent Vision Implementation Errors Plans Frustration Plans Investment Confusion Plans Investment Talent Incentives Fear Plans Investment Incentives Successful Change Plans Investment Incentives Talent Vision Successful Change Successful Change Plans Investment Incentives Talent Vision Implementation Errors Plans Implementation Errors Implementation Errors Plans Frustration Plans Investment Frustration Frustration Plans Investment Confusion Plans Investment Talent Incentives Confusion Confusion Plans Investment Talent Incentives Fear Plans Investment Incentives Fear Fear Plans Investment Incentives

Source: Gartner (December 2007)

Five elements must be present for EA change to occur: vision, talent, incentives, investment and implementation plans. Figure 1 illustrates that the effect of the elements is additive. If parts of the puzzle are missing, architecture efforts will suffer one of the four fates depicted at the top of Figure 1 and described below.

Implementation errors: Many architecture efforts become the handmaidens of tactical "system

projects." Architects are drawn into low-level product and standards debates because managers are unwilling to invest in long-term architecture planning. This leads to serious mistakes in architecture design and implementation because the architecture team's frame of reference is too narrow. The "forward architecture" will be poorly defined and "unactionable." The ability to

network and integrate applications will suffer, and future business information requirements will remain a mystery.

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focused, and require an event horizon far enough into the future to get ahead of the business strategy curve.

Frustration: Even if a clear implementation plan exists and resources are adequate, architecture

efforts can be extremely frustrating without a simple, transparent and unifying set of incentives and related decision-making rules. The incentives must be designed to encourage compliance with the architecture's designs and guidelines. A clear governance policy (and the authority to enforce it) will provide the requisite "carrots and sticks." Governance policy should

unambiguously describe which organizations (such as the steering committee, the core

architecture team or component teams) have the authority to define, enforce or grant exceptions to guidelines, and the mechanisms used to do so. Moreover, these governance rules should be as simple and nonbureaucratic as possible.

Fear: Architecture efforts can become a source of fear when people are driven by incentives

(often by sticks, rather than carrots) to attempt the impossible — that is, to change when they simply don't have the skills necessary to make the transition. Talent and skills — technical, managerial and interpersonal — must be identified, retained and developed to a sufficient level to overcome the fear that change engenders. The requisite skills should be developed and acquired through training, strategic sourcing and the development of competency centers. A successful organizational strategy will identify the new skills the "forward architecture" demands, but leverage the operational disciplines that are already in place.

Confusion: Even when all of the previous four elements are in place, confusion will result unless

a clear vision and strategic intent for EA change are established from the outset (see the bottom of Figure 1). Without vision, architecture will be confusing — no clear goal will be identified. The common requirements vision (CRV) phase of the Gartner EA Process Model provides an opportunity to create and articulate an architectural vision (see "Gartner Enterprise Architecture Process: Evolution 2005"). Strategic intent is also needed to channel unfocused pressure for change into focused pressure (see Note 2).

Change is painful and disruptive and simply will not occur unless sufficient pressure is brought to bear. Most organizations feel a general sense of pressure arising from internal and external sources (such as competition, deregulation, customer demands, or changes in policy or leadership). These forces are typically spread widely over separate business functions and departments, and are unlikely to be sufficiently focused to trigger change. Senior management vision and strategic intent are needed to amplify and focus pressure to a critical tipping point, by collating apparently distinct pressures to show that they are interrelated.

Note 1

CIO Survey Results: Top Barriers to Change

• The culture is too difficult to change — 52% • Too many conflicting priorities — 45% • Organizational politics — 41%

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• Lack of IT-business alignment — 14% • No methodologies in place — 14% • Too many change approaches — 12% • Other — 3%

Source: Gartner Survey of 115 CIOs

Note 2

Case Study: Vision and Strategic Intent as Catalysts for Focused Change

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