Enterprise architecture (EA) is basically what it sounds like. It’s about resting organizations on a solid foundation with the aid of high-level blueprints that depict how the organization should be in order to function at its best. Many make the parallel between enterprise architecture and urban planning; like the latter, enterprise architecture is not about deciding how many nails to use when building a house but rather about organizing land zoning and designing infrastructures in such a way that will help promote city growth and good overall functioning.
Most approaches to enterprise architecture use the following process:
- A target blueprint is created
- A gap analysis is done between the current state of the enterprise and the blueprint
- A transition plan (roadmap) is developed to move the organization from its current state to the target state
- A set of potential projects are designed in order to deliver the transition plan; from this set of projects, those that have a good return on investment are selected to be delivered.
- Once a project is delivered, the current state blueprint is updated.
Program/project management can be seen has an organized way of governing and achieving point 4.
The above process loops; hence the target blueprint changes at a rate which is directly related to the speed of external and internal changes.
Roughly, enterprise architecture can be broken-up into to sub-domains: business architecture and technology architecture (information, application and infrastructure). Business architecture is about organizing and designing strategies, processes, capabilities, roles/responsibilities, etc. Technology architecture is about choosing, organizing and designing technological solutions which help support business processes and functions as well as supports strategic objectives.
As you can see, there is a lot of resemblance between EA and sociotechnical systems (STS) design. The problem is that most organizations reduce business architecture to business process design which is often done and only understood by IT. Moreover, often, the technological architecture is done in a vacuum without the human dimension. Design choices are made with little regards to culture compatibility; these choices are often made according to industry best practices and are based on the only concern to support effectively the business processes which were designed in the business architecture. When EA is reduced to the latter description, it is clear that the underlying mental model of the organization is one of a “machine”.
So all in all… there is not much to EA that is really different then STS from my undertanding. I guess the truth complexity of EA which does not come through my text is that: in the same way that the business architecture (human dimension or socio aspect) must be designed in a holistic fashion in order for people to work effectively together and feel good about it, the technological architecture must be done in a manner which is reasonable for both the people delivering the technology as well as those supporting it once it is in place. For example, it makes no sense to choose the best and the greatest tool in the world if there are very few resources on the market to implement it and support it.
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