PMcrunch

Enterprise Architecture ( EA ), Organizational Strategy, and Project Portfolio Management (PPM) are closely related.  The question is, “How are they related on a very practical level?”  Let’s take a look.

Where EA, Strategy, and PPM Intersect

The following shows that there is an intersection among the three components, and an intersection between each pair:   

Here is my take on the intersections:

1.       Enterprise Architecture and Organizational Strategy – Strategy drives architecture.  Without strategy, architecture becomes merely a technical exercise, like designing a house that nobody wants or intends to build.

2.      Enterprise Architecture and Project Portfolio Management – The architecture provides a clearly documented picture of various project or organization configurations, informing the PPM decision, so that intelligent acquisition decisions can be made.

3.      Organizational Strategy and Project Portfolio Management – Strategy declares priorities, influencing the selection of projects for the portfolio.

4.      Enterprise Architecture, Organizational Strategy, and Project Portfolio Management – At the intersection of all 3 , the strategy is clear, it is enumerated in clearly documented architecture artifacts, and these both are used to understand the portfolio of projects from which to select and prioritize. 

Where EA, Strategy, and PPM  Stand Alone

Here is my take on the very individual, non-intersecting core of each of the 3 disciplines:

1. Enterprise Architecture – Architecture specialists develop as-is and hypothetical to-be frameworks for the organization.  This is a very implementation-centric viewpoint, documenting and thinking through, but not necessarily answering, the questions Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.


2. Organizational Strategy – Strategy as a specialty focuses on developing and choosing the strategies for the organization.  It is not involved with implementation, but takes input from implementation experience to inform and reshape strategy.


3. Project Portfolio Management – PPM takes the practical outputs from Architecture and Strategy and chooses from among alternatives for implementing the changes that will advance the organization’s agenda.

Some related resources on the web:

EA knowledge bases need to be active - Much of it would be in documents such as: business cases (applications, systems, business processes/products and services, business goals and strategies etc.), operational and procedural documents (holding roles, business processes, …

What we sought in a tool for business/technology transformation and EA - People often ask me what lead us to working with the tool sets we use for enterprise architecture and business transformation (EA/BT). The following is a short background. Obviously the overall objective is to improve an organisation’s …

What we learned about EA implementations - … have a partial understanding of its intended use) or lead by people who understand the tooling reasonably well but who have very limited domain expertise (ie in enterprise architecture, ICT strategy, business/IT transformation etc. …

Getting Smart about SOA at IBM IMPACT - For example, one insurance company director of enterprise architecture told me about what it takes to scale. This director told me that his organization had deployed its first services seven or eight years ago. …

10 Reasons why Enterprise Initiatives fail - I’ll use Enterprise Architecture as an example here. If the person leading an EA initiative does not have a solid understanding of architecture, application development, security, infrastructure, process, and the business, …

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John Reiling, PMP
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