{"id":30682,"date":"2020-10-06T11:50:41","date_gmt":"2020-10-06T15:50:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/?p=30682"},"modified":"2023-08-10T11:10:58","modified_gmt":"2023-08-10T15:10:58","slug":"connect-strategy-to-action-with-an-enterprise-architecture-framework","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/blog\/connect-strategy-to-action-with-an-enterprise-architecture-framework\/","title":{"rendered":"Connect Strategy to Action with an Enterprise Architecture Framework"},"content":{"rendered":"
As a business owner today, you face tremendous pressure to invest in new technologies and software to keep up with competitors. Adopting a strategic perspective allows you to understand your business goals and processes first<\/a>, so you can then unite your executive team behind your new investments. Using an EAF to take a holistic, end-to-end look across your organization\u2019s business processes will help your new digital tools drive business results.<\/p>\n Standard Enterprise Architecture Frameworks (EAFs), such as The Open Group Architecture Framework<\/a> (TOGAF) or Zachmann<\/a>, provide time-tested methods for quickly assessing your business capabilities, data and information assets, application assets, infrastructure technologies and security. You can then use your EAF-organized findings to make informed choices that will optimize the value of your technology and software investments.<\/p>\n At Centric Consulting, we have created a simplified EAF that combines the best frameworks available today. Our iterative approach depends on practical and repeatable processes that include business, application, data and technology architecture, as well as planning, governance and architecture change management.<\/p>\n No matter which EAF you choose, your goal is to improve your business with smarter investments that translate business strategy and business problem statements into action. With improved business outcomes, you\u2019ll be ready to manage change across your organization, business processes and technologies involved as you build a more agile organization.<\/p>\n So, where do you begin? The first rule is never start with technology<\/em>. Investing in technology and then looking for a problem to solve will almost always lead to wasted money and little impact. Instead, make sure you guide your EAF by a well-defined business problem that you want to improve, then<\/em> look for technology to solve it.<\/p>\n To help define your business problems, build a business capability map (aka, business architecture) for your enterprise.<\/strong> If you are not familiar with business architecture tools, you can start with an American Productivity and Quality Center (APQC) reference model, a LEANix model, or value-stream specific templates, such as the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR). Some of these models are freely available.<\/p>\n However, don\u2019t simply copy the model\u2019s guidance. Your business\u2019s capabilities may not be identical, or they may have different names. Instead, use them as reference models while you build a model specific to your company.<\/p>\n As you might imagine, EAFs can improve your business in multiple areas. One of the biggest impact areas is application management. We\u2019ll take a deeper dive into that in future posts, but first, here are some of the other areas that should improve as your EAF progresses:<\/p>\n Once aligned with business capabilities, an EAF can improve your business results across your business, from day-to-day operations to long-term strategic needs. One urgent need today is sorting through the vast array of applications now available, thanks to the growth of cloud technologies.<\/p>\n In our next posts, we\u2019ll take a more in-depth look at how your EAF can benefit your software selection process and how smarter software selection can benefit your company.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A well-crafted Enterprise Architecture Framework helps you understand your organization\u2019s capabilities and your supporting digital assets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":30683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19388,19108],"coauthors":[16789],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2024-07-21 21:35:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30682"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30682"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=30682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}At a high level, an EAF can help you:<\/h2>\n
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How to Get Started with Your EAF<\/h2>\n
Specific Improvements You Can Anticipate with an EAF<\/h2>\n
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Conclusion<\/h2>\n