Enterprise Architecture Alignment

title

Enterprise Architecture Alignment

author

Bernard Szlachta (bs@NobleProg.co.uk)

What is Business-IT alignment 。

• Business-IT alignment can refer to:
  • state in which an organization is able to use their IT effectively to achieve business objectives (used further down)
  • process in which the business goals and translated into IT systems

Causes of misalignment。

• Differences in objectives, culture
• Lack of incentives for IT people to understand business
• Ignorance of the problem
• Incompatible languages and not enough time spent on explaining business to IT people and IT constrains to business people

Results of misalignment 。

• Useless software and hardware
• Not satisfactory ROI from IT assets
• Over complication of processes

Possible Solutions 。

• Improve communication between IT and Business
• Create system on incentives for IT people to achieve business goals
• Set up IT governance processes

Alignment Frameworks 。

• GRAAL
• Henderson & Venkatraman

Alternative Theories。

• Unified
  • No distinction between IT and Management
• Synced
  • Organization structure dictates the job done by an employee
  • It takes time to translated business requirements into IT
• Aligned
  • Effective governance
  • Clear communication between IT and Business exist
  • Vocabulary is shared