As mentioned in my When Everyone Does Everything Blog, I’d follow that one up with four blogs on each of the “what to do” bullets below
Context: Being caught in this “RACI limbo” is not unusual. Your CIO wants to hold your head of business applications and CTO accountable for your application and technology architecture. Since the CIO is holding them accountable they feel like they need control and be driving the IT Strategy for their area vs Enterprise Architecture (EA). In that case you share an A (Accountable) and a R (Responsible) with your colleagues for IT Strategy and solutioning of critical transformations. Everyone tells you that As should not be shared in RACIs but they seem to do it anyway. It would be even worse if the CIO took the A away from EA.
So what does EA need to do?
Build strong relationships with fellow IT leaders at all senior levels
Be better at developing IT Strategies and complex solutions than their IT colleagues
Have a clear engagement model and service offering
Provide excellent service
Have a clear engagement model and service offering
For some reason there seems to be all kinds of opinions on what EA should do or shouldn’t do. That is why it is so important for you to clarify your operating model to first and foremost your IT colleagues and maybe business partners. Why I say maybe the business is because the business should simply go thru their engagement manager or key IT liaison (whatever you call it in your company). They shouldn’t need to know the inner workings and who does what in IT. That’s hard to do and of little importance to them.
Like with many things follow the KISS (Keep it simple stupid) model or others will bet confused in what you do. As outlined in my Establish your business services blog the two critical services you need to provide are:
Keeper of your current IT state and your standards
Drive the target state architecture for major business transformations
There are obviously more services you can provide but be very careful and think though which services you’ll provide.
Then you need a clear engagement model of how people leverage your serves. When and who gives you a call for your services. For what type of programs or projects are your services available and for which ones should folks rely on someone else’s help.
Finally, communicate your engagement model and services over and over again. Take advantage of IT communications, town hall meetings, colleagues team meetings, … Have an EA portal that covers all this and is accessible by everyone.
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