Six Reasons Why EA Should NOT be Assigned to the IT Department

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I have always disliked working with the "big architecture" people. It was only in the last 5 years that I came to realize why.  Enterprise Architects are often software developers who have reached the pinacle of programming greatness. They can solve massive problems and are truly amazing software developers. However, they often lack business accumen. As such, their solutions don't consider the most important part of the solution - the business' goals:


EA is short for Enterprise Architecture:

  1. EA ≠ IT Architecture
  2. True EA leads to redistribution of authority, which is beyond CIO jurisdiction.
  3. EA value proposition (i.e. standardization vs. innovation) is solely business realizable.
  4. The primary goal of EA is to build coherent enterprises, not better IT systems.
  5. Synthesis takes precedence over analysis.
  6. EA failure is an organization failure, not an IT failure.
I came across this post on LinkedIn and felt I needed to share. It was posted by a person named Pallab S who is an Evangelist [Enterprise Architecture Practice] at National University of Singapore | Institute of Systems Science.
Location: Evanston, IL 60202, USA

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