There was a terrific keynote at the 1105 Government Information Group enterprise architecture conference this week in Washington, DC by Mr. Armando Ortiz, who presented “An Executive Architect’s View of IT Asset Investment and EA Governance Strategies.”
The highlight for me was Mr. Ortiz, view of EA gap analysis, which goes something like this (i.e. in my words):
Enterprise architects, supported by business and technical subject matter experts across the organization, develop the current and target architectures. The difference between these is what I would call, the architecture gap, from which is developed the transition plan (so far not much new here).
But here comes the rest…
The gap between the current IT assets and the target IT assets results in one of two things, either:
- New IT assets (i.e. an investment strategy) or
- Retooling of existing IT assets (i.e. a basic containment strategy);
New IT investments are a strategic, long-term strategy and retooling the existing IT assets is an operational, short-term strategy.
In terms of the corporate actors, you can have either:
- Business IT (decentralized IT) or
- Enterprise IT (centralized IT; the CIO) manage the IT asset strategy.
For new IT investments:
- If they are managed by business IT, then the focus is business innovation (i.e. it is non-standard IT and driven by the need for competitive advantage), and
- If it is managed by enterprise IT, then it is a growth strategy (i.e. it is rolling out standardized IT—utility computing--for implementing enterprise solutions for systems or infrastructure).
For existing IT assets:
- If they are managed by business IT, then the focus is improvement (i.e. improving IT for short-term profitability), and
- If it is managed by enterprise IT, then it is a renewal strategy (i.e. for recapitalizing enterprise IT assets).
What the difference who is managing the IT assets?
- When IT Assets are managed by business IT units, then the organization is motivated by the core mission or niche IT solutions and the need to remain nimble in the marketplace, and
- When IT assets are managed by the enterprise IT, then the organizations is motivated by establishing centralized controls, standards, and cost-effectiveness.
Mr. Ortiz went on to describe the EA plans developing three CIO WIFMS (what’s in it for me):
- Operational excellence (“run IT efficiently)
- Optimization (“make IT better”)
- Transformation (“new IT value proposition”)
The link between IT assets, investment/containment strategies, business and enterprise IT actors, and the benefits to the CIO and the enterprise was a well articulated and perceptive examination of enterprise architecture and gap analysis.