Implementing ESA: Enterprise Solution Architecture Governance

Information Technology Management And Architecture

Describe about the Implementing ESA?

Governance is all about the task of making proper decisions for any enterprise and Enterprise Solution Architecture governance   is that  process  which is implemented so as to take enterprise decisions  regarding the  technology that will be used in the enterprise, the various business priorities, the information and/ or the  data associated with the various activities involved with the proper functioning of the organization, and the various delivery mechanisms that are used in the enterprise like that of cloud computing.  

Changes to it Management

The enterprise under consideration should implement the following IT portfolio management strategies and best practices to choose the proper projects and/ or services.

The organization can implement proper enterprise architecture strategies like that of the TOGAF method for this purpose and/ or the ITIL service strategies for this purpose.

 The enterprise in concern can implement the following changes so as to improve the quality of  IT infrastructure:

1. Implement a Service oriented infrastructure (SOA) in the organization.
    
2. Implement policies regarding Mobile computing and Bring your own device at work
    
3. Implement the policies required for the implementation of cloud computing.
    
4. Implement big data technologies for the purpose of data analysis.

Using proper IT management services and IT infrastructure, the organization in  concern will be able to achieve the following :

1. Optimized discretionaryIT expenditure
    
2. Increased Information Technology productivity
    
3. Optimized discretionaryIT expenditure

However, the above mentioned standards will only be achieved when each and every stake holder of the organization accepts their responsibility towards the development of an information environment as a team. The commitment of all the resources of the organizationwould be a prerequisite in implementing such principles.

An operating model depicts the structural model in which the solutions provided by the ESA will actually be deployed in the enterprise such the decision makers can realize what exactly can be expected from the entire process that is being implemented.

The following methodologies should be implemented in the enterprise so as to improve the operating model that has been implemented in the organization at present.

Figure: ESA Policy Management

Processes: the proper implementation of processes   that would help in the transportation of information and/ or data and other managerial decisions that have been implemented across the entire organization   is a necessary step towards the improvement of the operating model.

Reward System: A proper reward system should be implemented within the operating model such that the employees remain aligned to the goals and objectives of the organization.

People and Policies: Policies and strategies should be undertaken so as to influence the mentalities and skill sets of the employees through the provision of new recruitments, providing promotion to employees, making arrangements for rotational services, providing scopes of developmental training to them and so on.

Enterprise Solution Architecture Policy Management

In order to improve the business process that has been currently implemented in the enterprise, the following steps should be taken:

• The dependency of any organization on those applications that are shared throughout the system makes it necessary to establish in advance the various risks that any change in ESA governance might pose towards the continuity of the services provided by the business.
   
• Apart from periodic reviews of the entire business process, the entire system should also be checked and cross checked for in order to find out whether the process is exposed to any vulnerability or not.
   
• Each and every other application should be assessed properly to find out their criticality and the impact that they have on the functionalities of the enterprise.

Any architecture and/ or business transformation activity will necessarily have certain risk factors associated with it. In order to track all the risks that keep on evolving throughout the transformation process, the identification, classification and mitigation of these risk factors become necessary (Booch, 2010).

As the organization being considered is undergoing changes in the currently implemented ESA of the organization, the following steps need to be implemented (Long, 2010):

Classification of Risks: Risks are pervasive in each and every other activity associated with the enterprise architecture and are generally present throughout all the  phases of any Architecture Development Method (ADM). Processes must be implemented in the system using which the classification   of all the risk factors that are associated with the activities of the organization  (McNeur, 2010).

Risk Identification: The various risks that will evolve through the architecture development phase of the organization need to be identified properly. Such processes need be implemented in the system which will not only be able to classify and identify any risks associated with the system, but will also be able to assess the initial level of risk  before the risk mitigation phase and the level  of residual risk after the risk mitigation process is completed.

Risk Mitigation: Processes should be implemented in the system which can perform the tasks of risk mitigation.

·        The Team

 The task of ESA implementation could be assigned to a group of workers within the enterprise itself, who should have the competency to do the same: alternatively, the project can also be outsourced to any professional Information Technology solution provider (Niemi & Pekkola, 2015).

The key tasks that are associated with the implementation plan are:

1. Strategizing and planning
2. Accessing the current situation (Närman, Johnson & Gingnell, 2014)
3. Accessing the competencies
4. Gaining Approval
5. Implementing the strategies
6. Operation and evaluation

Extensive researches have been conducted for preparing this report which indicate that around 7-8 months will be required for the implementation of this entire plan, and the resources that would be required for the entire process would cost around $ 80, 000.

The following tasks will be assigned to the respective team members:

• Strategizing and planning: Thistask should be assigned to the group of employees involved with the activities of planning and strategizing (Oduntan & Park, 2012).
   
• Accessing the current situation: Thistask should be assigned to the group of employees who are involved with the analysis of current situation.
   
• Accessing the competencies:Thistask should be assigned to the group of employees who are involved with the analysis of competencies.
   
• Gaining Approval: This task should be assigned to the management of the project.
   
• Implementing the strategies: The entire team, along with the stake holders of the organization should be involved in this task (Stroupe, Tange, Thomas, Moore & Grigorieff, 2006).
   
• Operation and evaluation: After the organization starts using the ESA system, this particular process will be continuously implementedby the organization itself and the team members associated with the project.
•  Project Plan:

	Month 1	Month 2	Month 3	Month 4	Month 5	Month 6	Month 7
Strategizing and planning
Accessing the current situation
Accessing the competencies
Gaining Approval
Implementing the strategies

The following milestones have to be achieved in the project implantation phase (Uhl, 2003):

1. Gain agreement on the major problems to be solved
2. Development of the ESA program guidelines
3. Access the current condition of the organization
4. Identify the EA requirements
5. Gain agreement on the budgetary conditions
6. Implement the plan (Blevins, 2006)

Conclusion:

The activities involved in governance are involved with providing only that bit of support to the organization which it requires essentially, without creating any intervention to those decisions which the enterprise takes so as to run the functionalities properly. The ESA governance should be federated in such a way that there remains a clear line regarding the do’s and don’ts of an   EA organization.

References:

Blevins, T. (2006). The Architecture of Enterprise Architecture. INCOSE International Symposium,16(1), 1647-1665. doi:10.1002/j.2334-5837.2006.tb02840.x

Booch, G. (2010). Enterprise Architecture and Technical Architecture. IEEE Softw., 27(2), 96-96. doi:10.1109/ms.2010.42

Booch, G. (2010). Enterprise Architecture and Technical Architecture. IEEE Softw., 27(2), 96-96. doi:10.1109/ms.2010.42

Long, J. (2010). Analysis and Design Solution of the Electric Enterprise Aplication Integration Based on Service Oriented Architecture. AMM, 20-23, 313-318. doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/amm.20-23.313

McNeur, C. (2010). Andrew M. Shanken. 194X: Architecture, Planning, and Consumer Culture on the American Home Front. Enterprise And Society, 11(2), 425-427. doi:10.1093/es/khq035

Närman, P., Johnson, P., & Gingnell, L. (2014). Using enterprise architecture to analyse how organisational structure impact motivation and learning. Enterprise Information Systems, 1-40. doi:10.1080/17517575.2014.986211

Niemi, E., & Pekkola, S. (2015). Using enterprise architecture artefacts in an organisation. Enterprise Information Systems, 1-26. doi:10.1080/17517575.2015.1048831

Oduntan, O., & Park, N. (2012). Enterprise Viability Model: Extending Enterprise Architecture Frameworks for Modeling and Analyzing Viability under Turbulence. Journal Of Enterprise Transformation, 2(1), 1-25. doi:10.1080/19488289.2011.650279

Stroupe, M., Tange, T., Thomas, D., Moore, M., & Grigorieff, N. (2006). The Three-dimensional Arcitecture of the EJC Core. Journal Of Molecular Biology, 360(4), 743-749. doi:10.1016/j.jmb.2006.05.049

Uhl, A. (2003). Model driven arcitecture is ready for prime time. IEEE Softw., 20(5), 70, 72. doi:10.1109/ms.2003.1231155