Reflecting on OMB’s New EA Vision
Jun
5
Written by:
6/5/2011 2:22 PM
First Thoughts…
Last week's Architecture Plus Seminar was an excellent discussion between Federal IT professionals and private industry. There is a lot of exciting news and developments with regard to Federal EA, and I, for one, think the future looks optimistic. It was great to hear Dr. Scott Bernard, on behalf of OMB, provide a cohesive and forward-looking vision for EA in the Federal government and what he/OMB envisions for its use. I think this new vision will go a long way toward helping the U.S government identify and take the necessary (and perhaps painful) steps to improve mission performance, avoid duplication, cost overruns, and make smarter business/investment decisions that improve the services delivered to U.S. citizens. I am excited about the potential that architecture can play in this process. I realize that many in Federal IT have had high expectations of EA in the past, only to be unmet, but this time around I believe EA is better-positioned to make a major business/mission impact for two reasons:
Leadership Focus
Revamped EA Vision and Communication
Dr. Bernard and OMB are providing a sense of leadership that re-focuses EA's value proposition on being the key enabler to delivering mission and customer value, while not being driven exclusively by compliance, IT needs, and/or EA artifact development. Having recently spoken to numerous Federal IT executives on this matter it appears to be a welcome shift. I also believe this shift makes a statement for OMB in giving EA a vote-of-confidence as a management tool that can deliver business value and help solve major challenges currently facing the Federal government. Drawing upon past communication challenges with EA, I think OMB is keenly aware of the link between gaining that critical element of top-down support for EA, achieving successful outcomes, and effectively shaping the EA discussion along lines that resonate with Federal executives. I think this shift to a more 'business-focused' discussion and articulation of EA as a management tool, combined with its resurgence in popularity, provides OMB with an opportunity to "re-brand" Federal EA to win over more business stakeholders. Nevertheless, this will be a difficult challenge given EA's inconsistent track record of delivering value, but one that nonetheless needs to occur for EA to move beyond its often perceived notion as an IT activity.
Updated Approach
Focus on simplicity and greater applicability toward management
Without getting too much into the specifics of the new Federal EA approach, one can simply say that the focus is on simplification and greater application to management as a business asset. Most of us in the industry recognize that EA has at times struggled to maintain simplicity, be seen as actionable and as a business asset. OMB's new approach attempts to address these issues by moving away the notion of specific framework usage (i.e., DoDAF, TOGAF, etc.) and promotion of wide-scale use of EA (compliance-driven) to focus more on usage scenarios that best solve customers' business problems (customer-driven). My takeaway from this is that OMB is trying to focus more on using EA to impact its customers' bottom line (i.e., eliminating redundant business processes, reducing IT maintenance costs, etc.). Additionally, I believe the new FEA reference models and EA approach that is soon to-be-released will target a much broader audience in terms of potential use cases, in addition to placing greater emphasis on overall management, from a content-perspective.
What Does This All Mean?
Dr. Bernard and OMB are definitely headed in the right direction with Federal EA, and are smart to capitalize on the timing of EA's resurgence as an enabler to solving government's biggest management challenges (i.e., duplication, cost-overruns, and lack of coordinated IT investment management efforts). However, throw in the mix a new strategic direction for Federal EA, major updates to widely-used foundational EA artifacts, OMB's 25 point IT reform plan, the surge in popularity of emerging technology (i.e., cloud-computing) and the potential exists for many Federal executives to feel overloaded with information and lacking concrete, actionable plans to derive business value from OMB's EA vision. While OMB's vision will provide the overarching direction for EA's use in the Federal government, it will ultimately be left up to individual agencies to develop implementable and measureable action plans to solve their business problems and deliver customer value. I see this currently being the biggest challenge to achieving OMB's new vision for EA. However, the optimist in me believes with each new challenge comes an opportunity. As an industry, I am hopeful that we have learned from past experiences in terms of which EA approaches work well, which don't, and then applying this knowledge to achieve better results, as Federal EA continues to evolve. By focusing the discussion on EA's role in creating action plans that result in meaningful outcomes, rather than on the EA itself, results and the business case for continued use of EA will be easier to demonstrate. Adding to the importance of actionable plans, I have identified some additional key elements I believe are essential to successful realization of the EA vision:
Development of an Analytical Foundation
Real problems require real solutions, and real solutions require proper analysis to ultimately develop effective action plans leading to informed decisions. Whatever challenge an agency is trying to address, there needs to exist a foundation (provided by EA) which allows relevant stakeholders to analyze timely, authoritative, and the right type of information to result in an effective solution(s). This is where EA comes in and can provide a 'foundation' for problem-solving. This does not mean that agency's must have fully-mature or all-encompassing EA's. Rather, it means that just enough of the right information must exist, and be documented and maintained in a manner that allows for relevant analysis to be conducted.
Planning is Essential to Achieve Desired Value
Even with a sufficient analytical foundation, failure to adequately plan for solving key challenges is likely to result in unmet customer expectations. Planning in this sense means understanding the customer, their requirements, and letting these two elements drive the overall strategy and action plan. Since no one size fits all approach exists when developing plans to address specific challenges, Federal executives should first work with their EA office to identify the primary intended stakeholder(s) of a desired solution, their requirements, concerns, and expectations. Additionally, the EA office can help initiate and/or lead/facilitate collaboration activities during the planning process. This will help ensure that collaboration between the solution provider (i.e., CIO's office) and the customer (i.e., business owners) occurs, and that the agreed upon approach and target solution(s) will effectively satisfy customer expectations.
EA Office as a Service Provider
To help successfully implement OMB's EA vision, an agency's EA office will need to reposition themselves as service providers capable of providing on-demand, authoritative, and easy-to-understand information, guidance, and solutions that meet the business needs of multiple customers. OMB's vision for Federal EA will require a combination of top-down executive buy-in as well as bottom-up support from operational stakeholders, such as program and project managers, business owners, and capital planners, etc. For EA to play a strategic role in management, it cannot be limited to only a small subset of customers (i.e., CIO or CTO), but must be viewed by agency EA stakeholders as the definitive source for solutions regardless of the business challenge they face or the role in which they operate (executive or operational). By providing valuable analysis and solutions to a variety of customers, an EA office can brand themselves as an indispensible solution provider who should be consulted when addressing agency business challenges.