EA Radio - Pilot Episode

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Welcome everyone to the first episode of the enterprise architecture radio. Its the first episode, so let's set the premise. I am going to try to answer three questions. Why is Enterprise Architecture required? Why am I doing this? And most importantly, why should you subscribe to this podcast.

 

Let's start with Why you need EA? Once upon a time in a land far far away, there was a small company named Widgets Inc. It manufactured and sold widgets. The owner of the company Obi, had a dream to sell more widgets than any other company ever has. So he started looking at the quality of the widgets and how he could let his customers know. He worked day and night. Slowly his customers grew. They started talking to other people about the widgets. And he started getting really popular. At this time all he had was a small office with a few people working in administration and a small factory with one machine and 6 workers producing widgets two shifts a day. But as the product started getting popular his demand for products started increasing and he had to keep orders on hold. He added 3 workers and added a shift, so now they were working 3 shifts a day, 7 days a week and it was still not enough. So he had to procure a new machine and add 9 more workers to his factory. Also, his supply chain staff started getting overwhelmed so he had to invest in hiring more administrative staff. But adding so much investment for just one widget didn't make sense. In the meantime his daughter Leia, who was also quite enterprising had been talking about a new type of widget that could sell really well in the markets. But it was new and required him to tell his customers about it. So he hired a research and development team to develop the product and a marketing team to put the product out there. Mass production of this widget required new machinery and new skills. He hired more people. But to afford this he had to expand his market into the neighbouring kingdom. So he hired more marketing team and appointed a marketing leader. This neighbouring kingdom was far and the supply chain was getting expensive so he decided to start a new factory locally in that new kingdom. He hired a man to oversee the manufacturing and marketing there. Later he found out that there was another man Vader, who was manufacturing a similar widget locally that was selling quite well. He also knew that that widget would really sell well in his kingdom. He decided to buy Vader's factory and add it to his business.

 

But now with all these different capabilities, factories for manufacturing different types of widgets, marketing and supply chain to manage, maintaining quality, starting store fronts, he had to hire all these leaders who started taking independent decisions. The complexity started increasing beyond a point of which he couldn't manage it himself.

 

Have you heard this story before? Of course you have. This is the story of every company in the world. At some point in the past we started using information technology to enable us. And while it did enable us, it also increased the complexity of the entire organization. Sort of like elevators for the construction industry. Earlier we used to build houses that were a few floors high because we had to climb stairs. Once elevators were invented the sky was literally the limit. This also means that the architects had to start looking at how the field of architecture changed, now that they had to build buildings that were higher than just a few floors.

 

IT changed how we do business considerably. While it enabled us to do more, it also increased the complexity considerably. And what do we do when complexity increased beyond what our limited brains can handle. We write it down. Enterprise Architecture is just that. We write down everything about our organization. How many products, how many functions, how many systems, how many processes and so on. Just that we don't write it down in a piece of paper. We have IT systems, tools and technologies for that. And when we intimately know our organization, we are able to manage it better. Make it more efficient. And that's why enterprise architecture. Although that's not the only reason why we need EA, but that's the big one up there.

 

Why do I want to talk about this topic? Well I love this topic. I have to be honest, I happened to stumble upon this opportunity quite unknowingly. When I got my first job as an EA. But when I realized its potential and how much it can do, I stuck to it. I have decided to build my career around EA, organizational agility and engineering excellence. In the IT industry we are very tolerant to waste. Whether it is infrastructure deployed, or lines of code or money spent on maintenance or any other part of IT, the waste generated is very high. No other industry is so tolerant to waste. We think just because it is all digital and not visible in front of us, its ok if there is waste. But I think there is a tremendous amount of change that can be brought there. I would like to see that transformation happen and I would like to contribute to it, even if it is ever so slight. And this podcast is my journey, my experiences. In this journey I have had the chance to speak at a no. Of conferences and have had the opportunity to meet with the biggies like John Zachman, the father of enterprise architecture. The man who coined the term enterprise architecture. And Steve Nunn, the CEO of The Open Group. And many such amazing people. I would like to share these stories.

 

And finally why should you subscribe to this podcast. I am sure you have all experienced transformation. I am sure you have seen new CIOs and CEOs come and entirely change the organization. From centralization of delegation / authority to decentralization. From staring a new digital organization, to deciding to move everything to the cloud to new outsourcing / location strategies. If you are wondering why all these decisions are taken. If you are wondering if there is a way to de-mystify organizational strategy. If you are looking for a way to simplify all this. And if you are wondering if there is a way to put a process around innovation, you are in the right place.

 

We will talk about all that and more. We will talk EA, technology, devops, agile, automation, artificial intelligence and the application of all of that.

 

I hope you enjoy these episodes and I hope you engage with me. Talk to me, tell me about your ideas.

 

 

Thanks for listening to the Enterprise Architecture Radio. Don't forget to subscribe to the show and thanks for telling a friend about this podcast. We'll talk to you in the next episode.