EA872 Weekly Blog Entry 2

Run EA like a political campaign?

It’s week 2 of EA872 and I’m reading the importance of stakeholder analysis to develop communications planning while across US folks are thinking about Presidential nominees and the candidates or their campaign managers are thinking about how to dominate the news cycle. I cannot help but draw parallels between running a political campaign and running an EA program. Political campaigns have tools to nail down voter analysis and EA has tools for stakeholder analysis. This got me to thinking about fields like criminal justice system and the juror analysis but there at least they get to reject someone who they know could mean trouble. Unfortunately Enterprise Architects do not have that luxury and can appreciate the benefits of using stakeholder analysis to plan a communication campaign to gain and maintain their support for Enterprise Architecture.

EA872 Weekly Blog Entry 1

Clear as Mud!

As I start my second semester in EA, I pause for a minute to wonder, what is EA?  There’s not one common definition or agreement on what it is. It’s not even necessary to call the discipline EA. After reading numerous Gartner articles as part of the EA871 course as well as other research analysts, It’s looking like it’s larger than life. I’d like to know one enterprise who has mastered this art and their secret! But that’s impossible as it’s their competitive edge and not revealed. So I’m going to plug along and gain as much as I can in the hope of becoming a halfway decent Enterprise Architect one day.