The real challenge has been getting my head around who is doing what in the guise of EA and the absolute confusion that exists in the use of the term of art "strategy". Often it is EA that is confused but here it appears to be strategy. The challenge was - "I need you to tell me what upgrades we need to do in the next three years so I can add them to the strategy" - why would operation/maintenance issues be critical to strategy creation?
EA is trying to identify when the project should start and finish and how much (approx) it will cost rather than what they had planned which is developing technology domain roadmaps. Interestingly some great work around understanding the business needs and strategic objectives of each business unit to input these into the strategy.
My question today is PRINCIPLES - to do or not do? Do principles really add any value in an organisation? Have I ever really seen them used well and thus validating the need to spend time and effort on them? They have been requested, are they a critical deliverable for EA? I wish I could believe that they are as fantastic as evidenced in the time and effort spent by architects globally but I'm afraid I am not.
So in wrap-up day 1 was insightful - confusion abounds as I expected and currently I see no clear path or plan crystallising yet. Tomorrow………
