There’s no such thing as a simple business. No matter the industry, no matter the service or solution provided, no matter the organizational size, business is a complex system. In large part, it’s about the ability to communicate, to share, to collaborate, and by doing so, to advance the organization from Point A to Point B (and beyond).
Ask a sailor, or a pilot or a hiker: If you want to navigate any course, you need a plan. Building that plan gives you a sense of structure and following it gives you a sense of security. Naturally, your plan to navigate the back roads of Europe might be more detailed than your plan to visit the corner market, but essentially the system is the same.
That system is otherwise known as enterprise architecture. Simply put, enterprise architecture is a way to wrap your arms around any complexity at a high level, and by understanding it, to guide it. That complexity can be any business system, any project, any people, any culture. No matter what mission your business must achieve, enterprise architecture can help determine the proper resources, how they relate and how they can be fit together to successfully fulfill the need.
“It’s like putting together a puzzle, one piece at a time, and finally seeing the picture emerge,” said Felix Rausch, executive director of the FEAC Institute, which provides training and certification around enterprise architecture. “It’s an exciting new field. It ties together many, many, many different disciplines into one. It allows you to approach something from the top down and managers, once they buy into it, can see the benefits at long range.”
Enterprise architecture came out of the IT world, pioneered largely by the U.S. government, as a way to better manage and reduce waste. One of the success stories of enterprise architecture is how the government’s Office of Management and Budget used enterprise architecture systems to save significant dollars by moving government payroll systems from 60-70 individual systems to just three.
Benefits like that make clear the value that enterprise architecture can offer to businesses, especially those with complex structures and large, widespread resources. The FEAC Institute was started in 2002 to help spread the word about the benefits of enterprise architecture. Today, the FEAC Institute is delivering that message through a rigorous certification program, the Certified Enterprise Architect, which requires completion of five graduate-level courses in three months. The institute also offers a speedier option, where people can get introduced to enterprise architecture concepts and planning in shorter three-day or five-day courses.
“We graduate people who know how to do this, how to lead and how to actually perform, applying the discipline of enterprise architecture to any complex system that the company needs,” Rausch said. “The certification is a way to reduce your risk on whether someone knows something or can do something.”
One approach they have when working with a new client – which can be an individual but is usually a work team – is around action learning. Clients are encouraged to come to training with a real business project, need or mission in mind. As the training progresses, students tackle their own real-world problem, so at the end the company has not just a certified team of professionals, but also a head start on the project, and three months of solid consulting time from the FEAC Institute faculty. Rausch estimates the $11,000 cost actually buys about $100,000 to $150,000 in business value. What’s more, the certified team is also ready to tackle future projects, which ultimately saves in recruiting, staffing and training.
“I don’t know any other numbers that are that good,” Rausch said. “Those are pretty good numbers.”
Of course, there are some challenges around implementing enterprise architecture in your organization. It helps if minds remain open to new business approaches, Rausch said, and people shouldn’t be too enamored of technology. Naturally, technology can plan a role in enterprise architecture –a portion of the certification classes are even delivered online – but technology won’ t be the instant enabler some marketers might have you believe. Instead, he said, you have to plan the process and determine the tools needed to succeed. That, he said, is simple architecting.
“There is a better way of doing things out there. In order to do it right, you really have to have the knowledge in house,” Rausch said. “The pressure is on for companies. They know instinctively there is something out there that is better than the way we do things. The next step is to get some training.”
For more information on the FEAC Institute, please contact Felix Rausch: rausch@feacinstitute.org
Or visit www.feacinstitute.org/
