Development of an Enterprise Architecture Communication Plan

Communication significantly impacts how IT is perceived by the organization, and therefore it plays a crucial role

Jul. 17, 2009 09:30 AM

As a strategic activity for IT, communication is important for the effective management of both internal and external relationships. The IT function in many organizations operates with highly diverse stakeholders from different parts of the world. The situation has evolved rapidly over the last years through (standardization, globalization, and optimization…).

Communication significantly impacts how IT is perceived by the organization, and therefore it plays a crucial role in the successful positioning of IT as an internal partner. Moreover, given the competitive market pressure the position of IT within the company is the same that of an external IT provider. Hence the same level of professionalism in terms of quality and efficiency are demanded.

Communication concerns all business and IT employees whether they are managers, staff assigned to communication roles, or IT employees with technical tasks. Internally, multinational companies and global departments demand excellent communication and intercultural skills from employees and managers. This philosophy holds true for the field of IT. Smooth working processes and good performance are dependent on effective communications, especially in periods of change.

Effective communication is part of the overall plan for management of an Enterprise Architecture Program. An Enterprise Architecture communication document has to identify stakeholders of the organization’s Enterprise Architecture Program, the information needs of those stakeholders, and the communication strategy to be followed by the program in meeting those needs.

The goals of the Architecture Board, as established by (usually) the organization’s Management Committee’s mission and charter, requires a successful communication strategy. The Enterprise Architecture and the operations of the program charged with evolving that architecture are important topics that must be communicated by the program if the Enterprise Architecture initiative is to succeed.

The plan consists of sections devoted to an identified stakeholder group (you may reuse the stakeholders management defined in TOGAF). Within each section, the plan would identify:

The members of the stakeholder group
The TOGAF Enterprise Architecture Framework role(s) to which the stakeholder group maps
The information needs of the stakeholder group defined in the Architecture Vision The communication strategy to be followed by the program in meeting the information needs of the stakeholder group

This plan should be a living document, and as such should be updated on a regular basis to reflect new stakeholder groups, new information needs, and new communication strategies. It is important that the Enterprise Architecture Program be held accountable for implementation of this plan, and that the Architecture Board regularly reviews progress with the Program Director.

Stakeholder General Communication

Stakeholders are people who have key roles in, or concerns about, the system. Different stakeholders with different roles in the system will have different concerns. Stakeholders can be individuals, teams, or organizations (or classes thereof).

The list of stakeholders can be also based on the existing Business and IT organization and structure. It also takes into consideration recommendation from HR department addressing the various ways of communicating to various groups of people.

The various stakeholders may include (examples):

- Executive Management Board
- C-levels
- Business Users Advisory Board
- Business Units
- Procurement
- Architecture Board
- IT Units
- Enterprise Architecture team
- Customers
- Developers

The communication plan should take into consideration all groups (use best practices from EA frameworks such as TOGAF), the IT organization and the HR recommendations.

These groups will have to be clearly defined as probably some of the communication tools and techniques will have to be tailored for each community.

General Information Needs

The following information needs to be applied to all stakeholders.

Understand what Enterprise Architecture is (at least at a high level)
Understand the value, benefits, and importance of Enterprise Architecture to the business.

Understand how the Architecture Board and Enterprise Architecture Program are contributing to the pursuit of the organization’s business objectives.

Read the original blog entry...

Published Jul. 17, 2009— Reads 5,728
Copyright © 2009 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.

Enterprise Open Source Magazine Latest Stories . . .

Mule ION iPaaS Connects Cloud to On-Premise Apps

By Dana Gardner

New tools and services for swift software-as-a-service integration in the cloud lowers the barrier to SaaS adoption for SaaS providers and developers. MuleSoft this week launched Mule iON SaaS Edition, providing a broad set of new tools and services for swift software-as-a-Service (Sa...

Is OpenStack a New Door to Cloud Adoption?

By Nicos Vekiarides

All the buzz surrounding OpenStack over the past few months may beg the question of whether Openstack can repeat for Cloud what Linux has done for server operating systems over the past several years. With an enthusiastic following and a compelling, if not industry-leading set of funct...

Cloud VDI: Leveraging the Full Potential of the Cloud at Cloud Expo NY

By Elizabeth White

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) has been a hot topic in the IT community for years but delivery models have limited its use. Today there are real options for using the technology to truly replace the existing desktop infrastructure to realize tangible benefits. Today’s cloud-sourc...

Why Use OpenNebula on Your Existing VMware Infrastructure?

By Ignacio M. Llorente

VMware hypervisors of the ESX family (3.x, 4.x and 5.0) are fully, out-of-the box supported by the latest versions of OpenNebula(3.0+). If you have a server farm based on any of the ESX versions, then you can make use of OpenNebula to better manage your physical (and virtual) resources...

Smarter Computing and IT Consolidation with IBM's Enterprise Linux Server

By Pat Romanski

Data centers today are stretched to the limits with fast-paced business demands. On top of that, integrating and managing IT infrastructures can pose major challenges. Organizations need a new solution that consolidates servers and workloads without breaking the bank—and Linux, togethe...

Atlantis Computing Partners with VMware to Simplify Infrastructure

By Derek Harris

Atlantis Computing, a provider of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) storage and performance optimization solutions,has announced the release of Atlantis ILIO Diskless VDI 3.2, a solution that enables VMware View customers to deploy virtual desktops with no storage. Atlantis ILIO Dis...