5 key success factors for EA we learned the hard way

May 2021

As head of Enterprise IT Architecture at Colruyt Group and member of the Myreas Management Team, Wouter Depoortere has a very clear vision on Enterprise Architecture (EA). And yes, you can call that an understatement. He wants to share 5 key success factors to give you a head start in your journey in EA. Because most of those lessons, he had to figure out the hard way.

From Zachman to Gartner

But before we start, let's make it clear what EA is. Different people have different ideas about that. John Zachman of IBM who is somewhat considered the father of EA, launched a classification scheme for EA artifacts in the 1980s to bridge strategy and implementation. It then took Gartner another 20 years to ratify a standard definition for it. “And believe it or not” as Wouter continues, “that Gartner definition is still very much up to date.”

Enterprise architecture is the process of translating business vision and strategy into effective enterprise change by creating and improving the requirements, principles and models of the enterprise’s future state, and defining a roadmap to enable that future state.

Based on that definition, the core mission for the enterprise architects would be to enable changes or business transformation. “In essence, what it boils down to is that it is all about helping the business and the IT decision makers make deliberate and documented choices by providing direction and structure to the purpose of the business vision and strategy.”

Why do we need Enterprise Architecture at Colruyt Group?

Colruyt Group grew from a family business into a family of businesses. And just like in any normal family, the sister companies don't all do the same thing. “Nevertheless, they all do sing from the same song sheet, which is our common DNA translated into a mission statement in which all store formulas, brands and services can recognize themselves.”

Together, we create sustainable added value through value-driven craftsmanship in retail.

Together is the key word to explain the importance and relevance of EA within Colruyt Group. “We aim at creating synergies and efficiencies within the group and that’s where having the discipline of EA really helps: trying to balance the local autonomy of business units with the synergies at the group level.”

Next to creating synergies and efficiencies, it's also the mission of every enterprise architect to make an organization less complex and more agile. In a VUCA-world you can no longer plan for many years to come and then stick to that. You need to be able to react faster to ever more changes. So, you need to develop the right capabilities that allow capturing opportunities as they come along. What you need to do is, you need to build that flexibility, or agility, into the very core of our architecture so you can adapt more easily in the future.

 A tangram approach

To provide this agility at Colruyt Group, they abandoned approaching EA as a jigsaw puzzle and went for tangram instead. The problem with the jigsaw puzzle is that there is only one way in which you can correctly lay your puzzle. The pieces can be used only in a very specific way in a very specific place. “Now the tangram, that's a different story. Many different figures can be made up using the same pieces in different ways. The pieces are loosely coupled, and they're easily reusable, or interchangeable. Changes to one of the pieces does not necessarily require changes to the others. So, tangram pieces allow for real agility.”

Based on that insight they started building the business capability landscape as a tangram. With business capabilities as the tangram pieces, being unique and independent building blocks that can be used in one or more value streams for one or more operating units, store formulas, brands, or services.

“And that’s where the fun and challenge is: to come up with the right set of tangram pieces so that we can build up the value chain of our multiple business units as we know and love them today, but also for those of tomorrow, which we have yet to invent.”

Combining business with IT

EA is a multi-dimensional practice, combining business with IT. At the business side, it’s about working with components, processes, and information concepts, while the IT side is focused on the applications, the data, and the infrastructure. “We avoided stepping into the term hijack of narrowing EA to just the IT technology part. For us, EA is also about process and people. Our business capability – being our core building block of our architecture - includes everything we need to carry out a specific set of activities like supply chain for food business, for instance. It contains the IT applications such as the ERP system, but it also contains the business functions, the work processes, the information flows, and even the craftsmanship of the people executing those business functions.”

5 key success factors we learned the hard way

 1.     Ownership: Enterprise architecture needs to be business driven and business owned. What enterprise architects do is provide leadership services to the business executives. But it's those business executives that are the real architects of the enterprise because they have the power to invest in changes that reshape or restructure the enterprise. One should not confuse the role called enterprise architect with the executives being accountable for the delivery and the performance of the architecture of that enterprise.

2.     Focus on added value: Your EA needs to be just. It needs to be just enough, not too much, not too little. It needs to be just in time. And it needs to be justified. Focus on what matters most for your business and demonstrate added value early on. We learned this the hard way: when we made up our business components model we heavily invested in a complete an all-encompassing model, only to find out that we didn’t really know what to do with it. When we started building up our business capability landscape, we made sure that we had the framework and its contours, but then we started completing that as and where we needed it by focusing on those capabilities we needed at that time, or those capabilities where we had the maturity.

3.     Mandate and role: Be clear on the mandate and the role. Be explicit about what you will do, when, how and why. But also, what you will not be doing. Talk the walk. Tell the people what you’re doing and why. Communication is key.

4.     Close the feedback loop. You need to close the feedback loop to connect your plans and models with reality. And vice versa. I found EA to be much stronger when it thrives on collaboration and influence rather than dictation and control.

5.     Leadership skills. They are key for the effective enterprise architect. That's really where we made the difference. Our methodology is great, for sure. But it's through our skilled architects at Myreas that we make the difference for Colruyt Group.