In this blog, I would like to discuss about one of the EA deliverables that I worked on for the group assignment. It was the EA Program Charter. The word charter can be defined as a plan or agreement of functions of an institution, could be a school, college or a company. Very similar to this idea is the EA program charter which serves as a document that contains the goals and objectives of the EA implementation of an organization.
When I started going through the charter template in detail, I realized that it contains the crux of the EA process. This enables to have a holistic view of the direction in which the organization needs to move in to achieve the future-state (i.e. realize the goals).
The charter outlines the following important aspects of EA implementation:
1) Preface (Endorsement, Intent, Alignment, Focus)
2) Scope
3) Objectives & Metrics
4) Governance
5) Roles & Responsibilities
6) Deliverables
With all these details in one document, the charter enables to have a very concise view of EA and also keeping all the functionalities documented. In case of conflicts, this document can always be referred back to gain clarity. Hence, it is very important to devote good amount of time discussing with the EA committee about the outline of EA design for the organization before documenting the same in the charter. The EA program charter also represents the agreement between the EA team and the stakeholders of the organization. With all such dependencies on the EA program charter, it definitely has a very pivotal role in EA implementation. As a result, it is one of the very first deliverables that need to be prepared as a part of the EA program. All the future deliverables would definitely be based out of the outline or foundation laid in the EA charter. Moreover, it is equally important to keep the charter up to date after every EA iteration. As per Gartner, it needs to be updated annually as soon as the planning for the next EA cycle is completed.
It was a very good learning experience to create a mock EA Program Charter for the group assignment. It made me go through a lot of other EA aspects like the RACI matrix approach to define roles and responsibilities of the EA team, the importance of metrics to an organization going through the EA implementation etc. I think, this is very close to experiencing EA implementation in the real world.
References:
Rollings, M. (2009, August 19). Enterprise Architecture Program Charter Template (ID: G00203755). Retrieved from Gartner database.
Burke, B. (2006, January 24). Chartering the Enterprise Architecture Program (ID: G00136607). Retrieved from Gartner database.
Bittler, S. R. (2010, October 05). Toolkit: Sample of a Starter Enterprise Architecture Program Charter (ID: G00207188). Retrieved from Gartner database
During First Data's US implementation of EMV transactions and EMV capable payment acceptance device, I spent significant time looking over their EA Charter and what the intentions of the EA program was. For a little company backgroud, First Data is the largest payment system processor and EMV was a huge undertaking for the US industry. Although First Data completed a similar roll-out overseas and in Canada, the implementation was beyond challenge for the US market because of the different requirements that needed to be worked through. I can not go into great detail of the projects because of the technologies that were implemented but the EA Charter provided me valuable information about the projects intentions. From the current business state and what technological improvements or processes needed changed was included in this document. But it also went into detail who was responsible for the different projects, how they would interact with other parts of the EMV enablement and which deliverables were required before the next portion of the project could begin. Overall, the project had some shortcomings along the way, but I am proud whenever I go to the store and have to use the chip reader in order to pay for my merchandise because I know exactly what needed to be done in order to allow EMV acceptance in the US.
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