For this week's blog post, I will be reflecting on a white paper of Oracle Consulting on the topic of leveraging the governance methodology to support and improve EA efforts, especially in the area of technology innovation. A very important point is stated in the words - "Neither the importance nor the tedium of EA governance can be overstated". EA governance is considered to be a double edged sword offering the advantage of standardization of business processes but at the same time posing the disadvantage of being an overhead to the functioning of an organization.
This article is focused on the importance of governance in the context of new technology adoption and innovation in organizations. It discusses five major advances in technology:
1. Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
2. Mobile Computing and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
3. Cloud Computing
4. Big Data
5. Consumerization of IT (CoIT)
The article highlights the governance areas that each of these technologies must focus on. Moving further, it suggests the characteristics that an effective governance methodology should have in order to meet new and dynamic IT/Business models.
Regarding SOA adoption, the articles stresses on having a separate SOA governance to get the expected ROI from SOA. The governance must include defining where in the SDLC would service development and reuse come into picture, effective internal communication channels, approval processes etc. Without a good SOA governance, it is hard to receive the full benefit of SOA implementation.
For Mobile Computing and BYOD, the main idea of governance would be around data ownership. With the use of smartphones and other personal devices to work on organizational data, ownership of data is a big issue to be concerned about. It is also important to think about data security and data access in this case.
With more and more organization making the move to the cloud, governance plays a big role here. Governance needs to be addressed based on six major factors - Standardization, Data ownership, Data Location, Availability, Service Request Handling and Procurement Authority.
With the big data explosion and big data technology adoption, the need here is to have a solid architectural plan along with a master data management plan. It is an extension of data governance. Data stewardship and data ownership are important factors to be considered.
The consumerization of IT also has governance needs similar to BYOD in terms of device management and maintaining security.
With the overview of the need for efficient governance, the article highlights the various characteristics of governance - the importance of EA governance, organization-specific governance, Just enough, Just in time, Socialization and Communication and Process Integration. The article provided a good overview of the importance of governance in an organization adopting EA. The organization must maintain a good balance of governance required and agility needed to keep up with the competition.
References:
Oracle Consulting.(2012). Leveraging Governance to Sustain Enterprise Architecture Efforts. (White Paper) Retrieved from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/issue-archive/2013/13-jan/1697085
This article is focused on the importance of governance in the context of new technology adoption and innovation in organizations. It discusses five major advances in technology:
1. Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
2. Mobile Computing and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
3. Cloud Computing
4. Big Data
5. Consumerization of IT (CoIT)
The article highlights the governance areas that each of these technologies must focus on. Moving further, it suggests the characteristics that an effective governance methodology should have in order to meet new and dynamic IT/Business models.
Regarding SOA adoption, the articles stresses on having a separate SOA governance to get the expected ROI from SOA. The governance must include defining where in the SDLC would service development and reuse come into picture, effective internal communication channels, approval processes etc. Without a good SOA governance, it is hard to receive the full benefit of SOA implementation.
For Mobile Computing and BYOD, the main idea of governance would be around data ownership. With the use of smartphones and other personal devices to work on organizational data, ownership of data is a big issue to be concerned about. It is also important to think about data security and data access in this case.
With more and more organization making the move to the cloud, governance plays a big role here. Governance needs to be addressed based on six major factors - Standardization, Data ownership, Data Location, Availability, Service Request Handling and Procurement Authority.
With the big data explosion and big data technology adoption, the need here is to have a solid architectural plan along with a master data management plan. It is an extension of data governance. Data stewardship and data ownership are important factors to be considered.
The consumerization of IT also has governance needs similar to BYOD in terms of device management and maintaining security.
With the overview of the need for efficient governance, the article highlights the various characteristics of governance - the importance of EA governance, organization-specific governance, Just enough, Just in time, Socialization and Communication and Process Integration. The article provided a good overview of the importance of governance in an organization adopting EA. The organization must maintain a good balance of governance required and agility needed to keep up with the competition.
References:
Oracle Consulting.(2012). Leveraging Governance to Sustain Enterprise Architecture Efforts. (White Paper) Retrieved from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/issue-archive/2013/13-jan/1697085
Swathika
ReplyDeleteGovernance, from how I picked it up from the start many years ago, has always revolved around the concept of "steering", and I have associated it with steering committees. Today, as we go through how governance has evolved, we see that the targets of governance can change depending on the challenges of the times in the context of larger ecosystem (e.g. the SOX wave of the last decade), as well as in the introspective challenges specific to an organization (e.g. SOA and Cloud in your narratives). Today, however, with all the hype and punditry on the concept, the term “good governance” can easily be abused by using so many indicators that in certain places, it can perhaps become nearly impossible to achieve good governance, losing sight of its essential objectives, and as you point out, can devolve into a counter-productive overhead.
For our goals of establishing governance mechanisms for the EA practice, I think we need to get back to basics to ground ourselves to what really matters, for governance to implement effective EA, in order to bring clear value to the organization, and not contribute to such unnecessary overhead.
Thank you for sharing your insights. I appreciate your helpful selections to illustrate how we can leverage governance.
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