Enterprise Architecture is focused on strategy

I thought that the Forrester blog on the Archetypes of EA is an interesting read. You can see this at:

http://blogs.forrester.com/ea/2009/12/the-archetypes-of-ea.html

In particular the chart of Strategy/ Project versus Business / Technology is a useful one for understanding the difference between Enterprise Architects and Solution Architects.

Archetypes of EA

The quadrants on the right hand side of the chart relate to the more strategic focus of an Enterprise Architect and those on the left hand side focus on the project/delivery focus of Solution Architects.

The top right quadrant is where the enterprise architect is performing the Business Architecture part of the EA role. This would involve governance work as well.

The bottom right is where the enterprise architect is supporting the IT Strategy, defining the current state and the future target state of the enterprise architecture and EA roadmaps between them.

The top left quadrant is the focus of each of the  Solution Architects and the bottom left quadrant is the focus of the Infrastructure Architect.

It is interesting to also compare the quadrants above with the activities identified in this chart below (also from the Forrester Blog).

Forresters state of EA survey 2009

21% of the time would be spent in the top left quadrant on application delivery projects.

15% of the time on the bottom left quadrant spent on infrastructure.

16% of the time on the bottom right quadrant on developing strategic plans.

By my estimate an Enterprise Architect therefore spends almost half their time (40% – 49%) in the top right quadrant working on Business Strategy alignment.