Figure 1 depicts the major workflows that your disciplined agile enterprise architecture activities are associated. Note that feedback is implied in the diagram. For example, where you see the Roadmaps & Models flow from Enterprise Architecture to Asset Management there is an implied feedback loop from the asset engineers to the enterprise architects. Also note that the workflows do not necessarily imply that artifacts exist. For example, some of the models provided by enterprise architects may be communicated via discussions rather than diagrams or documents.
Figure 1. Enterprise Architecture Disciplined Agile Workflow
The following table summarizes the workflows depicted in the diagram.
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Process Blade |
Workflow with EA |
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Enterprise architecture will provide the roadmaps and models to the asset management efforts so that they can better identify potentially valuable assets. The asset management team may have assets that the enterprise architects can use in their work. |
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The continuous improvement activities will provide potential improvement suggestions for improving enterprise architecture efforts. Similarly, the EA team may have insights to share with the rest of the organization. |
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Enterprise architecture will provide guidance to the data management activities. Operational intelligence pertaining to production data sources and data activities will be made available to the EA team to support their long-term planning efforts. |
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Enterprise architecture provides the roadmaps and models to all process blades within the Disciplined DevOps layer. This information is used to guide the architecture-oriented decisions made by the teams performing these activities. |
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The Governance efforts will provide guidance to the EA team. |
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Enterprise architecture provides the roadmaps and models to portfolio management. The roadmap is used as input into identifying potential business value and into prioritization decisions. |
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Enterprise architecture will provide the roadmaps and models to product management which is an input into evolving the vision for a product and identifying new potential features for products. Product management provides the business roadmap and stakeholder priorities to enterprise architecture which is used as input into evolve the enterprise architecture. |
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Enterprise architecture will provide guidance to large solution delivery teams (programs) in the form of coaching and mentoring the teams in architectural issues, providing the technology roadmap, and providing development guidelines (such as coding conventions, security conventions, database guidelines, and so on). |
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Teams |
Enterprise architects will provide architecture coaching and guidance to teams throughout your organization. The aim is to improve architectural decisions within the teams and to spread architecture knowledge and skills throughout your organization. |
The activities associated with these process blades are often very highly related. For example, in some organizations the activities associated with enterprise architecture and asset management are fulfilled by a single group. In other organizations some product management activities are performed by the portfolio management team and some by the enterprise architecture team. Some organizations may choose to have a separate group for each process blade. Note that the organizational structure will evolve over time as your various teams learn how to work with one another. Every organization is different.