Articles

Governance is broadly defined as the processes and systems by which an enterprise operates. How are decisions made? What are the roles and responsibilities? How does an enterprise create the logical relationship between process and IT, the architecture of the enterprise?

ARCHITECTURE GOVERNANCE

Richard (Dick) Burk recently announced his retirement from the federal government after three years as chief architect at the Office of Management and Budget and thirty-five years of dedicated service to the federal government. The development and advancement of the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) that began under Bob Haycock’s leadership, accelerated under Dick’s guidance. Today, the FEA is not just used by the federal government but by six nations and three states. The FEA has become a world class standard for EA.

At Architecture and Governance Magazine, we have been preaching the convergence of business strategy, enterprise architecture, and IT transformation since our founding 10 quarters ago. In this issue, we have taken our content to the next level in support of that vision.

With many IT leaders forced to justify their group’s economic value, it’s more critical than ever to present executive managers with the right measurements for IT’s contributions. But most IT organizations fall short of this objective.

Aligning business and IT priorities through the annual budgeting process

Every successful couple eventually faces the need to take steps to balance individual priorities with joint goals and short- and long-term financial objectives. Since today’s new television comes at the expense of the down payment on tomorrow’s new home, couples must strike a balance appropriate to their lives.

Rahul Jaitly is vice president of Global Technology Strategy, Standards, and PMO at Universal Music Group. A&G asked him a few questions about visualizing IT finance information at UMG.

Architecture & Governance Magazine recently completed its annual reader survey focused on understanding how enterprise architecture concepts are helping drive business transformation initiatives across the enterprise.

Of the 289 IT and business professionals who took this year’s survey, the vast majority came from entities with 5,000 or more employees. While the numbers were broad, the answers were insightful.

Among the questions we asked . . .

With the dialogue about climate change increasing, businesses look to their CIOs to take action and glean the benefits gained from “doing good” — improved corporate reputation and financial gains.

Editor's Note: Accenture’s Dean Griffin notes that enterprise architecture has entered the mainstream. Part One of this article, which appeared in the last issue of A&G, covered the first five challenges. Part Two discusses the remaining five challenges in EA.

Lessons learned in times of stress can apply even when times are good.  Successfully managing the IT function is a challenge even in the best of circumstances. But when your company has fallen on hard times and revenue and profits are falling, how should the IT function be managed then?