I feel incredibly privileged to have the opportunity to write this regular column for the Enterprise Architecture Professional Journal.
This platform represents a chance to share knowledge, spark discussions, and stay ahead of the ever-evolving challenges and opportunities in our profession. Having worked at the intersection of IT and business change throughout my career, I am continually inspired by the transformative potential of what we do as Enterprise Architects.
My aim with this column is to encourage reflection, provide fresh insights, and help us all push the boundaries of what’s possible.
Reflecting on my journey and the profession as a whole, I often ask myself whether our efforts are driving the best outcomes for our customers, teams, and businesses. Three themes consistently emerge in my reflections, and I want to explore these with you.
1. Reshaping Opportunities for Impact
The business world is brimming with opportunities to reshape itself and deliver better outcomes. But are we:
- Assessing the right opportunities?
- Allowing biases to cloud our understanding of the true potential impacts?
- And crucially, do we fully understand the interconnected changes required to achieve meaningful outcomes?
In my early career, I received a piece of advice that has always stayed with me:
“If you want to understand the impact that is going to be made, take a look back at what preparation went into deciding the approach and the outcomes and you’ll get a pretty good idea of what impact will be made”
Just as no one completes a marathon without rigorous preparation, no enterprise can achieve transformative change without deeply understanding where it needs to go and what it will take to get there. This can mean:
- reframing assumptions,
- seeing challenges from multiple angles,
- and resisting the temptation to rush to solutions before fully defining the problem.
2. Going Beyond Incremental Change
Every day, businesses set new goals based on past performance, often leading to improvement efforts that only scratch the surface. While incremental change has its place, the accelerating pace of technological and market evolution demands bolder action. We must embrace emerging trends and technologies, pushing ourselves and our organizations out of our comfort zones to achieve audacious results.
Staying within the familiar confines of the status quo leads to missed opportunities. Bold change initiatives require us to stretch boundaries and question traditional approaches, ensuring that the effort we expend delivers exponential, not just incremental, value.
3. Embracing Collaborative Change Ecosystems
Today’s business environment is defined by interconnected ecosystems of suppliers, partners, contractors, and internal teams. To drive impactful change, we must move beyond the mindset of focusing solely on internal teams (and often as Enterprise Architects – technical teams). Instead, we need to co-create solutions in collaborative processes, leveraging shared tools and methodologies to eliminate friction and misunderstandings.
Too often, disparate teams adopt different processes and tools, leading to inefficiencies and what I call “change leakage.” Enterprise architects have a unique role to play in bridging these gaps:
- facilitating alignment,
- fostering collaboration,
- and ensuring that all stakeholders work seamlessly together toward shared goals.
Let’s Make Good Things Happen
As we navigate the challenges and opportunities ahead, I hope the posts in this column help us all to:
1. Be Open to New Ideas: Challenging our biases and expand our view of what’s possible.
2. Stretch Beyond Comfort Zones: Push boundaries and aim for transformative outcomes rather than settling for incremental gains.
3. Foster True Collaboration: Work across organizational boundaries with shared tools, approaches, and goals to achieve meaningful results for customers, teams, and businesses.
What’s the famous phrase? “No one said it would be easy”.
Every day must be a school day—a chance to learn, adapt, and grow. And by sharing knowledge and insights, we can not only meet the demands of today’s dynamic environment but also lead the way toward a future of bold and impactful Enterprise Architecture. Looking forward to the conversations these reflections trigger.
