We think it is time to stop patching the current enterprise architecture and come up with a new one that is a better fit for an organization that wants to become a mature digital organization.
This article presents the requirements that we think are adequate for a new architecture.
Business objectives
Processes that need to be modified must be readily available for modification to the business, not spread out in the individual IT systems
Some processes need to be continuously adjusted. Spreading the implementation of the process to different vertical systems makes the process rigid and much harder to change.
The end user applications should guide the end user through the tasks at hand.
The current use of vertical systems requires the end user to know exactly how to get the desired result, with no or little guidance from the IT system.
End users should not need to use more than one user interface to complete their daily tasks
The end user today must often have good knowledge of a number of vertical IT systems.
The organization should be able to make changes quickly without technology being the bottleneck
This is a real pain in many organizations. The business side has a lot of ideas for business development, but are held back because IT needs months or years to implement the ideas.
The business should be able to express their needs without knowledge of the IT systems
We often hear that "the business must understand the IT systems to better specify their requirements". We state that this is the wrong way around.
Technology objectives
You should be able to modify or exchange an IT system without consequences for other IT systems and web applications
An IT system with many integrations are a nightmare to modify or exchange with the current architecture.
All integrations should be stable over time
Integrations today are treated as a necessary evil and are created ad-hoc at minimal cost, causing them to need all kinds of adjustments as systems and processes changes. It is very seldom that an existing integration can be reused for another similar integration demand.