Back in the day, a week off would have meant packing up shop, jumping on a plane and at this time of year keeping the fingers crossed for an end of season ski trip.

However this year the first day of my holiday has been hijacked by Ezra Richardson to talk about “all things EA”

It’s my own fault I guess. I launched the “What Ever Next” WordPress site as a way of getting the thoughts that I would have discussed over a coffee at work down on paper. If it’s down on paper I thought, I might as well share it and see if anyone else thinks the same.

It’s led to some really interesting new connections on linkedin and most importantly a stream of perspectives and viewpoints from those that have clicked on the links and read my ramblings.

And it caught Ezra Richardson eye. Ezra is host and founder of Technology and Architecture. He had read one of my posts “joining the dots” and it prompted him to get in touch and see if I’d be interested in taking part in his podcast.

So today on my first day of my holiday I took part in my first video’d podcast

(yes I know exceptionally bad timing with long over due hair appointments but hey who cares about the grey hair!)

How did it compare to time spent on the ski slopes well it was pretty similiar really.

Adrenalin was running pretty high. There were parts of the interview where we were pushed off course by Amazon deliveries and a visit from Ezra’s cat. But at the end of the session we’d covered all the ground we needed to cover in surprisingly quick time.

We covered off ..

  • What is the breadth of an EAs role and how vast should the operating model be?
  • Where does the operating model start? with the customer (internal/external) etc?
  • How can an EA centre in on the voice of the customer and translate their needs into effective business solutions?
  • Given that the world has changed over the last 12 months, how has this disrupted the operating model and where can Architect’s help businesses to “pivot” or adopt new approaches

It was clear from the discussion that the role of the Enterprise Architect has to be one of a broad church.

The Enterprise Architect needs to work with all parts of the organisation from the CFO, COO and the MDs of the business s divisions to be really clear on exactly what problems the operating model needs to address.

That the term Enterprise Design is growing in popularity as businesses start to design business models, operating models and customer/employee experiences that will drive a business forward.

The skills of the traditional architect are critical in the design of the operating model but the focus has to be to step back, step up and be far more curious about the business problems that need solving before getting too carried away with the technical aspects of the solution.

The world of tech is enabling operating models to digitise so much more of what we do than what came before it. Everything from contactless payments, online banking apps, travel sites, Amazon delivery is all being able to be transacted online and all businesses are looking for that frictionless experience.

It’s an exciting time to be in the enterprise architecture profession. We have to move on from discussion of the value of the discipline and use our energy to look to deploy tech for true business benefit which for me is about delivering exceptional, insightful employee and customer experiences.

Ezra now has the task to pull the discussion into an informative podcast. I did enjoy the discussion. Maybe next year we can have a follow up on the ski slopes Ezra!