Think About How You Manage the Function

My team and I have interviewed hundreds of enterprise architecture leaders, and we see a disturbing pattern. These executives were brought in to build an enterprise architecture function, but because of the paradoxes we’ve just discussed, the company never really sees the business value of enterprise architecture and pulls the plug on the architecture function. Similar to what often happens with the CIO role, the executive committee is left with a sour taste in its mouth, and enterprise architecture gets a bad name. When a new CIO decides to hire an enterprise architect, the vicious cycle begins again.