How architecture helps agile projects hit business targets Posted on : Sep 03 - 2020

Business and enterprise architecture can be very complementary to the success of agile programs and projects, increasing the odds of reaching your targeted business outcomes.

Too many projects initiated by traditional businesses fail to deliver meaningful business outcomes in a reasonable time frame. A 2018 Gartner survey found that “90% of corporate leaders view digital as a top priority,” yet “83% of leaders struggle to make significant progress on digital transformation.”

Rapid and continuous innovative changes and more informed customers are pressing firms to have more fluid business strategies. Time to execution is now shorter and requires that businesses become more agile and learn to rely less on the siloed organizational structure to implement their strategy. Capital needs to be reallocated toward customer-driven initiatives and projects.

Boston Consulting Group points to three common root causes for the failure of large business transformation initiatives:

Lack of transparency. Leaders of business transformation initiatives or programs don't have a broad view of the firm’s strategies and are unable to prioritize among all their programs those that really matter. They end up having too many projects for the resources allocated to them.

Too-long delivery cycles. Traditional transformation management methods drive programs into long delivery cycles. Inflexible, multi-year detailed milestones determined in the early stage of programs are not adequate for agile companies. Targeted business outcomes of digital transformation initiatives will shift repeatedly during the delivery of an agile customer-driven enterprise.

Mis(ing) management. Top management must resist the urge to delegate their key responsibilities to project managers, who should be responsible for planning, alignment, and problem resolution but usually lack a deep understanding of the evolving strategies of the organization.

Involving EA in agile projects

Managing large-scale initiatives or projects with agility requires two essential components. First, a structured and rigorous approach is needed to take digital transformation initiatives from the idea stage to benefit realization. Program execution should never start before strategies have been clearly divulged by management. Second, frequent recalibration of the plan is required to adapt to contextual changes that may occur during delivery.

To deliver these two components, enterprise architects (EAs) need to be involved in all stages of a project, from strategic planning and finance to delivery check-ups and measuring success. View More