It's an old argument for me. I mean, why toss good money after bad, if indeed you're not getting the results. Truth-be-told most enterprises are not spending that much on enterprise architecture. Indeed, for most of the Global 2000 there is a lone architect, with a couple of staffers, that has no budgetary nor referential authority, thus no results. You can't "influence" your way to success, you have to have som It’s an old argument for me. I mean, why toss good money after bad, if indeed you’re not getting the results. Truth-be-told most enterprises are not spending that much on enterprise architecture. Indeed, for most of the Global 2000 there is a lone architect, with a couple of staffers, that has no budgetary nor referential authority, thus no results. You can’t “influence” your way to success, you have to have some kind of hammer drop on somebody’s head if they don’t follow the core architectural principles…it’s called governance. Thus, there are groups of people drawing very nice paychecks that don’t add value to IT, or the business, and don’t have to deliver tangible results. Good work, if you can get it. In thinking over the weekend, if this is the case, and the value is not there, why continue to invest? Most will counter that somebody needs to think about common IT strategy and linking the business to technology, but that’s not happening, so why pay for it? This is not pushing back at the architects in general, by the way. I don’t think it’s their issue that they are not granted the authority to have a larger impact on the business. It’s an issue with our focus on short term tactical IT projects, which get us into trouble in the long run (layered complexity), versus longer term strategic thinking that will save us time and money in the long run. The former is easier to argue for, especially when times are tight. You’ll here “We’ll get to that later.” You know what, they never do. So, I say, if your enterprise architecture efforts are not effective, don’t continue to invest in them. That is, until you get serious about doing architecture, and are willing carefully measure the value to the business. This goes well beyond the value of SOA, to the core management notion of driving change for the better. I suspect this post will get forwarded around the organization, and that the same points I’m making here have been made many times before, in many organizations that are not getting the value from architectural efforts. Perhaps it’s time to send a message, and pull the plug. At least that will drive some change. Software Development