Leadership

Vision
for 2020
The Secret Formula to Enterprise
Architecture and Technology
Innovation Success

Gartner Enterprise Architecture

& Technology Innovation Summit
10 – 11 June 2020 | London, UK
gartner.com/eu/ea
Introduction
Innovation is set to be one of the most important new capabilities
for enterprise architecture (EA). As key enablers for digital business,
EA leaders are responsible for using innovation to help drive
organization growth as well as balance the risks and benefits of
these new approaches.
As critical advisors to leadership teams, EA leaders must also
understand and track innovative technologies, anchor them in the
business model to assess their potential, and use rapid prototyping
approaches to evolve innovations.
The 10 recommendations in this e-book will help you be successful
in the digital age. This is also a useful guide that provides input for
strategy planning to help you prepare presentations for leadership,
peers and teams as you work to achieve your goals.
In this e-book, you’ll find:
• 10 actionable insights for EA leaders and their teams
Recommended Actions
1. Rethink EA as an internal management consultancy
2. Ensure the EA team can orchestrate services across
the organization
3. Engage in business architecture designs and planning
4. Shift from technology to strategy
5. Operate differently when it comes to agile
6. 8 steps to start or restart a business-outcome-driven
EA program
7. Drive it all back to the business model
8. Take an ecosystem perspective
9. Ensure that business architecture is not optional
10. Bridge the gap between opportunities and threats,
and execution challenges

• Best practices for delivering business value and outcomes

• Major trends impacting EA, and the challenges they need
to overcome in the short, mid- and long term

Leadership Vision for 2020: The Secret Formula to Enterprise Architecture and Technology Innovation Success 2
1. Rethink EA as an internal
management consultancy
To rapidly deliver business outcomes, organizations need to Reframing EA as a form of internal management consulting has
experiment continuously to find what works for them. Business- four benefits:
outcome-driven EA is a practical approach to supporting EA that
focuses on delivering business and IT leaders with signature-ready 1. Agile delivery tuned to the business outcome
recommendations for adjusting policies and projects. 2. A flexible, iterative approach to innovation

By reshaping EA as a form of internal management consulting, 3. A focused approach that solves key business problems
enterprise architects can enable innovation and demonstrate the 4. A rebranded EA practice
business value of EA.

Enterprise architecture
Percentage of companies we predict will be doing these things

80%

Business and IT leaders Business architects work

use EA to collaborate on directly for business leaders,
digital business positioning EA as an internal
management consultancy
50%

Enterprise architects have AI tools support the

business experience, no enterprise architect to
formal technology training perform their job better
40%

Ideate business innovations

from emerging technologies

2021 2022 2023+

Leadership Vision for 2020: The Secret Formula to Enterprise Architecture and Technology Innovation Success 3
2. Ensure the EA team can orchestrate
services across the organization
As EA teams shift to become internal consultancies, they should
consider the types of services provided to other teams throughout
the organization. This includes a number of processes that EA
leaders should think about in terms of where, when and how they
provide support to help all teams make smarter decisions.
Adapting the supplier, input, process, output, consumer (SIPOC)
approach is a good way to determine what the EA team provides
(e.g., as the supplier) via a deliverable (e.g., the input) to the
process (e.g., supporting digital innovation) to consumer(s),
for whom an output is provided that captures the result of their
decision. To make the process stronger, each service should
have a value that can be measured.

Roles EA teams deliver services to in the organization

Supporting Digital Innovation

• Digital Teams
• Designers …

Delivering Business
Outcomes Business Models
• Business Executives
• Managers • Senior Executives
• Business Analysts … • Business Strategy Teams …

EA Team

Supporting Projects
and Products
• Domain Experts • PMO
• Vendors … • Project Managers
• Developers …

Leadership Vision for 2020: The Secret Formula to Enterprise Architecture and Technology Innovation Success 4
3. Engage in business architecture
designs and planning
Gartner Hype Cycles and priority matrices offer a snapshot of Leading organizations are transforming their business models
the relative market promotion and perceived value of computing to create new sources of revenue, services and experiences for
innovations. They highlight overhyped areas, estimate when customers. Enterprise architects must emphasize the business
technologies and trends will reach maturity, and provide actionable ecosystem — the web of customers, partners, suppliers and even
advice to help organizations decide when to invest and adopt. things that surround the organization in order to successfully
Gartner Hype Cycle for Enterprise Architecture, 2018 tackle their challenges.

Hype Cycle for Enterprise Architecture, 2019

Plateau will be reached:

Digital Business Technology Platform
Digital Ethics less than 2 years
Digital Twin
Business Agile
2 to 5 years
Agile Architecture
Business Ecosystems Business Capability Modeling 5 to 10 years
Security Architecture Machine Learning
Customer Journey Analytics more than 10 years
A Digital Business
Human-Centered Design Design Thinking obsolete before plateau

Digital Business Transformation As of July 2019

Expectations

Innovation Management Information Architecture

Business Architecture
EA Governance
Continuous Planning
Solutions Architecture Enterprise Architecture Tools
Business Ecosystem Modeling
Enterprise Architecture
DigitalOps
EA Frameworks
Digital Optimization
Architecture Roadmaps

ContinuousNext Trendspotting

Peak of
Innovation Trough of Slope of Plateau of
Trigger Expectations Disillusionment Enlightenment Productivity

Time
Plateau will be reached:

less than 2 years 2 to 5 years 5 to 10 years more than 10 years obsolete before plateau As of July 2019

Leadership Vision for 2020: The Secret Formula to Enterprise Architecture and Technology Innovation Success 5
gartner.com/SmarterWithGartner
Source: Gartner
© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner and Hype Cycle are registered trademarks of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates in the U.S.
4. Shift from technology to strategy
EA has always been related to strategy, but over the years It’s important to now shift from the right side to the left side of
there’s been a loss of focus, and leaders now lean more toward the graphic below while adding in the concept of “digital.”
architecture assurance and solution delivery support.

EA as internal management consulting

Digital Business Coordination and Architecture Governance Architecture Solution Delivery

Strategy Orchestration and Planning Assurance Support

• Business architecture • Product-line orientation • Current- and future- • Standards setting • Domain-focused
state architecture architecture

• Exploring digital • Cross-portfolio planning • Long-term planning • Standards adherence • Solution design (design
opportunities (>18 months) thinking)

• Monitoring digital • Coaching distributed • Roadmaps • Project program • Reference architecture

trends architects product review

• Investment planning • Instilling architectural • Architecture guardrails • Project delivery support

and prioritization thinking (e.g., “north stars”)

• Business and • Knowledge sharing and

operating model collaboration
consulting

• Organizational change
management

• Enabling innovation

• Foster customer
centricity

Leadership Vision for 2020: The Secret Formula to Enterprise Architecture and Technology Innovation Success 6
5. Operate differently when it comes to agile
As an advisor or internal consultant, the enterprise architect This shift by the organization to focus on “conductor”
enables, initiates and facilitates valuable discussion and interaction and “tactician” behaviors is done through the flexible
in an effort to arrive at a consensus decision. EA practice.

The flexible EA practice

Analyst Innovator Connector Conductor Tactician

Structured analysis; Experimental; Ecosystem; Agile; developing Reinvention;

Strategy defining competitive identifying and connecting and capabilities to responding quickly
Approach advantage building innovation influencing change quickly and redefining

Supporting analysis; Bringing ideas Exposing the Agile; developing Identifying sensible
defining detailed for innovations; ecosystem; making capabilities to options; shaping a
EA Focus plans and roadmaps; supporting the connections change quickly roadmap to growth
execution process and helping
scale the winners

Structured and Innovative and Outward-facing; Facilitating change; Rapid response,

analytical, with iterative; guiding relationship-oriented; flexible; consulting- analysis and
EA Approach formal governance the evolution of iterative and oriented opportunities
innovations consulting

Leadership Vision for 2020: The Secret Formula to Enterprise Architecture and Technology Innovation Success 7
6. 8 steps to start or restart a business-
outcome-driven EA program
To start or restart an EA program, EA and technology innovation Follow these eight critical steps to achieve EA
leaders must follow an organized approach. program success.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Adopt Construct Start With Determine Determine Determine Determine Construct
Business- Value Business Organizational Skill Sets Governance Business A Charter
Outcome- Proposition Architecture Design and Staffing and Assurance Value Metrics
Driven EA

Leadership Vision for 2020: The Secret Formula to Enterprise Architecture and Technology Innovation Success 8
7. Drive it all back to the business model
Successful EA practitioners identify and understand the
business’s economic and financial levers that are susceptible to
digital transformation in order to effectively guide business and
technology investment decisions.
Many EA practitioners are overwhelmed by economic architecture
and are unsure exactly how they’ll use it practically to deliver
higher business value. Visualize how your business model would
work through the business architecture landscape graphic.

Economic architecture enables business and IT leaders to

better express the financial underpinnings and potential
benefits of their digitalization initiatives, and the impact of
their investment decisions.

The business architecture landscape

Strategy The strategy of the organization

and Goals

The economics underlying Economic Ecosystem The business ecosystem within

the organization Model Model which the organization sits

Business How the organization creates

Model value and revenue

Financial Service The services the organization

organization Model Model provides to its customers

Operating
Model How the business model is
executed in the real world

Leadership Vision for 2020: The Secret Formula to Enterprise Architecture and Technology Innovation Success 9
8. Take an ecosystem perspective
EA teams that deliver the highest business value and outcomes are
those who focus on understanding the major disruptive trends that
affect their business and their business ecosystem.
EA teams should expand their scope beyond known customers
and partners, and use business ecosystem modeling with other
teams in the organization as they work to identify and develop
innovative ideas.

Entity Color Code Categories Society

Important People

Cross-Industry Company D
Legal Entities
Customers
Critical Functions

Industry Regulators Company C

+ External

– External
Customer Enterprise Competitors
Support

Your
Value Exchange Legend Business
Payroll Employees Company A

Financial

Suppliers

Market Share
Company B Partners
Outsourcers
Legal

Reputation

Leadership Vision for 2020: The Secret Formula to Enterprise Architecture and Technology Innovation Success 10
9. Ensure that business architecture is not optional
Organizations that support business architecture as an integral part Business architecture is critical, because it:
of EA have a significantly higher ability to execute on their business • Clarifies business strategic intentions
strategy. Because of their clear understanding of the strategy and
its impact on business and IT, they’re better positioned to provide • Identifies the implications and impacts of strategy
guidance and drive delivery. • Identifies targeted business outcomes
• Develops focused signature-ready deliverables that
drive business change

Business architecture tools and techniques

Strategy on
Human-centric Scenario
a page
design planning
Journey maps Business
model canvas

Clarifying
Customer and strategic Business outcome
Business Architecture intentions statement
Activities

Addressing Identifying
stakeholder Business Strategies business
questions and Outcomes outcomes

Ecosystem Exploring Balanced

modeling implications, impacts scorecard
and risks

Economic
Roadmaps modeling
Business Risk and
capability modeling Ecosystem interdependencies
model

Leadership Vision for 2020: The Secret Formula to Enterprise Architecture and Technology Innovation Success 11
10. Bridge the gap between opportunities
and threats, and execution challenges
Effective EA teams focus on actionable deliverables that address They also provide guidelines for putting technology and information
CIOs’ and business leaders’ key needs for strategic options and to the best use, and guardrails that clarify where the enterprise has
visibility into execution issues. flexibility and where it needs to comply with tighter principles.

Key EA deliverables that help CIOs and business leaders bridge the gap

Strategic Options Visibility to Issues Enterprise Guardrails

• Future-state models of • Assessments of • Strategic architecture

Business
business, information and current-state business, principles
Opportunities
technology architecture information and technology
architecture • Technology
• Potential business model recommendations and
innovations • Analysis of redundancies, patterns
duplication in business
Business • Technology evaluations • Security and information
capabilities, information,
Threats privacy guardrails
technologies and services
• Business ecosystem
analysis • Analysis of barriers to • Tools and methods for
execution analysis and decision
• Signature-ready making outside of EA
Execution recommendations on
Challenges business capability, • Flexibility within the
information and technology guardrails to support agility
decisions

Leadership Vision for 2020: The Secret Formula to Enterprise Architecture and Technology Innovation Success 12
Join us
Whatever your aim for this year and beyond, join us at Gartner
Enterprise Architecture & Technology Innovation Summit 2020,
10 – 11 June 2020 in London, UK, and discover how to take your
organization’s technology and innovation to the next level.

Gartner Enterprise Architecture

& Technology Innovation Summit

10 – 11 June 2020 | London, UK

gartner.com/eu/ea 3 ways to register
Web gartner.com/eu/ea 
Email GlobalConferences@gartner.com
View Pricing
Phone +44 (0) 20 3993 7649

© 2019 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner and Hype Cycle are registered trademarks
of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates in the U.S. EVTM_906_725531