The eminent completion of an enterprise architecture (EA) program is imperative for any firm.

It
enables lining-up of strategic and operational goals and IS or IT portfolio. Nonetheless, numerous
organizations lack the capacity to execute the systems and platforms outlined in their EA plans, with
adverse monetary and reputational upshots to survey the new platforms and frameworks. In spite of
almost 30 years of research and practice, EA implementation is still a problem for numerous
businesses and firms (Hope, Chew, & Sharma, 2017). Forrester and Gartner – research organizations
– have discovered that EA programs were frequently not acknowledged by business stakeholders
and users and failed to achieve business goals (DeGennaro, 2010). More lately, it appears the
circumstance has not improved, with numerous firms either not able to execute their EA plans or
only have the capacity to partly implement them (Hope et al., 2017). Even though architects are
frequently hold responsible for EAI, they rely on business executives to finance the technology
products and technology head to offer employees and resources to bolster their implementation. In
addition, existing studies into EAI looks at the technical and social circumstances linked with the
success and failures of EAI and to a lesser degree, on the impact of interpersonal interactions among
architects and their stakeholders via which the EAI is executed. The paper will evaluate EAI from the
viewpoint of Bank 1 architects and their stakeholders with the purpose on analysing how architects
can establish commitment to and help for implementation of the chosen technology items and
programmes. Specifically, the paper will use communities of practice (CoP) theory to evaluate the
EAI case of Bank 1 with the focus on practices that hindered the architects from establishing
communities with indispensable devotion and support for their efforts. From the case study, one
discovers that while the involved architects had the responsibility of liaising with business and
technology stakeholders, their behaviours did not permit them to successfully establish the essential
relationships and their EAI program failed accordingly. The paper will also compare and contrast CoP
theory with Boundary Spanning and Boundary Object theories and illustrate how the two theories
can inform BA practice.

Describe CoP Theory

The phrase Communities of Practice was first coined by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger when
researching on the apprenticeship as a learning model (Li et al. 2009). Communities of practice are a
group of individuals sharing a mutual concern, an interest in a subject or number of problems and
come together to achieve both personal and group objectives. The theory frequently aims at doling
out best practices and establishing new knowledge to progress a domain of professional practice (Li
et al. 2009). Interaction on a continuous premise is a significant piece of this. Numerous
communities of practice depend on eye-to-eye meetings and online collaborative conditions to
communicate, associate and carry out community activities. CoP is applicable in IS in that it aids in
investigating ways in which architects relate with different stakeholders (Dale & Scheepers 2019). As
indicated by Wenger, members of negotiation of implications in practice results to the establishment
of three social processes of CoPs: mutual engagement (ME), joint enterprise (JE) and shared
repertoire (SR) (Pyrko, Dörfler & Eden 2016). ME defines how and what individuals do together as
part of practice. JE involves a set of problems and topics that they care about. SR include the ideas
and artifacts that they develop. These three social processes are relevant to the Bank 1 case study
for the architects failed to practice sharing repertoires, mutual engagement and negotiation of the
joint enterprise. This resulted to failure of the EA implementation. Therefore, the paper will use the
CoP theory to provide important insights as to the reasons for EAI failures and the theory can help
the architects to comprehend how their practices can prevent or enable successful connections with
their stakeholders.
Application of the Social Process of CoP to the Case Study.

Joint Enterprise (JE)

Joint enterprise implicates that, mutual interests, shared objectives and accountabilities hold
together the CoP (Dale & Scheepers 2019). This social process is revealed from negotiations between
community members and mutual responsibility. Comments that were given by different
stakeholders under this area provide an overview of the architect’s attitude towards other
stakeholder’s participation in EAI. Also, this comprise of comments of stakeholders concerning the
practices of architects and degree to which they allow stakeholders to support and negotiate for
their interest in the EAI. The strength of the remarks from business and innovation partners in Bank1
about their dealings with the planners could be deciphered as an indication of a relationship that
required cautious consideration. Architects in Bank 1 did not demonstrate any effort to establish any
sense of joint enterprise with their business and technology stakeholders and appeared to assume
that it was not significant to do so. As stated by one of the architects, “Our role is first and all, to
define the technology components and the implementation plans. That’s all we do…Irrespective of
what the business wants we build technology capabilities” (B1-A1).

Mutual Engagement (ME)

Mutual engagement implies members of the CoP work jointly to discuss, negotiate and share
information from their interaction and share goals (Dale & Scheepers 2019). Mutual engagement
emerges when people have the capacity to negotiate and come to an agreement on what is
important. Comments from stakeholders in this case comprise emphasizing architect’s sense of
accountability towards their stakeholders and the degree to which practices of architects allow
stakeholders to cooperatively take part in sharing of information, negotiation, and discussion. In the
case study, the architects appeared to put first architecture above commercial and commercial
concerns of the organization. Also, the architects demonstrated a more grounded feeling of
responsibility to one another than they did to their partners. In choosing the frameworks and stages,
the planners created point by point equipment and programming assessment apparatuses and
techniques that consolidated engineering goals such as versatility, improvement, and decreased
carbon impression, hazard and market investigation, and execution references. They worked
cooperatively among themselves and exhibited significant degrees of common responsibility to one
another yet appeared to be uninterested that the devices used to assess the fittingness of innovation
items were not created as a team with business and innovation partners. Our field note records the
accompanying.

Shared Repertoire

A common collection of assets and practices summons the common "toolkit" of assets through
which individuals from a CoP sort out the world and accommodate contrasts in viewpoints and
qualities among themselves and different individuals from the CoP and which, thus, become related
to the local area. Remarks remembered for this class underline the means that engineers took to
connect the distinctions in context, experience, and mastery among themselves and their partners
(Dale & Scheepers 2019). Modelers remark on the significance of their impacting job and how they
deliberately adjusted their language and apparatuses when managing business staff. They
accentuated the significance of talking similar language as the business and outlining the
determination of programming and equipment parts in wording that are significant to business staff.
It is likewise evident that when modelers are capable at adjusting their language and devices to
oblige the foundations and perspectives of their partners, they can assemble successful and
synergistic associations with those partners. For instance, in Bank 1, there was lack of enough
business data in the EA plans. Technology partners needed the architects to elucidate the
relationship the chosen technology items and business procedures and services. Specifically, they
needed the architects to how certain diagrams would elucidate the business developments linked
with the EAI.

“They have to make a connection between the platforms they have designed and
how the functionality to those platforms will be consumed by the businesses. What
are the new business processes, where are the new data flows, what new
information will be generated and who will access that information? (B1-T1).

Using CoP Illustrate How the Architects could Build Commitment and Support for the EAI.

Some of the elements that define CoP are skills, agreements, tools, interactions, skills, negotiations
and knowledge are accountable for the rise of a shared perspective, approaches, tools, goals within
a social structure. Therefore, Bank 1 architects should embrace these concepts in their practices.
Practices are linked with particular social framework, are organized around a shared practical
comprehension, shared routines and act to hold mutual engagement. CoP make clears the
procedures that result to social cohesion. Thus, the architects could have involved the technology
and business stakeholder more in the EA plans, they could have arranged discussion, negotiation,
and try to share their goals with other stakeholders.

Boundary Spanning and Boundary Object Theories

Boundary spanning is a concept that alludes to intersection or connecting a boundary and is

grounded in open framework hypothesis in which the limit is at the same time a boundary and
porous. Boundary spanners are individuals who are included in a social setup and who use
antiquities - boundary objects to associate with different networks. Boundary spanners are basic in
the creation and improvement of inter-organizational associations and in making linkages between
the association and the outside climate (Dale 2015). Boundary spanners take on, to some degree,
the personality and interests of people locally while addressing their connections through the jointly
created boundary objects and that through a more extensive reception of these objects, others may
join the new boundary spanning practice. Therefore, the paper will compare the CoP and BSBO
theories and show how CoP and BSBO theories can inform BA practices.

Critique on CoP and BSBO Theories

While boundary spanners are the human means through which networks interface, boundary
objects are cycles or material items that intervene relations and information between people
associated with limit spreading over exercises. Boundary objects are assets in shared significance
creation also, fill in as images of the recently procured personality, accordingly recognizing a
gathering of limit spanner (Dale 2015). One of BSBO assumpation demonstrates that individual
engaged with BS are roused to achieve an association between two CoPs. Somewhat later research
anyway demonstrates that BOUNDARY spanners engaged with three sided courses of action might
be inspired differently. According to business analysts while they are relied upon to connect the
boundary between the clients and innovation, they are additionally expected to 'shield' clients and IT
staff from one another. The study found that BAs assume the part of the 'drawbridge' for the clients
and 'canal' for the IT staff. This would propose that the intricacy of the boundary spanning job
increments as the quantity of CoPs included in the BS plans increments (Dale 2015).

Implications of BSBO Theories for CoP Theory

CoP can embrace how boundary spanners carry out their roles. According to boundary spanners
tasks are augmentation of their primary assigned roles and successful boundary spanning consist of
reframing these undertakes in regard to the perception of the other community. To attain this
boundary spanners, have to be liable to learn about practices of the other CoP, they have to reflect
on the sustainability and effectiveness of the re-interpreted tasks and objects to foster the
appropriate knowledge transfer. Learning about the other CoP is significant since it shows they have
developed knowledge through interactions something CoP can adopt.

Conclusions

I have learnt for EAI outcomes to be successful, the senior managers responsible for hiring architects
have to assess if the individual hired to architecture role are technically competent and have good
interpersonal skills. Recruiting of people to architect roles is mostly driven by the speculation that as
architects, their knowledge in technology would allow them to be successful implementing EA plans.
However, the case study has shown this might be the case in most cases. The case study show that
stakeholders are interested in architects’ skills to establish mutual engagement, joint enterprise and
shared repertoire in ongoing relationships. Low degree of interpersonal skills might contribute to
lack of understanding the concerns, meaning, objectives and assumptions that stakeholders
attribute to an EAI and their expectations of the architect’s role.

References

Dale, M 2015, ‘Re-Conceptualizing the Practice of Enterprise Architecture Implementation’,

PhD Thesis, Swinburne University of Technology.

Dale, M & Scheepers, H 2019, ‘Enterprise architecture implementation as interpersonal

connection: Building support and commitment’, Information Systems Journal, vol. 30, no. 1,
pp. 150–184.

Hope, T, Chew, E & Sharma, R 2017, ‘The Failure of Success Factors’, Proceedings of the
2017 ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computers and People Research.

Li, LC, Grimshaw, JM, Nielsen, C, Judd, M, Coyte, PC & Graham, ID 2009, ‘Evolution of
Wenger’s concept of community of practice’, Implementation Science, vol. 4, no. 1.

Pyrko, I, Dörfler, V & Eden, C 2016, ‘Thinking together: What makes Communities of
Practice work?’, Human Relations, vol. 70, no. 4, pp. 389–409.