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G00252402

Five Best Practices for Building EA Road Maps

That Enable Outcomes
Published: 1 August 2013

Analyst(s): Cathleen E. Blanton

Enterprise architecture road maps are effective visual tools for supporting
investment decisions that deliver business outcomes. Enterprise architects
must use five best practices to ensure that road maps are useful and usable
for various stakeholders.

Key Challenges
■ Enterprise architects struggle to create road maps that resonate with and effectively inform
executive stakeholders who need to make business-outcome-focused decisions.
■ Enterprise architecture (EA) teams are challenged to create road maps that focus on strategic
business outcomes.
■ Competing demand for detailed plans obscures and distracts EA teams from focusing on
higher-level, actionable deliverables.

Recommendations
■ Perform stakeholder analysis for all stakeholders impacted by road maps — business and IT.
■ Develop road maps that focus on decision-making needs and styles to help stakeholders
visualize future business outcomes so they can make well-informed investment decisions.
■ Socialize road maps earlier rather than later to ensure they meet stakeholder expectations for
being usable, useful and at the right level of detail.
■ Time box and sequence iterations with the stakeholders to optimize the balance between
socialization and efficiency.
■ Deliver road maps that focus on new business or IT capabilities, and demonstrate when
outcomes can be realized.

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Introduction
Road maps, when appropriately tailored for audience and purpose, can be invaluable tools for
building consensus and support for future business capabilities and outcomes. EA teams struggle
to structure and develop road maps that clearly communicate business value in business terms.
Because road maps visually represent what and how business outcomes will be delivered, they can
be instrumental in bringing stakeholders to consensus and can result in more well-informed
investment decisions. EA teams that do not develop road maps until they've made all the target
state decisions, compiled the gap analysis and sequenced a set of initiatives, have, therefore,
missed out on the opportunity to involve stakeholders in creating a common vision for realizing
business outcomes. The resulting road maps fail to support actionable decisions or effective
execution.

In the "Hype Cycle for Enterprise Architecture, 2013," Gartner defines EA road maps as "graphic
visualizations of potential or planned activities, outcomes or capabilities in support of an
enterprise's strategic intent that enable stakeholders to make and enact decisions as part of
outcome-focused EA." Gartner has noticed an increased interest in road maps from our clients as
they have begun to question how road maps support outcome-focused decision making. At the
2013 EA Summits, more than 40% of EMEA attendees and 70% of North American attendees
attended the "Practical IT and EA Road Maps: Planning and Analysis" presentation. This interest is
significantly higher than 2012 EA Summit interest, where 32% of EMEA attendees and 28% of
North American attendees attended a presentation on road maps. A poll of the attendees during the
two sessions in 2013 indicated that more than half have already delivered road maps as part of their
EA efforts, but less than 10% of both audiences had delivered multiple types of road maps and
considered their road maps to be successful.

The outcome-focused approach to EA essentially ties EA efforts to business value by focusing on

actionable and measurable deliverables where actionable deliverables capture decisions that are
approved by key stakeholders and measurable deliverables provide the basis for substantiating that
the expected value was received (see "EA Practitioners Must Focus on Outcome-Oriented
Deliverables"). By viewing road maps as a way to enable key decisions and focus on delivery of
business outcomes, they can be more useful and usable artifacts, because they will create an
opportunity for collaboration and consensus building.

Analysis
Use Stakeholder Analysis to Identify Decision Makers
EA stakeholder analysis can be leveraged to ensure that each EA effort supports the overall value
proposition for EA. Identifying the decision makers, key influencers, and their concerns,
expectations and motivations helps EA teams ensure those stakeholders are involved meaningfully
and effectively in the decisions that EA enables (see "Best Practices: Communicating the Value of
EA"). Part of organizing an effective EA effort includes articulating the new or enhanced business
capability that will be architected, the business outcomes that will be enabled, and the resources
needed to build that new capability. Ensure that the owners of those resources and the subject

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matter experts who will advise those decision makers are involved in developing or approving the
EA road maps. Explain how their involvement in developing the road maps that address a specific
business problem will support the EA value propositions that are most relevant to them. Road maps
help decision makers develop clarity on how to best implement a new capability. Stakeholder
analysis identifies who can provide specialized insight on the business outcomes being addressed.
Incorporating those additional thought leaders into analysis and consensus-building activities can
improve the cost and risk analysis for the ultimate decision makers.

Identify Road Maps That Enable Outcome-Focused Decisions

The stakeholder analysis in the previous step clarifies how a road map can illustrate when and how
capabilities and outcomes are delivered in support of enterprise strategic objectives. For a decision
maker or decision-making body to sign off on that road map or hierarchy of road maps as an
actionable deliverable, it needs to have confidence that the road map represents the optimal
approach for delivering outcomes. EA teams can begin testing hypothetical approaches, using
different capability options and notional approaches for deploying those capabilities, with high-level
conceptual road maps early in the effort. As stakeholders react to draft road maps, they provide
insight and ideas for further refining the road map alternatives and articulating costs, benefits and
risks that are needed to support other target state models in the analysis. EA teams should consider
what additional draft versions of the actionable road maps might be required as diagnostic tools to
help elicit more feedback in support of capability analysis. Crafting a deliverable breakdown
structure that is focused on enabling decisions to build or enhance business capabilities to deliver
better business outcomes is the essence of stage planning (see "Stage Planning a Business
Outcome-Driven Enterprise Architecture"). When stage planning indicates that multiple road maps
will be required, explain how those road maps relate to each other by showing which are drill-
downs or focused perspectives.

Socialize Early, and Validate Stakeholder Expectations for Road Maps

Once stage planning has identified the required road maps, EA teams should "mock up" notional
road maps so that the format and intended content can be vetted with stakeholders. To avoid
wasted effort and opportunity, confirm stakeholders are comfortable using these road maps to
inform their decisions. Use their feedback to ensure those who contribute to the road maps are
focusing their input on what matters to the ultimate decision makers.

Road maps vary in their effectiveness, because different audiences have different expectations and
ways of relating to road maps. While the term "road map" is more often used in the sense of "our
plan for what we're going to do" — and that is a valid and sufficient rationale for creating road maps
— they must be at a correct level of detail to meet the objectives of specific audience and purpose.
For each proposed road map deliverable, EA teams should document the purpose, scope and
audience using the sample characteristics for the three dimensions shown in Figure 1.

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Figure 1. Documenting Road Map Objectives

Purpose Scope Audience

Inform Decisions Enterprise Executive

Business
Set Strategy Functional Area
Sponsors

Support Capital Operational

Business Unit
Planning Management

Monitor Execution
of Activities and
Geography Staff/Executors
Realization of
Benefits

Solution Audit/Oversight

Service/
Component

Source: Gartner (July 2013)

Once the EA team agrees on these characteristics for the road maps, they can articulate how each
proposed road map will be useful and usable for that audience to accomplish that purpose within
the given scope. The EA team can then draft some initial mock-ups for those road maps that will
meet the requirements and then vet those mock-ups with the stakeholders. They should ask
themselves the following questions to validate that audience, purpose and scope requirements,
respectively, are being met:

■ Who is this stakeholder group, and what content should be included?

■ Will the stakeholder understand how this road map addresses the business objectives and
challenges?
■ Are the format and level of detail optimal to enable the most informed decisions to be made?

As it reviews the notional mockups with key stakeholders, the EA team should ask open-ended
questions on how the proposed road maps can be useful and usable. This input can validate or

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clarify data-gathering requirements, the appropriate level of analysis and detail, and participants
who need to support the analysis. For example, executives may volunteer that, if a trusted advisor
in their organization supported the analysis, then they will accept the recommendations.
Alternatively, a remark that similar analysis has occurred in the past, but was unusable because it
failed to address a set of risks or concerns, identifies both prior work that can be leveraged and new
analysis that needs to occur to address known gaps.

These discussions ensure that the road maps help visualize how to deliver new or enhance existing
capabilities and build consensus across key stakeholders for the decision that needs to be made to
generate the desired business outcomes. As decision makers comment on the proposed road
maps, EA teams can optimize the approach for building the road maps and other deliverables to
meet the business needs and time frames for the EA effort. Some stakeholder reactions, particularly
conflicting ones, could indicate that there is a lack of agreement on the scope and nature of the
problem being addressed in the EA effort. If that is the case, it must be resolved prior to proceeding
with any further analysis. In other cases, lack of positive response to a proposed EA road map may
indicate that it is not needed to support the objectives of the EA effort, so consider eliminating that
proposed road map.

Iterate on Road Maps to Improve Understanding and Buy-In

The approach for developing road maps should include:

■ Incorporating key inputs that were identified by stakeholders in the vetting process
■ Socializing drafts with key influencers to solicit input, show the results of input from others and
confirm that all inputs were synthesized appropriately
■ Formalizing sign-offs for diagnostic deliverables that will be presented to decision makers and
actionable deliverables that will be presented to executives for sign-off
■ Developing supporting road maps that will enable effective oversight and management of the
recommendations — this activity may generate a set of related road maps that are tailored for
executive and business sponsor oversight, program management oversight and audit, and
project manager monitoring activities

Iterations are critical for the success of the effectiveness of the road maps and the overall EA effort.
EA supports effective decision making by illustrating how proposed investments can deliver
business outcomes. When a road map helps an individual visualize how the outcomes will be
delivered, and evolves to address concerns, stakeholders will have more ownership and support for
the decision. This buy-in helps bridge the difference between "ivory tower" or academic EA and
practical, relevant, actionable EA.

Because consensus building is a time-consuming process, EA teams must carefully orchestrate

iterations to optimize the time and attention of expert resources. Review the stakeholder analysis to
determine which stakeholders are more likely to provide value in the earlier brainstorming phases of
the analysis and which ones will be better used in the refinement iterations. Sequence and time box

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the road map iterations to minimize time and effort, while optimizing collaboration and accumulating
incremental input logically.

Essentially, road maps must help those who must execute on the recommendations follow the
vision that the stakeholders approved. EA teams that involve not only business sponsors, but also
project managers and implementation experts throughout the EA effort are more likely to generate
road maps that can be effectively and easily used to deliver on the expected outcomes. Gaining
buy-in from those who are responsible for delivering the new capabilities improves the confidence
of the decision makers during the EA efforts and reduces execution risk during implementation.

Rationalize Road Maps Around Outcomes; Cross-Reference by Milestones

Road maps are relevant and resonant when they clearly depict what the enterprise will gain, when
and how. Ensure that each road map is focused on the stakeholder, purpose and objective as
originally defined, and do not overburden a single road map with incompatible expectations:

■ Use capability and outcome milestones at the highest level, and then cascade those milestones
to the more detailed road maps to ensure rationalization of the planned road maps while
meeting different stakeholder needs. By cross-referencing drill-down road maps with
milestones, EA teams can create an implicit hierarchy of road maps that all tie back to the
executive-level overview that is signature-ready.
■ Limit size and number of road maps to the bare minimum that will meet stakeholder and
purpose needs. If EA teams receive executive support for representing the road map as a single
high-level slide to summarize recommended approach, then they can challenge new
requirements for additional road maps and detail. Unless the new requirements are
prerequisites for subordinate buy-in and support, or are required for due diligence, feasibility or
risk/cost assessment, additional road maps should be generated after project approval or
funding.
■ Do not confuse actionable with executable. Focus on the information that is required to enable
an outcome-focused decision, and avoid developing detailed execution plans. Work with
program management, potential sponsors and project managers to ensure the actionable
deliverables are understandable and can be amplified into executable plans once the decisions
are made.

Recommended Reading
"Toolkit: Build Business-Outcome-Driven Enterprise Architecture Road Maps"

"Toolkit: Monetizing the Outcomes in the Business Value Model"

"Developing Solution Capability Levels to Improve Road Map Guidance"

"Business Outcomes Are the Milestones on an Application Strategy Road Map"

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