The most important part of EA is having fun while doing it
as no one will want to be part of an EA initiative that doesn’t. In every
business there are compliance requirements and mandates that require teams to
do work they might rather not which is why having the right culture is so
important. Is it imperative that the Chief Architect sets a tone that makes the
EA process approachable because this will lead to increased participation and
cooperation. If stakeholders dread your meeting then they will find every
possible reason to get out of it and pretty soon they will delegate their role
to a subordinate if they can. Shortly afterward one will have room full of subordinates
instead a room full of decision makers and every time a decision needs to be
made each subordinate will need to scurry back to their boss for feedback. Of
course since the boss hasn’t been to the meeting and probably hasn’t read any
of the emails guess what… Someone gets to explain to him or her second hand
what’s going on. It’s like a bad game of telephone but with really important
stuff. And if a single participant is causing the EA meetings to take the wrong
vibe – get rid of them. I’m not saying get rid of the problem stakeholder necessarily
– I’m saying call them out and then tell them if they are not on board, there a
door in the room they can choose to exit from.
So think about the following each time you schedule a meeting:
are all the participants really needed or are you just sticking to a list of everyone. Be a good steward of people’s
time and they will be grateful for it. Next time you schedule a meeting that
they really DO need to attend then they will be receptive to the request. This is
especially true if the EA meetings have a good tone. It’s just EA – no one is
going to die if things don’t turn out perfectly and mistakes will be made. This
should be expected as EA is an iterative process through which value will be
increasingly apparent as the EA initiative grows in maturity. Articulate and
document the value EA brings in a way that is not debatable except for the
amount of value it brings: significant or very significant. I’m not saying it will be easy as most things in life that are
valuable are not but perception is reality to most in today’s hyper-connected
world. The perception that EA is not culturally aligned with an organization
will kill the program as fast of not faster than if one has a poorly designed
and executed program.
So make EA fun and people will spread that good word around
the water cooler.
Perception = Reality.
