Five questions CIOs should be asking the business

So says analyst Gartner, which has developed five key questions for CIOs to ensure that increasingly flexible business vision and strategy can translate into cost effective and appropriate IT. Anne Lapkin, research vice president at Gartner, believes that the value of EA is not well understood beyond IT departments, and that IT could do better to demonstrate its value. "Further complicating matters is the fact that the increased importance of cost optimisation efforts means that EA teams often need to recast their initiatives in light of changing enterprise priorities," she adds. Gartner's five key questions are: First, is the value proposition of the EA initiative specific to the enterprise and articulated in business terms? "It is the architect's ability to express how the EA will contribute to [the business goals] that will make the difference between support for the architecture and tolerance or indifference," says Lapkin. Second, has the value proposition been refocused as enterprise priorities have changed? "Clearly, the current climate of economic uncertainty has changed business priorities [so] it is important not to forget that EA is an iterative process," she explains. Third, do the architects emphasise the value of the process rather than the value of the deliverables? "In many organisations, there is an inappropriate focus by the architecture team on the production of 'artefacts' rather than the 'facilitative' process of EA. Instead, the focus needs to be on enabling enterprise change. EA is the process that articulates strategic drivers for change, defines vision of the future state, and provides the road map." Fourth, are performance metrics being used, and are they business-focused? Gartner maintains that measures of architectural effectiveness are no substitute for measuring business value. "If the EA initiative is not delivering the business results, something will have to change. Appropriate measures might include improved time to market for new products or reduced costs as a percentage of revenue." Finally, is effective governance in place to ensure that the architecture vision is being realised? "If architecture guidance is not implemented, then EA deliverables count for little more than books gathering dust on the shelf," asserts Lapkin. "To achieve true value, the processes for using the architecture to make investment and implementation decisions must be developed at the same time that the process for creating and maintaining the architecture is defined."