Saturday, December 15, 2007 12:04 PM
Over the last few weeks I've been off the radar knuckling down to complete the first release of our Enterprise Architecture.
We decided that the as our group was small what it would take a great deal of time to produce a full blown EA, so we decided to deliver very small parts frequently and often each new increment coming every 4-6 weeks.
The initial release contains only the Charter and a Release Schedule, the intended audience was the IT Director and the direct reports, the purpose was to put that 'stake in the ground' that we exist, have purpose, know what we want to do, when and how and to get that buy-in/mandate (whatever the current management clique is for that!)
So that's know done and I'm feeling pretty good about myself. It's nice to release something. It's a very powerful message, good PR.
The team does consist of perfectionists and so it's pretty natural to want to release something to the IT Director that is pretty near perfect. But we decided that we had to tone down this requirement otherwise we would never get anything released, as people do have different ideals about what's gold-plated. As we are doing versions we can always update it ready for the next one. It's not an excuse to be tardy just allows you some head-room so you can put in high-level statements and grow them over the following increments.
Anyway, this weekend I will sanitise what we released and place it here for your review and feedback, that's the power of blogs, mass peer review! With the added benefit it could help someone else ... and it's free!