Gartner for Heads of Enterprise Architecture

Heads of enterprise architecture and their teams are more critical than ever to shaping the technology foundation of the business — ensuring technology decisions made today do not reduce flexibility in the future. They create the architecture, roadmaps and governance structures that enable enterprise stakeholders to deploy and test new capabilities that reduce risk and total cost of ownership.

Evolving the enterprise architecture function to drive better business outcomes starts with the head of enterprise architecture’s personal leadership skills and their team’s ability to productively partner with stakeholders inside and outside of IT.  The most effective heads of enterprise architecture use diagnostic tools to benchmark their own leadership skills, as well as their team’s, to surface potential performance gaps that may be reducing the enterprise architecture team’s ability to lead through influence and by extension, reducing the enterprise architecture function’s overall business impact.

The most effective heads of enterprise architecture do not dictate one-size-fits-all standards and governance practices. Rather, they implement adaptive enterprise architecture governance structures that foster collaborative relationships with enterprise stakeholders and balance today’s business needs with tomorrow’s future state architecture.  

Heads of enterprise architecture implementing adaptive governance practices also socialize business outcomes from successful collaborations to build credibility with stakeholders across the enterprise and ensure enterprise architecture is viewed as a critical business partner instead of a compliance function.