Enterprise Architects Discuss Current, Future State of Industry

MSIT program sponsors roundtable event for IT leaders

Nineteen enterprise architecture professionals spoke on the state of the industry this past April at Northwestern.Nineteen enterprise architecture professionals spoke on the state of the industry this past April at Northwestern.
MSIT Industry Advisory Board member Dimitra Kane (MS ‘99) co-organized the roundtable discussion.MSIT Industry Advisory Board member Dimitra Kane (MS ‘99) co-organized the roundtable discussion.
Former MSIT Professor Hugh Ryan says few programs can contribute to the enterprise architecture industry like MSIT.Former MSIT Professor Hugh Ryan says few programs can contribute to the enterprise architecture industry like MSIT.

This past April, 19 enterprise architecture professionals came together at Northwestern Engineering to discuss the current and future state of the industry in a roundtable discussion hosted by the Master of Science in Information Technology (MSIT) program.

The event featured discussion on a wide range of topics, including challenges enterprise architects face, how enterprise architects can best manage their day-to-day responsibilities and how to train and educate enterprise architects.

“I think most people went away feeling they had gained something from the discussion," says Hugh Ryan, a former MSIT professor who is now retired from Accenture and Andersen Consulting. “I have been involved in the field of enterprise architecture for 35 years. I certainly felt I learned a great deal from interested committed individuals who care about the field.”

Many of the issues facing enterprise architects today are the same ones the industry has been tussling with for a long time, Ryan says, like how to develop enterprise architects and use them most effectively.

“Effective enterprise architects are always a scarce resource, so there are always more demands for the skills than there are people,” he says. “As a result, developing and using the enterprise architect resource effectively is a key challenge.”

There is one school of thought that says enterprise architects should be an outsider to projects and offer opinions and critiques on the IT efforts being put forward. A different belief is that enterprise architects are most effective when they’re entrenched in a project and can understand how and why every decision was made.

Each viewpoint has pros and cons, Ryan explains. With the first example, the enterprise architect does not know the background of why certain decisions were made; they just know the outcome. One of the biggest downsides of the second example is it requires the enterprise architect to be fully committed a project and not involved with other projects during that time. This can frequently to an increased demand on an already scarce resource.

Ryan co-organized the roundtable event with Dimitra Kane (MS ‘99), enterprise architecture senior manager at Discover Financial Services and MSIT Industry Advisory Board member. As Kane reflects on the roundtable discussion, she finds herself already looking forward to potential talking points for next year’s gathering.

“Another key takeaway was how important it is for IT Leaders and enterprise architects to learn and understand how to work with different cultures,” Kane says. “I can see the cultural map being a future topic of discussion.”

Both Ryan and Kane feel that future discussion will continue to involve the MSIT program because it is well positioned to not only bring such a collection of industry leaders together, but also because of its ability to prepare the next generation of enterprise architects.

“There are skills that can be taught and learned by individuals who want the job,” Ryan says. “And I think, having taught in MSIT for five years, there are few programs better positioned to contribute to creating a sequence for those who (want to) be architects.”

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