High Performance EA; Some postulated business goals

High performance EA
and some other things  have seen recently (direct quotes from referenced sources in red). I like this (http://blogs.cio.com/enterprise-architecture/17249/build-high-performance-ea-practice). 

Lessons  - why-school EA has failed to deliver
 "has been too tactical, too technology-centric, or too disengaged from business priorities to have significant impact"
Alternatives

1. no EA programme - "business change is likely to occur in a siloed, uncoordinated fashion"
2. old fashioned EA programme - there will be "an arms-length relationship between IT and the business".
3. an improved EA programme - "high-performance EA ...where":

• "Business architects works with business thought leaders to distill strategies. Leveraging input from executives and business SMEs, the high-performing EA practice generates a target state of the business that achieves its strategic objectives, and a transformation road map that builds the business capabilities the enterprise needs."
• "Business and IT architects work collaboratively to set tech strategy. EA works with IT leaders to set a strategy that leverages both new tech innovations and existing capabilities that will enable the business to achieve the target state."
• "Architects govern portfolio decisions to enable the business architecture vision. Business architects monitor the project portfolio, while IT architects govern technology solutions, leveraging reference architectures to build the future state in alignment with strategic road maps."

Some business goals related to EA

This study make be interesting (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/study-analyzes-usage-scenarios-for-enterprise-architecture-management-2012-07-16). It does postulate some common business goals related to EA i.e. 

"The study identifies potential benefits for the business goals "economies of scale", "innovation potential", "synergy effects", "holistic process management", and "simpler production processes". 

EA politics

I think is an excellent item and identifies the challenge I see all the time - which I summarise as "we are too busy to have time to think or plan". http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/ea_matters/2012/07/enterprise-architecture-politics-and-their-roots.php

• Behaviour "... is tactical at best. Firefighting would better express the fact ..."
• But the discpline is meant to be "... strategic in nature ..."
• Some keys to success: "... plan integrally. ... have a clear, holistic plan in place ...", " ... deliver often, iteratively, on time and fit for purpose. ..."

The greatest irony in this is that most people recognise that EA requires cultural and process change. Further that these changes, which will involve many small changes to many people and processes, will take place in large organization over time. But if you ask them what their 3 year plan is for EA - or ever what their goals are for this year, next year and following - they struggle to suggest anything meaningful. They revert to some focus on a fashionable framework and some complex abstractions that have caught their attention.

The other things EA's must accept is that what they have been doing doesn't work for most of the enterprise. So they need to assess what they do: people, process, tools.