2023 Predictions: Enterprise Architecture Touches Every Part of the Business

Looking back at 2022, we saw many changes to the digital transformation landscape and how Enterprise Architecture shapes business planning. Based on the trends we saw this past year, we made some 2023 predictions.

Evolving Role of an Enterprise Architect

The role of the Enterprise Architect is no longer optional when it comes to organizational change. Companies are becoming more digitally native; thus, their application landscapes are increasingly complex as a result. Projects and initiatives vie for attention within the overall project portfolio; architecture performs a vital function: understanding your organization’s current state, designing future-state solutions, and safeguarding transformation projects that are delivered on time and within budget.

Growing in Agile Maturity

The importance of agile maturity cannot be understated as it relates to business transformation initiatives. As seen in our 2022 Agile Business Transformation Benchmarking Report, the more agile mature a company is, the more effective business transformation projects are across the business. However, while agile maturity gets results, it requires the entire company to get on board. All teams within a company will need to increase in agile maturity to keep up with market changes, opportunities, and threats. This need is why technology ambassadors throughout your organization are so important.

Find Your Technology Ambassadors

A technology ambassador, or as Gartner would call them, a business technologist, is an employee who is not part of the IT department but creates technology capabilities or business use. It’s important to note that technology ambassadors can still do technology-based work. However, they belong to a non-tech department, i.e., an analytics architect in the marketing department.

There are technology ambassadors throughout your organization. In fact, the number of technology ambassadors has increased over the past year, and we expect that number only to keep rising. Finding these ambassadors and encouraging them to help their departments grow in agile maturity will help the organization achieve more value from transformation initiatives.

Transformation Touching the Entire Business

Another 2023 prediction is that transformation tooling will need to penetrate the entire business. We are basing this prediction on a few things. 1) the increase in digitally native companies, 2) the increase in technologists outside of technology departments, and 3) the increasing need for digital transformation initiatives. These tools will facilitate agile collaboration across stakeholders and ensure that organizational data is available and accurate. Siloed Enterprise Architecture initiatives will no longer be enough to yield successful transformation results.

What are Fusion Teams?

As we already alluded to, silo teams and initiatives will no longer cut it. Enter the fusion team! This term describes a multidisciplinary team that is designed to blend technology and business expertise to improve the outcomes for both disciplines. These teams are organized by business or customer outcomes they support rather than functionality.

These teams are created to accelerate time to value and manage risk in digital business initiatives. Specifically, these teams speed up business transformation initiatives and reduce the barrier between IT and the rest of the business.

Conclusion

Overall, we see all departments of companies becoming more technology-oriented and no longer able to work in a silo. Finding ways to work more collaboratively and democratizing data will be essential to 2023 success. Some key indicators are increasing agile maturity and cooperative environments.

To look back at 2022 and make predictions for 2023, we went to a third party to do independent research. The research surveyed people from 150 organizations, across eight countries, with titles ranging from EA, CIO, and other IT professionals. Are you curious to see all the lessons we can draw from 2022 and what you can do to make your 2023 strategy the biggest success yet?