Ross & Weil - Chapter 5 (Cash in on the learning)

Question 1

Which 5 benefits come with building the EA?

Answer 1

1. Reduced IT cost
2. Increased IT competitiveness
3. Improved Risk Management
4. Increased Management Satisfaction
5. Enhanced strategic business outcomes

Question 2

Which 2 types of IT cost are controlled through EA?

Answer 2

1. IT operation unit cost (actual cost of services)

2. Applications maintenance cost
cost for making changes to applications to reflect business/technology changes

Question 3

What happens with IT cost in stage 2?

Answer 3

• IT costs decrease through increased use of shared capability
• IT costs reduce through reduction in number of technologies in use

Question 4

What happens with IT cost in stage 3?

Answer 4

• IT budget decreases, even though big investments are made for standardization and integration.
• Drop in local spending, increase in central budget

Question 5

What happens with IT cost in stage 4?

Answer 5

• IT costs rebound and are higher than in stage 1
• Increased investment in innovation
• Cost justified by creation of new business opportunities

Question 6

What is meant by increased IT responsiveness?

Answer 6

Standardized environment and less technology choices –> less time on technology decisions –> reduced development time.

Big jump when moving to stage 2. Not in stage 3 because of implementation of enterprise systems. Again big jump in stage 4.

Question 7

What is a key benefit of achieving stage 4?

Answer 7

Faster development time

Question 8

What are 3 risk-related benefits that fall under ‘Improved Risk Management’ ?

Answer 8

1. Reduced business risk (increased reliability)
2. Increased disaster tolerance (less likely to have an outage)
3. Reduced security breaches

Question 9

What is a satisfaction score?

Answer 9

The confidence of non-IT executives in the IT unit’s ability to deliver business value

Question 10

Which two types of management are considered for the increased management satisfaction?

Answer 10

1. Senior management satisfaction

2. BU leader satisfaction (in relation to local business results)

Question 11

What are the causes for increased management satisfaction through the stages?

Answer 11

Stage 1 to stage 2: lower IT cost, increased IT responsiveness and IT services

Stage 2 to stage 3: Senior managers more involved with IT-Business alignment

Stage 4: Distinction between business and IT disappears.

Question 12

Which 4 strategic outcomes are derived from EA?

Answer 12

1. Better operational excellence
2. More customer intimacy
3. Greater Product Leadership
4. More strategic agility

Question 13

Which management practices are important in stage 1?

Answer 13

1. Business Cases
   Analyzing expected costs and benefits of a proposed change
2. Standardized project methodology
   (Converting approved project concept into an improved business)

Question 14

Which management practices are important in stage 2?

Answer 14

1. How to have a more centralized IT Funding

2. How to manage a standardized technology environment

Question 15

Which management practices are important in stage 3?

Answer 15

1. Enterprise-wide ownership
2. EA guiding principles
3. Project team leadership
4. Senior executive oversight of EA
5. IT program management

Question 16

Which management practices are important in stage 4?

Answer 16

1. How to communicate architecture goals

2. How to assess IT-enabled business change initiatives

Question 17

How do top performers (companies) in EA distinguish themselves in 3 ways?

Answer 17

1. Greater senior management involvement
2. Architecture built into project methodology (importance should lie on architecture in projects)
3. Greater architecture maturity

Question 18

What should a CIO be and do?

Answer 18

He is the key driver of EA benefits

Talk business language: business first, technology second.