Tag Archives: Ideas

The Architecture Crystal Ball: Predictions for 2012

Posted on by
Reply

I have had the opportunity to read several documents containing estimations on what the chief architects and CIOs should expect of the concept of Enterprise Architecture in 2012.

As a result I have made some thoughts of my own, and my thoughts have been delimited to what could happen in Scandinavia. There are reasons for when or where the organization should develop.

Most of the articles that I have read in order to identify the potential development of Enterprise Architecture in 2012 were developed by American organizations and my assumption is that American organizations usually apply an American approach to dealing with problems at hand, and as a result my view might differ quite a bit from the trend analysis that organizations like IBM, Gartner Incorporated, The Open Group, Microsoft or other organizations might have articulated.

Below I have defined four areas that organizations will invest their resources into.

Frameworks and Models

  • CIOs, it-management and the chief architect have discovered that it is unlikely that they will gain a total overview of all systems available in the enterprise and they will focus on developing a few key models.

  • The chief architects will continue investing time and effort into deployment of frameworks, but the chief architects would still have to mix “best of breed” from the frameworks in order to implement the enterprise architecture program.

Investments Planning and Governance

  • Medium and major organizations will begin to add their IT investments to their Enterprise Architecture models, since it is presumable that this would add value to the decision platforms.

  • The investment planning will still be focused on the IT-spending and only to some degree on how information technology takes part of add value to the business.

Technology Foresight

  • The Enterprise Architecture programs will still be IT-centric; however the structured methodology for collecting data about the enterprise architecture will provide the chief architects with the opportunity to impact the IT – strategy, and as such they could have a chance to evolve the enterprise architecture program.

  • The Enterprise Architecture programs will be used in order to define strategic approaches to what sort of technologies that make sense to invest in. As such the chief architect can gain a leading role in articulating the it-strategy. In order to do so the chief architect would enable a platform where realistic scenarios for implementing technology in order to give the decision-makers a realistic insight on what they would have to deal with.

  • The debt and credit crisis will in 2012 impact the organizations in a way that increases the demand for a smarter usage of the information systems and technology platforms available. The smarter usage of information systems demands an approach to information governance and reliable information.

Principles, Standards and Methodology

  • Organizations will find out that without principles for how to deal with different perspectives of developing their IT architecture, they will not be able to enforce the desired behavior. As a result organizations will invest more time in articulating principles.

  • EA assurance for the IT architecture will be a hot topic during 2012, and the organizations will eventually initiate projects that will focus on the articulation of principles based upon criteria like when does the principle apply, when can the developers differ from the principles, when should the principle be updated and who is responsible for updating the standard?

  • Standardization will likewise become a dominant topic, and many organizations will initiate projects that supports the development of it-projects enhances customer experience (platform independent and mobile). Management of standards are vital in order to ensure the development of these projects since it it is vital to ensure the data export of data.

Conclusion

Due to the crisis most organizations tries to reduce costs and deliver a better value proposition to its customers. Most organizations can save money through standardization of the their IT-architecture; however the decision-makers would have to know how to deal with gaining information of how the IT-architecture works, how it can be simplified (enhancing speed of development) and how it can be closer aligned with the business processes.

For this, enterprise architecture is essential and that is how I see the usage of enterprise architecture in Scandinavia in year 2012.

Innovation in an Enterprise Architecture Context: Innovating the Business Processes, Technological Services and Corporate Strategies.

Posted on by
Reply

Innovation

This blog post deals with innovation in regards to the Enterprise Architecture program. I’ve been able to identify two different approaches to innovation. The first approach to innovation is what I define as incremental innovation. The second approach to innovation is radical innovation. In most cases incremental innovation is innovation in social systems where small improvements have been introduced to the social systems.

Likewise is radical innovations forms of innovations that fundamentally changes the social systems e.g. how they work or how they interact with one another.

Likewise is the concept of innovation extremely context dependable. For one social system a particular approach could be considered an innovation where the same concept could be considered old news. Innovation, could as before mentioned, be incremental saying that a new way to deal with the piece of technology or business activity. Likewise could the same situation be radical if the technology never had been used before.

When it comes to innovation and applying it in the context of the enterprise the question of adaption would have to be dealt with.

Adaption

Rogers speaks of how the innovations spreads to the various organizations, parts of the organizations and people. In this process there are five stages before the people of the enterprise would be able to fully apply any given form of innovation.

Innovation defused by that people observer other people who have success by applying the particular innovation in order to solve problems or to certain things in a new way that benefits them and their social structures.

Social systems shares a culture that is shared among the individuals who interact with the social systems. The purpose of the culture is to give the members of the enterprise a sense of security against the ever changing environment that the members of the enterprise is situated in. Culture is usually against changes and thereby against innovations. However there are also cases that suggests that culture can be used to enable the enterprise with innovation if the executives and middle management gives the employes the proper amount of trust.

In other words Enterprise Architecture has to be adapted to the enterprise that is about to invest in the program and as such the Enterprise Architecture program can be seen as an incremental innovation and a radical innovation depending on how the decision makers and the stakeholders sees the implementation process.

Innovation and EA

In regards to enterprise innovation the focus of Enterprise Architecture would be to deal with the processes in the enterprise. For enterprises the idea of incremental innovation would be dealing with the processes in small steps while radical innovations would be innovations that are “game changing” for the enterprise. In this particular light it is a necessity to see Enterprise Architecture as a form of continuous innovation for the enterprise and as such a container for future innovations and as such can the Enterprise Architecture program become a barrier for the innovativeness of the enterprise.

It easily become a fine act of balancing between the rules, standards and principles and the necessity to crystalize solutions for the various unplanned situations that the enterprise experience. Ciborra named this the concept of bricolage (or organizational hacking). In order to facilitate bricolage it is a necessity for the decision takers to empower the employees of the enterprise by allocating power and accountability to the middle managers or the employees. As such this should give the enterprise the necessary platform in order to make bricolage works.

Innovation in this context could be facilitated by the various stakeholders of the enterprise and through the Enterprise Architecture program the concept of innovation could empower the alignment and the agility of the enterprise.

Enterprise Architecture

So what is Enterprise Architecture all about? I’ve chosen to define Enterprise Architecture as a program that deals with the various projects that the enterprise works with in order to change its architecture. However this can not serve as a definition since it doesn’t include some of the most important elements of Enterprise Architecture. Enterprise Architecture as a concept includes an element of documentation of the current architecture of the enterprise (known as the AS – IS situation) and an element that deals with how the future architecture of the enterprise should be like (the To – Be situation). Different communities of practice within the ecosystem of Enterprise Architecture practitioners sees the concept of Enterprise Architecture differently e.g. some sees Enterprise Architecture as a set of processes that constantly ensures some alignment through the implementation of processes and others who sees Enterprise Architecture as a form of blueprinting that ensures that the enterprise develops in to a coherent entity. There are most likely different views of what Enterprise Architecture is all about in the various communities in the ecosystem, and it is almost certain that each book that have been published on Enterprise Architecture works with its own definition of the concept.

My definition of Enterprise Architecture is in this context that Enterprise Architecture (as a concept) consists of a program for documentation of the enterprise’s architecture, a program for identification, specification and development of projects that enable the enterprise to achieve its goals. Likewise does the concept of Enterprise Architecture include the development of standards and principles that are used to govern the enterprise on all levels. When this is said the last component that add to the definition of what Enterprise Architecture is all about is the concept of enterprise governance.

Enterprise governance has to ensure that the enterprise achieves its goals and the goals can only be achieved if there is some kind of innovation in the enterprise. Innovation should in this context be understood as an ability to alter the various parameters of the enterprise.

The Synthesis

I’ve with some inspiration from Leavitt (1965) and his diamond model defined my own model that shows what Enterprise Architecture is all about. Enterprise Architecture is the platform for how the organization executes the business objectives, business processes and technology services. As such the holistic approach to deal with the elements of tasks, business objectives and technology services will have an impact on what kind of employees that would be needed in order to ensure that the enterprise can produce products and services to its customers. Each of the elements impacts the other elements and as such the decision makers (executives, middle managers, team leaders or anarchies) have to deal with the problems through the Enterprise Architecture platform and program.

People are the key when it comes to the breakdown of the classical barriers in the organizational hierarchy and as such it becomes a necessity to deal with people in order to achieve a better and more mature enterprise architecture. It becomes a necessity to deal with the focus of who the enterprise have access to and how the various stakeholders of the enterprise can add to the innovativeness of the enterprise.

While the enterprise adds value through producing products and services to its customers. The various stakeholders in the enterprise do some kind of bricolage or organizational hacking. The concept of organizational hacking can’t be dealt with in any other way and as such most of this “hacking” helps the organization deal with the everyday crisis and as such the Enterprise Architecture program (principles, standards and security) has to take this into consideration and find the balance between hacking and standardization.

While implementing an Enterprise Architecture program the decision makers would have to ensure that incremental innovation isn’t neglected or for that matter locked due to the approach to standards and principles. Likewise should the decision makers work with the concept of bricolage in their assumptions of planning, and as such they should embrace that two, three or five year plans can’t lead to competitive advantages.

The Foundation for Coherency Management: A Framework for Change.

Posted on by
Reply

A Framework for Organization to Embrace Coherency Management

When an organization choses to pursuit the implementation of Coherency Management then it the organization have to focus on organizational change. The idea of the organizational change is when the managers, middle managers and the employees will have to work in a different way and humans and organization culture have a tendency to be conservative and react hostile against change.

For this the Coherency Architect should focus on how create the proper form of change within the organization.

A Quick Summary of Coherency Management

Coherency Management deals with how to achieve alignment, agility and assurance through maturing the enterprise’s Enterprise Architecture. According to Doucet et al (2009) then there are three stages for an Enterprise Architecture. The first one is the form that is called the Foundation Architecture which is typically led by the IT department and sponsored through the CIO. The second stage is the so called extended enterprise architecture where both the business side and the IT-organization have adopted and applied Enterprise Architecture to expose the current situation (AS IS architecture) and is used to manage the enterprise’s strategic, business and technology elements.

The third and last stage is called the Embedded Architecture. This particular form of architecture is defined by the most employees in some way or the other work with the Enterprise Architecture. However there are two forms of Enterprise Architects. The first form is the explicit of architect of which there can be defined to dominant forms. The mature and advanced form of Enterprise Architects that are working with an established architecture office that handles the various forms of strategies to create a so called coherent overview. The other form of explicit architect are working with various sub architectures such as the business architecture, technology architecture or the solution architecture.

It is worth to mention that these three stages of architectures are supported by Herzum in his 2003 paper on the topic.

The Framework

When dealing with organizational change then the Coherency Architect needs to work with developing and internal pressure for enabling change. The question can be if the organization is loosely coupled or not. In this particular framework the assumption is that the organization (enterprise) isn’t loosely coupled.

When the organization (enterprise) isn’t a public given monopoly such as the Danish postal services then it will face competition. The competition deals with that the competitors will work for gaining market share this is done through various strategies and those enterprises that sees that they can’t make money in a particular market focuses on differentiating their products or services.

The various moments the competing enterprises makes are in a way a path to more innovation (since it emphasis the development of new products or differentiating the products e.g., make products of a better quality), and this can be defined as a part of the external pressure. It is worth mentionable that not only does the competitors add to the external pressure e.g., the government, press or other external entity. The external pressure can be an enabler for an internal pressure of which is needed to create the urge for change. Change or initiatives for change can be limited through the persistence of organizational culture (as before mentioned organizational culture tends to be rather conservative) and urge is a feeling among the actors within the organization to approve the change initiatives.

It is a preferable situation for the enterprise and the Coherency Architect would be if there can be created a synergy between the external pressure and the internal pressure. This particular synergy would be the burning platform.

When the external pressure e.g., competition, law (regulation) or other element changes in the enterprise’s domino then the Coherency Architect should work with influencing the various groups within the organization that holds some form of power. For this the Coherency Architect needs to produce valid arguments for the need for change and arguments on what to do. For this an elevator pitch can be necessary. According to Bernard (Bernard 2005) then the concept of Enterprise Architecture embraces strategy, business and technology so all of them can be aligned.

The elevator pitch could therefore be something like this “Enterprise Architecture assists in creating a coherent overview of business, strategy and technology”. The elevator pitch has to be supported through an economic and strategical estimation of the benefits that Enterprise Architecture and Coherency Management can add to the enterprise.

When done so then the Coherency Architect should establish an Enterprise Architecture group where he or another person should be appointed the Chief Architect and this person should be granted the resources, responsibilities and power needed to implement an Enterprise Architecture program. Before Coherency Management can be implemented then the organization needs to implement an Enterprise Architecture program and through the principles of Coherency Management evolve the Enterprise Architecture to more than just the “Foundation Architecture”. When establishing the Enterprise Architecture program a suitable Enterprise Architecture framework should be applied e.g., Bernard’s EA 3 Cube framework. The framework should as a documentation form and as a management form ensure that the enterprise’s current projects are investigated and if possible aligned with the strategy, business and technology goals for the Enterprise.

While the Enterprise Architecture program is established then the Coherency Architect should communicate with the sponsors

When the alignment has been established then the Coherency Management framework CoMOF framework should be adapted to the needs of the organization e.g., should issues like repositories be dealt with which leads to the example of the Modular (modular repositories) Coherency Management Framework (needless to say that the framework is based on Doucet et al. basic suggestions for a framework). When the maturing process for the Enterprise Architecture has been matured then it is important for the Coherency Management to verify and moderate the feedback channels that is the foundation of the renewing the Coherency Management and Enterprise Architecture programs and eventually the need for changes have to be implemented along side a new burning platform.

Key Issues

An Enterprise Architecture program should be enterprise – wide and therefore the Coherency Architect will have to deal with resistance to change and for that communication is vital for all the necessary stakeholders. Therefore a communication plan is needed and it has to focus on three particular issues. 1) The stakeholders don’t think like the Coherency Architect. 2) The various stakeholders needs different kinds of information. 3) The need for urgency needs to be enabled through communication and therefore should the Coherency Architect communicate the victories and the victories needs to be sequenced over the period of time one iteration takes and the communication needs to be done in a way that appeal to the feelings of the stakeholders.

Conclusion

When an Enterprise Architecture program and a Coherency Management program is about to be established then it is vital for the success of the program, that the Coherency Architect deals with the issues of pressure to establish a burning platform and then anchor an EA office or for that matter a coherency management office to the power bases in the organization. When done so communication about victories has to be prioritized and sequenced to so the stakeholders continue with their support for both the Enterprise Architecture and Coherency Management program. Since Coherency Management is based on the foundation of Enterprise Architecture then it is a necessity that the EA program is anchored first and for that the proper approach is to apply an EA framework e.g., Bernard’s Enterprise Architecture 3 Cube Framework and use the EA program to align the business and IT projects of the organization to support new or improved business processes (TO BE architecture) that are dictated by the corporate strategy.

When the EA program has been established then the usage of a Coherency Management framework needs to be implemented and the framework needs to be modified to the needs of the particular enterprise e.g., by adding multiple repositories.

When both the EA program and Coherency Management program has been established then it is vital that the Coherency Architect ensures improvement and that can be done by established and routinized channels for verification and feedback.

The need for adaption to the domain of the organization will lead to a continued demand for the establishment of a burning platform.

Sources

Bernard, S.A., 2005. An Introduction To Enterprise Architecture: Second Edition 2nd ed., AuthorHouse.

Doucet, G. et al., 2009. Coherency Management: Architecting the Enterprise for Alignment, Agility and Assurance, International Enterprise Architecture Institute.

Herzum, P., 2003. Applying Enterprise Architecture. Cutter Consortium Executive Report, 6(3), 36.

Kotter, J.P., 2008. A Sense of Urgency, Harvard Business School Press.

Download the paper here.

Bushido of the Coherency Architect: The Ways of the Coherency Architect to Efficiently Apply Suitable Solutions!

Posted on by
Reply

The Path to Improvement

The focus is to combine lean, Toyota Production System, Enterprise Architect and Coherency Management into a guide line like the Bushido: The ways of the warrior.

The main principle of Coherency Management is to implement a holistic management approach that enables the management to achieve alignment, assurance and agility.

Enterprise Architecture is the foundation of achieving Coherency Management and it is possible to combine that with efficiency to achieve an enterprise that have a lesser amount of slack and adds more value to its share holders and customers.

First of all an Enterprise Architecture program has to be established.

Second of all an economic analysis of the activities that the organization performs to get income.

Third of all communication of change needs to be performed. That means that the Chief Enterprise Architecture needs to communicate to various stakeholders. The various forms of stakeholders needs to be dealt with in different ways. The various stakeholders needs different kind of information.

Third of all the Enterprise Architect has to work with various applying a framework e.g., the EA3 Framework, TOGAF, OIO or other framework.

Forth of all the Chief Architect needs to demonstrate the value of the Enterprise Architecture. The Enterprise Architect should apply the evaluation models that give the information that the stakeholders needs to make their mind (approve or disapprove) the Enterprise Architecture program. It is necessary to apply the evaluation model for the business processes and IT processes before the EA program has been established. This is needed to compare the before and after approach.

Fifth of all the Enterprise Architect has to make use of his or her talent to deal with the persons who have to change their way of working after the Enterprise Architecture program has been established. According to Doucet et al. (Doucet et al 2009) then the organization then there are three forms of applied Enterprise Architecture. The first form is known as Foundation Architecture. The Foundation Architecture is when the organization has applied Enterprise Architecture in the IT department. The IT department has been the driver of the Enterprise Architecture and made use of it to uncover the the operational model of the Enterprise Architecture. When the organization mature the Enterprise Architecture then it should over time come to the Extended Enterprise Architecture where both the business side of the enterprise and the IT side. The IT side and the business side works uncovering the business and its processes. There are several forms of architects who have various functions and responsibilities. There will be a centralized office for Enterprise Architecture and there will be a commitment from the Executive Group1 to enhance and use Enterprise Architecture to govern the enterprise. There are business architects, process architects, technology architects information architects and the Enterprise Architects. The Enterprise Architects will be dealing with handling the overall aspects of Enterprise Architecture. The Enterprise Architects will be dealing with keeping the other architects in line with the Enterprise Architecture program.

After the Extended Enterprise Architecture level then the organization will be moving toward the Embedded Enterprise Architecture. The form of architecture is so far a kind of utopia where every employee in some way acts as an architect which leads to that there are explicit and implicit architects. Theres is a focus on a central EA department that consist of the best Enterprise Architects who works with the overall Enterprise Architecture framework and enabling the other architects with their work through empowering the framework and governance of the Enterprise Architecture.

Sixth of all the Chief Architect has to implement a Coherency Management framework so far there is only one kind of a kind. That means the CoMOF framework has to be adapted. As it is with all other frameworks then the CoMOF framework is a generic framework and it has to be modified for the particular organization. While applying the modified CoMOF framework in the organization then Coherency Architect (or Chief Architect) has to make use of the efficiency theories such as LEAN, Six Sigma or Toyota Production System. This is a necessity to improve the organization’s enterprise.

Seventh of all the Coherency Architect has to ensure that executive group continues supporting the Enterprise Architecture program and Coherency Management program. This have to be done through emphasizing the support for Enterprise Architecture by using external pressure to enable the internal pressure(groups with power) to invest resources into renewing the program. If the Enterprise Architecture program isn’t renewed then the value of the Enterprise Architecture program will lose value. The same is the case for the Coherency Management program.

Eight of all the Chief Enterprise Architect should be working for improving the channels of how the Enterprise Architecture is transforming.

The Code

The Coherency Architect should be therefore be working with being efficient, effective and use his or her experience to develop develop efficient enterprises through Enterprise Architecture.

  1. Focus has to be on efficiency and effectiveness. The ideal is that the Coherency Architect should be thinking in systems where to much slack is minimized; however enough slack to harvest the benefits of innovation.

  2. The vision of Enterprise Architecture has to be communicated to the stakeholders . The people skills and abilities to communicate fluently with people are virtues.

  3. Improving the Enterprises and their Enterprise Architectures then the Coherency Architect have to focus on influencing the organization cultures to institutionalize improvement through Enterprise Architecture.

Applying the Code

The Bushido Framework

The Bushido Framework.

The code can be applied through the model dealt with above . The path to improvement is designed around the stones n the circle. The circle represents continuity. Bernard’s EA 3 framework is located in the bottom is matured a long side the principles of the CoMOF-framework. The lines with arrows are symbolizing the maturing process and a part of the continues process.

1Top managers including CEO, CIO, CFO and COO etc.

Download the paper here.

Coherency Management and Organizations

Posted on by
1

Coherency Management is about optimizing how organizations are doing their business. This means that employees and managers have to work together in a different way and eventually has an impact of how the organization performs.

The main factor for and against change is the organization culture which means that the members of the organization (employees and the managers) will play a crucial role.

If the the employees and the managers aren’t won over to believe in the changes which are needed to enable the enterprise architecture then it is very likely that the projects (generated by the continuous Coherency Management Project ) which needs to be implemented will fail and the stakeholders paying for the projects will grow discontent.

However it is not always that easy to win over the guiding coalition in any organization which means that the Coherency Architect has to think about communication and lobbying within the organization. This should has to be dealt within the “Coherency Initiation Plan”.

As many CIOs, project managers and middle managers are aware of then the different stakeholders have different perspectives on how the project(s) should be developed and later implemented. In an organization characterized by conflict then opposing factions might even try to sabotage the system to make the guiding coalition (or elements of the guiding coalition) look incompetent. It is therefore very likely that some of the stakeholders within the organization might try to sabotage the project.

In any war it is desirable to act to outsmart the enemy and therefore the Coherency Architect would need to develop a plan which needs to detailed information on how to communicate with the stakeholders and how to win over the trust of the guiding coalition. In any case it is a necessity to communicate on the progress and the victories the coalition the Coherency Architect is guiding.

John P. Kotter developed his framework on how change often fail of which one of the points was the communication often lagged and those who was in charge didn’t really invested their efforts in to the change project by allowing the other coalitions to do their tasks as they did in the ‘god old days’ which means that the anticipated results never would be achieved and in the long run the change effort would fail.

The “Coherency Initiation Plan” should include a tactical and operational plan on who to win over and who to negotiate with about the coherency project portfolio and not to mention how to include the employees and managers in the plan; however it is of great importance that the stakeholder analysis and the communication plan includes issues of how to communicate to the stakeholders and how to cope with winning over the guiding coalition to support the Coherency Program Portfolio.

Governance versus Innovation

Posted on by
Reply

Currently the IT department has a lot of control on how to govern and administrate the computers in the organization. It is usually based on the idea that the economies of scale is the preferred perspective to make use of e.g., when it comes to discussion on how to enable the users to operate with new features.

The CIOs tends to favor ideas of that when the governance committee has decided how the group is designed and who should be consulted when it comes to input and enforcement but they tend not to understand the need for user customization that has the potential to crystalize innovation and by that strengthen the organization.

After all it is the users who usually understand how they can improve their work conditions and their way to handle various forms of tasks e.g., organizing, information handling or knowledge sharing.

In this perspective it is rather clear that the persons who have a first hand impression of the situation are those who should be able to find suitable solutions for the problems at hand.

The IT department often play a critical role of the degree of freedom and thereby degree of innovation the users can achieve. If the IT department enforces the strategies the strategy committee has articulated and enforcing its view of governance then the employees often have to live by the rules of the IT department.

From the CIOs point of view then the organization’s use of IT has to be efficient both in usage and in costs. This means that the organization has to focus on keeping costs down on maintenance and focusing on pleasing the stakeholders of the IT projects. With this in mind then the IT department will focus on limiting the possible configurations of the computers and information systems in the organization so end user support and technical support can be easily deployed.

In other words the organization is in a constant struggle between efficiency and innovation.

As mentioned before then it is of vital importance that the organization is able to innovate its processes and by that the employees of the organization actively engage in the improvement of the organization structure. The Coherency Architect has to focus on both the efficiency (costs and support) and the issues of innovation in the core of the organization.

Alignment: An Art or a Science?

Posted on by
Reply

Currently there are several different ideas on how to align the organization with technology (IT), organization and processes to make the organization able to work smarter. However in the real world a lot of IT projects and attempts to apply alignment of IT in organizations leads to failure.

To avoid potential failures then the members of the Enterprise Architecture community have developed several frameworks which might be applied to make the EA projects work and yet the projects fail in the organizations that claim to be mature.
The question is if the alignment of IT and Business is a science or if it is an art form. Some CIOs, CXOs, teams and organizations are simply just better to apply EA thinking (models, foundations, process management etc.) than others though they make use of the exact same principles which founds the platform for Enterprise Architecture.

So talent has to be a part of the equation or even luck has to be a part of the EA. Science normally don’t think on luck or talent when research and science is done (especially if it is from the point of view of natural sciences) and therefore these factors are overlooked or simply not put into consideration.
The Alignment of IT with the business side has to be considered both an art form and a science since the science part shows how alignment is supposed to be done and where the art is when those people who are about to implement the alignment does apply the implementation.

As it is with Coherency Management then people is key since it is people who work with the systems which are supposed to be aligned, people who takes the decisions and people who implement the processes beneath the alignment projects. It is easily concluded that people are different they have different world views, different ways to interact and they are different in the way they use tools to aid them in achieving their goals. Alignment of IT is dependent on how people react to changes and how people interact with one another and with the technology and the information systems and therefor is the art form a very dominant but the science form can’t be neglected since the science crystallize and defuse the ideas of alignment, enterprise architecture and coherency management. Therefore is alignment of IT both a science and an art form.