In this article written for The Knowledge Graph Conference, we explore the two typical approaches for implementing an EIA and offer recommendations for how you can ensure a smooth transformation of your data environment. Keep reading!

 

This post has also been published on The Knowledge Graph Conference blog.

 

What to know before building your Enterprise Information Architecture

As part of our series on Enterprise Information Architecture (EIA), we’ve addressed topics such as: what EIA is, how it can support the creation of digital twins and how semantic models work to elevate the EIA. But there is still a fundamental question to address: How to get started.

 

Executing any type of enterprise-wide change can seem intimidating due to the processes involved and the need for alignment among various stakeholders and departments. In our recent blog post, we discussed how an Enterprise Information Architecture with a semantic model can help to drive communication and understanding between all stakeholders and how it can create transparency for each change. However, introducing EIA itself has this same challenge as each department has its own pre-established priorities, influencing its decision to invest in such a new project, given the effort and paradigm shift involved when introducing new technology or processes. But with the right preparation, introducing an EIA to your organization can be more manageable and achievable than you think (as we’ve seen happen with previous customers).

 

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, we’ll cover what strategies you can take to bring an EIA to your organization and any considerations you’ll need to keep in mind for implementation to be a smooth success! 

 

 

Table of contents

 

• Top-down approach: Driving change from the top

• What to consider with the top-down strategy for EIA

• Bottom-up: Start small, move fast

• What to consider with the bottom-up approach

• What do you need to guarantee success?

• Is there a ‘right’ approach?

• Building your Enterprise Information Architecture with metaphactory

 

Top-down approach: Driving change from the top

The ideal scenario for integrating an Enterprise Information Architecture in your organization would be when it is driven from the top. This is when senior management is the initial driver behind the EIA by deciding that it is a capability the organization needs, designating a specific team to support or govern the project (most often Enterprise Architecture, however this could also be with the IT, Information Architecture or Data Governance team), and determining that it would be beneficial for everyone working with data to own and embrace the EIA. 

 

We consider this the ideal case because having C-level executive support opens the doors to more resources, priority and investment, and it can also make the project a priority for the necessary stakeholders involved, essentially giving you a good foundation that guarantees this will be a long-lasting and sustainable change. With EIA essentially being a process and culture shift towards a “data documentation culture”, it will affect anyone touching data, company-wide.

 

Motivation for senior management to drive such a major architectural transformation can be several reasons, including wanting to: 

 

1. Bridge the semantic gap: Establishing a common language that all teams in the organization can understand would streamline communication and ensure alignment on the same goals, targets, plans and aligned activities.

2. Bridge business and IT: Bridging the gap between business and IT by empowering users to analyze new business initiatives for IT impact through the EIA without burdening IT representatives who likely have other existing priorities. Likewise, an EIA would also be able to understand the business impact of IT changes (including unplanned changes such as outages) without requiring the involvement of business representatives—both groups can then spend more time delivering their core services.

3. Address the disconnect between data catalogs and business processes – Business critical information that describes business processes, business objects (the input & output of business processes), roles and responsibilities, IT systems and data products can be explicitly defined, connected and mapped into a unified, coherent business object framework (AKA the semantic model). 

4. Easily find answers to questions about enterprise systems and operations, such as:

   • How will a new CRM system in the US impact invoicing? 

   • Where can we find customer data for an API to enhance customer experience? 

   • What IT changes are needed for business process modifications?

5. Map success: Align KPIs and OKRs across the business while simultaneously monitoring the impact on both business and IT, understanding who needs to be involved and determining how initiatives should be driven.

6. Accelerate change: Accelerate innovation and improve operations effectively, by enabling everyone to communicate about the business (and its IT systems) in the same way.

 

One example of this approach in action comes from one of our previous customers, a large German multinational manufacturer of premium vehicles and motorcycles. This organization benefited from having a senior executive lead the EIA project from the start, effectively shaping how the technology would be adopted across the company. Since they determined it would be a priority, a plan for governance, implementation and onboarding was set from the beginning and established within the Enterprise Architecture team, then executed within 12 months to a global rollout. While this was built on prior experience in enterprise architecture and information architecture, it still required in many changes in the responsibilities and approach to these topics. Having these critical discussions early-on made it possible to be flexible and allowed the time to make these decisions. 

 

These motivations not only resulted in technological improvements in the organization, but also contributed to a broader cultural shift in how the organization views and uses data. Rather than operating as an organization made of individual departments, processes and systems, an EIA introduces a more holistic and unified approach to information. It surfaces crucial meta-data that can be found within the data so that it can be shared widely and easily across the organization and wielded for decision-making in all areas of the business. 

 

What to consider with the top-down strategy for EIA

Get crystal clear

Do you have a vision of what you want the EIA to accomplish for your organization in the long term? While the value of an Enterprise Information Architecture might already be obvious to you, some may still be unaware of all that it can offer your organization, such as enabling you to make informed architectural decisions so that you can optimize processes for speed and efficiency, plan for future growth and expand into new markets or incorporate new systems and technologies, and be able to manage risks effectively by understanding dependencies between Business Objects (BO), business processes and IT infrastructure. 

 

This vision is central to your EIA success as it is the foundation of why you are initiating such a massive change in the first place. So you must have a greater vision and be able to explain it because you’ll need to present and revisit this vision repeatedly during the course of the project. The motivations we listed above are simply part of the vision, but you need to have a clear picture of how these goals come together and how they will shape the future of your organization. 

 

This vision is meant to inspire, motivate and encourage team members across the organization to embrace the new technology, as well as the cultural shift that comes with it. And,as we are mostly working with for-profit organizations, a good vision does tie back to the P&L statement and highlights how costs will be saved or how time to value gets shortened.

 

Management in the driver’s seat

Since you will be imposing a new change from the top down that will directly impact current processes (most of which have already been in place for many years) it will naturally prompt hesitation and skepticism. And even more so for EIA, where we actively address guarding behavior around the data produced and processed in each department and the roles of business and IT in working together.

 

Generally, any change can have an impact on processes (which is often the root fear behind change) however, with an EIA, processes are captured and understood from start to finish, making it possible to actually change these processes smoothly because there is a comprehensive understanding of how the enterprise operates in its entirety. An EIA could even serve as the central tool to analyze impact and conduct actual vs. target comparisons. 

 

Making the EIA a priority for the entire organization earlier on, and being able to communicate the vision behind the change will help ease any worries that individuals may have about the new approach. Demonstrating the short and long-term benefits of an EIA, for individuals and the wider company, will serve as a compelling motivator to encourage support from all parties involved. Continuously reiterate the vision and allow for open communication throughout the process so that all stakeholders have the opportunity to share their input and expertise. 

 

Collab and conquer

Building an EIA requires collaboration with multiple stakeholders and departments. For example, you’ll need to get consensus on many items early on, such as how to select the most relevant Business Objects for your organization, how are specific BOs named and defined and who is responsible for each BO. 

 

Business objects represent the input and output (or also intermediate results) of business processes, and they must be named by a term that is perspicuous, explicit and harmonized within the organization. Therefore, relevant input for decisions can come from several departments and levels of seniority. Logistically, it may be difficult to get everyone in the same room and reach an agreement, especially with individuals who might not yet understand the vision. Organization, communication, proper tooling and again, promoting your vision are key to earning support and smooth collaboration from stakeholders. 

 

In a future blog post, we’ll offer a proposal on how you can best define things like roles, responsibilities and dependencies through collaboration with multiple stakeholders. 

 

Trust in your blueprint

Although your EIA won’t be built overnight, you’ll already be able to see immediate improvements to your organization and the value being generated as you progress in its development. For instance, we have seen organizations utilize the Business Object to physical object linking to automate the provisioning of new API services or support developers in finding the physical data sources required to build a new service, which was defined based on the BOs. These might seem like small wins, affecting a specific team or part of a process, but they can serve as evidence of what could be accomplished down the road. It’s important to encourage the teams to identify which of these improvements can be attributed to the EIA. Our experience is that at least 2-3 such benefits should show within the first three months of building your EIA.

 

Trust in your vision and continue to share it widely, especially including these initial successes, and you’ll see that your organization will become one that no longer perpetuates silos, but fosters more open collaboration and empowers its employees to seek out and interact with data independently. Benefits don’t appear only once the EIA is complete, but from the moment you decide to make the change. 

 

Bottom-up: Start small, move fast

If you’re not part of the executive team, you may find yourself starting with a bottom-up strategy instead. This process may naturally begin in a couple of ways. For example, you may be an individual or part of a departmental team that recognizes the value of Enterprise Information Architecture and wants to make a case to senior management about how it can benefit the organization as a whole. To do so, you’ll need to demonstrate its value by focusing on a specific use case and presenting its success as evidence of what EIA can offer the entire company.  

 

Another way EIA can emerge from the ground up is as an inadvertent result of tackling a specific use case with EIA and then seeing the greater benefit for the organization. As an example, you might be a data scientist tasked with providing insights that require integrating two or three data sources. Aware of knowledge graphs and the benefits of a semantic model-driven EIA, you determine that it is the best solution for the task. Since the amount of data sources and relevant stakeholders is smaller, the alignment process is simpler, the approval process is faster and you can deploy your solution more quickly. After a fruitful launch, you might decide to pitch EIA to senior management as a company-wide solution.  

 

Take a look at one of our customers, an American multinational food corporation, who initially sought to reduce the time and costs spent analyzing its IT systems before each merger or acquisition as well as any system retirements, integrations or consolidations. Maintaining up-to-date documentation was impossible due to its existing “Wiki-based” approach and missing critical company-wide knowledge led to the need for external consultants to support these assessments. While their goal was to build a ‘documentation culture’ that empowers employees to document essential systems and processes, the outcome of our collaboration was the development of an Enterprise Information Architecture based on a semantic layer.

 

Similar to the American food corporation, starting with a bottom-up approach can be motivated by:

 

1. Resource limitations

   1. Budget: If you lack the resources or budget, beginning with a bottom-up approach might be the best way to present your case for the value of Enterprise Information Architecture. Even without executive-level support, starting with a couple of smaller projects can offer concrete results that can motivate buy-in from key decision-makers to introduce this data and culture shift across the enterprise. 

   2. Skill gaps: Being unsure if and where necessary skills exist in the organization might be a blocker for a global rollout, however, in a much smaller scope it is easily possible to build the skills within the smaller team that is driving this forward.

2. Existing solutions: There may be existing investments in solutions like data catalogs, and investing in a small EIA use case can be a controlled, manageable initiative that not only delivers value but also highlights how integration could look in that specific case.

3. Testing: Organizations might first observe how the EIA works in a contained environment, gather insights, and assess its impact. If successful, they may later consider adopting a top-down approach, where leadership drives its uptake across the entire organization.

4. Launching quickly: By starting small, you’ll be able to make progress quickly and show results from your efforts immediately with as little resources as possible. 

 

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What to consider with the bottom-up approach

Start small, scale smart

Starting with a singular, isolated use case can be an excellent way to begin your organization’s EIA journey. Although some initial modeling and governance decisions may need to be revisited as the approach scales across the company, this early work establishes a solid foundation for further discussions. 

 

For example, defining the required Business Objects for your use case helps set the stage for a broader embrace. Even if definitions and terms need to be refined later, having some initial agreements in place is a strong starting point. This is a clear step forward, as it’s easier to build on partial agreements than to start from scratch.

 

From quick wins to big buy-in 

Justifying resource and time investment is often easier for a use-case-specific solution, as there is just one clear, measurable impact that will be measured during the project, whereas securing buy-in for company-wide utilization requires additional advocacy and pitching.

 

Move fast and smart

If you are thinking starting with an EIA use case, these are some questions you might be asking yourself these questions: Is my use case small enough to move fast, but relevant enough to make an impact? How do I identify a good use case? How do I minimize negative impact or delays, which stakeholders do I need for this? 

 

How you go about implementing EIA within your organization ultimately depends on different motivations and factors such as influence, timing, budget and resources. What matters most is having a clear overarching vision. Whether you are a senior executive with the authority to introduce EIA at an enterprise level or a data engineer with valuable technical insights to share across departments, your vision will be the driving force behind effective adoption. Our team has the experience from many such projects and we are happy to share our expertise and help you find the right use-case to start with! Contact us to speak to our friendly experts about your needs. 

  

What do you need to guarantee success?

To maximize your chances of success, keep these three key factors in mind:

 

A clear vision of what you want to accomplish

By now you should already know that you must have a clear vision of what the enterprise can achieve with an Enterprise Information Architecture, and you’ll need to be able to communicate it compellingly. The end goal is the dream state your company is striving for, and your vision is the roadmap that will help you garner support and keep teams motivated to move forward. Your vision must not solely be focused on a technological transformation, but also a cultural and conceptual one too. 

 

But what exactly is that grand vision?

 

It can be rooted in a desire to transform your organization’s entire approach to data and cultivate a documentation culture that is proactive rather than reactive. Instead of having to constantly scramble to find information at the moment, setting up a culture of data documentation—where there is a clear and easy process for documenting changes about enterprise information in a digital manner—can change the way data and decisions are handled. 

 

Decisions can then be made more quickly and with more confidence, as considerations are based on meaningful context (meta-data) and a full overview of your organization’s operations, which will have a lasting impact on your enterprise operations and its future. 

 

‘Real-life’ use cases that demonstrate the benefits of an EIA

For both a top-down and bottom-up strategy, you’ll need to have real-life examples that can illustrate the tangible benefits of a semantic model-based EIA. See our customer success stories as examples here. 

 

Acceptance that this is a long-term investment

Initiating a change that will have both intangible and material impacts on your organization takes time. While an EIA offers significant, long-lasting benefits, you will begin to see a return on investment in the short term as well. 

 

With these three elements addressed at the outset, you’ll lay the conceptual foundation for building your EIA, which will set you up for whichever approach you choose.

Is there a ‘right’ approach?

There is no ‘right’ approach to starting your EIA journey, but there is an ideal approach. A bottom-up plan can be a good starting point, but the optimal strategy involves transitioning to a top-down approach. To achieve maximum impact, the EIA must become a company-wide initiative, with leadership driving its adoption and integration across the organization. This ensures that the technology aligns with the company’s overall goals and is fully embraced at all levels, improving the likelihood of adoption and sustainability over time. The ultimate objective of launching EIA for a specific use case should be to convince senior management of its broader value, demonstrating why it should be a strategic priority and, ultimately, a top-down initiative to ensure smooth rollout across the organization. Therefore, even if you're beginning with a specific use case, it's important to aim for top-down support from the outset.

Both has its challenges and strengths, and you may even find yourself in a situation where there is only one path forward, but with metaphactory and our friendly experts, you’ll be able to accomplish your EIA goals with either strategy.

Building your Enterprise Information Architecture with metaphactory

Our enterprise knowledge graph platform, metaphactory can help facilitate the creation and management of your EIA. metaphactory is a FAIR data platform that empowers you with semantic knowledge modeling and knowledge discovery capabilities. It enables you to capture and organize business-specific knowledge in explicit semantic models, extract insights from your data and democratize knowledge across the enterprise.

 

Semantic knowledge modeling

metaphactory’s modeling capabilities support modeling of your enterprise information in three layers: conceptual (modeling of Business Objects and their attributes), logical (capturing a Business Object’s logical definition and its relations to other business-relevant concepts) and the physical layer (capturing of connections to IT systems that store the physical representation of concepts).  

 

The technical features of metaphactory’s semantic knowledge modeling include: 

 

• Visual ontology editor

• Vocabulary & taxonomy management

• Data catalog integration

• Collaboration, versioning & metadata curation

• User-friendly modeling interface for collaboration with non-tech experts

• System based on open standards to facilitate interoperability and reusability

 

Knowledge and insights discovery

With metaphactory, you can also dive deeper into your data and unlock insights and discoveries that help drive business decisions:

 

1. Map and visualize all physical systems through a visual interface to determine which ones would be impacted by a new data protection law in a specific territory

2. Easily insights with all relevant stakeholders through a user-friendly visual interface

3. Identify early on the business processes affected by a system shutdown, such as CRM downtime, to mitigate the impact on processes like invoicing and marketing automation

4. Semantic search and conversational AI interfaces can build on the semantic layer and enable any user to easily interact with the data, while receiving high quality, trusted and verified results

 

Try it for yourself

Speak with one of our experts to discuss your organization and specific use case, and learn how metaphactory can support your EIA journey. Ask for a demo or free 4-week trial of metaphactory.

Contact us!