The Core Challenge of Teaching Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise Architecture (EA) often seems abstract as it demands students grasp both its holistic business perspective and intricate technical details simultaneously. However, its value becomes evident when students actively engage in solving real-world problems. My course combined theoretical foundations with applied practice, creating a learning environment where students not only learned about EA but also are able to practice being enterprise architects with real-world exercises.
EA Foundations: Research by Svyatoslav Kotusev
To ground the students, Svyatoslav Kotusev's comprehensive research on EA practices was used, leveraging his generously shared EA Teaching Pack. The course spanned 13 of his key lectures:
1. Introduction to EA, 2. The Concept of EA, 3. The Role of EA Practice, 4. EA and City Planning, 5. The Dialog Between Business and IT, 6. Processes of EA Practice, 7. IT Initiatives and EA, 8. The CSVLOD Model of EA, 15. The CSVLOD Model Revisited, 16. Architects in EA Practice, 17. Architecture Functions in Organizations, 18. Instruments of EA and 19. The Lifecycle of EA Practice.
Each lecture aimed to provide context, guiding students to understand the why of EA in enterprises and introduced the corresponding exercise to teach the how. Adding the authors' extensive exploration of EA artefacts (Enterprise Architecture on a Page), students are enabled to comprehend and engage with the core artefacts that underpin effective EA practices.
The Case Study - EA in Action: A Case Study on Business and IT Alignment
To translate theory into practice, students tackled a case study based on a real-world scenario inspired by SAP's own transformation. Here's how the case study unfolded:
The Scenario: The students assumed the role of an EA team at a global software enterprise, addressing challenges like aligning IT with strategy for the enterprises' sales business, assessing sales capabilities, and finally build a target architecture to resolve data inconsistencies between two sales applications. This holistic approach not only showcases the work of enterprise architects but also highlights how their role overlaps and differs from others, like business architects, who focus on strategy, or solution architects, who address technical implementation.
Tasks and Tools: The students leveraged SAP LeanIX to navigate various EA tasks, developing a comprehensive understanding of enterprise challenges and solutions. They used SAP LeanIX inventory functionalities to model sales factsheets for initiatives, value streams, business capabilities, applications, and data objects etc., building and gaining insights into the architecture repository. With SAP LeanIX reporting functionalities, they assessed business capabilities and created reports to identify and analyze root causes of the enterprise's sales challenges. Using the tools diagram functionalities, they modeled current and target architectures, translating those business insights into actionable IT artifacts. The exercise concluded in the preparation of architecture solution options, helping the stakeholders make informed decisions and enabling more technically oriented architects to understand what will be next on the implementation agenda. Students prepared a presentation to elaborate on their findings to a mock Architecture Review Board, supporting strategic decision-making. Finally, the team crafted a comprehensive architecture strategy paper for sales and afterwards re-assessed business capabilities to evaluate the outcomes of the implemented initiative.
The case study comprised the following introduction and hands-on exercises, leveraging core EA artifacts:
- Introduction - Introducing the enterprise and its business considerations, EA services, EA principles, and business capability model ("the enterprise context").
- Exercise 1 - Modeling sales strategy, value streams, and business capabilities ("the sales business context").
- Exercise 2 - Assessing and reporting the maturity and strategic relevance of sales execution capabilities from a visions perspective ("framing the sales challenge").
- Exercise 3 - Modeling current and target architecture landscapes for lead and opportunity management ("translating the sales challenge into IT solutions").
- Exercise 4 - Present solution outlines and create designs for opportunity management taking EA and IT standards into account ("business and IT alignment").
- Exercise 5 - Writing an architecture strategy for sales and reassessing business capabilities after implementation ("closing the architecture loop").
Key Teaching Techniques
Hands-on with SAP LeanIX: Students gained proficiency in SAP LeanIX, using it to document and analyze the enterprises' architecture. This gave them real-world exposure to leading EA tools, equipping them with skills directly relevant to industry needs.
Collaborative Learning: Working in teams, students experienced the collaborative nature of EA. They engaged in debates, prioritized solutions, and developed strategies, mimicking the dynamics of EA teams.
Communication Skills Exercises: Enterprise architects must excel in understanding and presenting complex ideas. To this end, students presented solution options to a simulated governance board, receiving feedback on their communication and persuasion skills.
Why This Approach Matters
The interplay of theory, tools, and teamwork prepared students for the challenges of modern EA. This format:
- Bridged the academic-industry gap, making complex concepts like EA tangible - as it is highly practical work that needs to be taught with real-world examples and actionable guidance.
- Fostered strategic and system thinking, helping students translate business requirements into IT architecture - teaching them the essential language of architects and their way to think about business challenges and architectural solutions.
- Built communication and presentation skills, a critical competency for architects - essential for navigating the complexities of EA and effectively conveying ideas to diverse stakeholders.
The course guided students through the work of EA, from strategy to execution. Using SAP LeanIX, they modeled the business context, assessed capability maturities, and designed IT architectures to address business challenges. By exploring root causes of technical issues and crafting actionable solutions, students gained a holistic understanding of the EA lifecycle. Insights into SAP’s own EA practices were seamlessly introduced at key moments, offering students a real-world perspective on applying architecture at scale in a global enterprise (e.g., SAP's business capability model, architecture strategy communication or business capability reporting).
Acknowledgments
A special thanks to Svyatoslav Kotusev for sharing his EA research and teaching resources. His framework provided a strong foundation for the course. Interested readers can access his research and contact via this link.
For more insights into teaching EA, especially with tools like SAP LeanIX or details on the case study, feel free to reach out to me at milan.schulze@sap.com.
Teaching this course was a rewarding experience, and this blog post hopefully inspires others to incorporate real-world relevance into their EA education.
Bluesky
