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In Enterprise Architecture, managing an Architecture Decision Catalog is best practice and in the SAP Enterprise Architecture Methodology this catalog is listed as part of the Requirements and Governance Domain. When setting up an Enterprise Architecture Practice, we recommend specifying for which granularity of decisions such entries should be created. It is also crucial to define the decision process itself, which might include an Enterprise Architecture Board approval.
This article will first discuss the benefits of Architecture decisions. The second paragraph will describe the explicit use of decisions before we refer to our architecture decision support knowledge papers in the final section.
What are Architecture Decisions and why do we need them ?
Architecture decisions are strategic choices that address significant aspects within a system's design and architecture. For Enterprise Architects, they involve crucial choices regarding architecture principles, technologies, models and paradigms which should be incorporated or followed within a company's entire system landscape. Such decisions have long-term impacts and therefore create significant influence on the company's agility, efficiency, cost and risk.
Explicit and well-grounded Architecture decisions can benefit Enterprise Architects in several ways.
- Optimization of Resources: Making informed and well-considered decisions allows for the best distribution of resources, both in terms of personnel and infrastructure. Organizations can steer clear from investing in technologies or methodologies that may not align with their long-term goals or may result in technical debt.
- Risk Management: Through careful decision-making, possible risks can be significantly mitigated. For instance, the use of a proprietary technology could lead to vendor lock-in, which can be a serious concern for some organizations. By considering this potential risk in the decision-making process, alternative solutions can be identified.
- Strategic Alignment: Architectural decisions ensure that all technological initiatives are aligned with the organization's business and IT goals and strategies. This guarantees that all technological investments and efforts contribute towards a common vision, rather than following disconnected objectives.
- Conflict Resolution: During the system and landscape design and development process, various stakeholders (like developers, product management, operations) often have differing opinions on components to use and how to compose them to an overall architecture. Architecture decision-making provides a transparent way to evaluate alternatives and assessing multiple criteria.
- Regulatory Compliance: In many industries, compliance with certain standards or regulations is obligatory. In such cases, architecture decisions become critical to ensure that the organization's IT landscape remains compliant while still delivering its intended business value.
- Innovation and Transformation: As businesses evolve and transform, making the right architecture decisions can pave the way for innovation, allowing businesses to seamlessly adopt newer technologies like AI, cloud computing etc. to stay ahead in the market.
In conclusion, Architecture decisions are fundamental components of the work enterprise architects do. They form the building blocks that define how an organization’s IT landscape supports its business capabilities and goals.
How to use Architecture Decisions
Architecture decisions are the backbone of architecture, shaping its structure and guiding its evolution. Here's our suggested approach to using them
- Consistency - Ensures design choices are consistent across the project.
- Improved Communication - Promotes clear understanding among stakeholders.
- Reduced Technical Debt -Prevents ad-hoc decisions that lead to future problems.
- Increased Agility - Allows for more efficient adaptation to changing requirements.
- Better Decision Making -Supports informed choices based on documented rationale.
It is important to keep in mind that decisions are not set in stone: Architecture needs to be dynamic, responsive and open to change. Also, the collaboration among all involved stakeholders is key to come to aligned decisions.
How SAP Transformation Hub supports you
We have been working on a plethora of Architecture decisions which have already been published on our Enterprise Architecture Knowledge Base (login required).
Below is an excerpt of a decision accelerator related to EWM deployment options which can be found in our database.
Although your organization's decision options and criteria may vary, you are encouraged to leverage the structured approach and tailor those examples to your program's needs.
We have also created an Enterprise Architecture Decisions register template which can be used as a starting point for your own Enterprise Architecture practice. It gives you an initial starting point and contains, among other information, the links to the respective decision articles mentioned above. The number of Architecture Decision articles keeps growing, and we are constantly publishing new content.
We maintain a pipeline of decisions to be evaluated and look forward to interactions with you in case of questions, suggestions for future topics or if you want to contribute your own Enterprise Architecture related knowledge article.
Feel free to contact us via email
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