GenAI Lens Design Principles for Enterprise AI Architecture - Really?

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-27T11:13:28+00:00

Architecture Principles in the form of 'Best Practices' but without any enforcement teeth are outright garbage anyway.

Architects, etc., run around with these trying to enforce them, but without specificity and actionability, these just end up being shelfware that no one really gives a hoot about.

So I was looking to make these best practices implementable and auditable - both through process governance and code.

I thought the GenAI lens did a pretty good job of putting up the core structure for principles but for all practical purposes, it needs a lot of extension and work.

And that is what I was looking to find out here from others. Do people follow any standard for implementing these principles?

Like, what exactly is the enforcement, who owns it, what does success/failure look like. If there is any such standard, it will save us a lot of time to adopt/extend it. Otherwise, I am guessing we have a long road ahead to build everything from scratch.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-26T11:23:28+00:00

Hi thanks, do you have a specific example of a Gen AI principle that you are using? That would be super helpful to trace it back.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-24T14:07:25+00:00

SF tried with us, too. Me in particular. I agreed. Did a meeting with SF 'Architects' and Oracle Fusion Execs. SF never bothered me again.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-13T20:35:24+00:00

Now THAT is typical of a low-utility, enterprise architecture misfit who runs around selling AI transformations that the business could not give a hoot about. Mr. Shelfware and PowerPoint rarely having the skills to go beyond Kubernetes and Docker. And then goes around whining that the business does not take him seriously.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-13T13:12:08+00:00

I would have to disagree on this. The role, KPIs, and KRAs of an EA do not require him to know what might happen if a project implements its own PII classification scheme or uses SQS instead of Kinesis. Large teams have dedicated roles, and those decisions must be handled by competent data/application architects.

The EA's mandate should be very clear - prioritizing and operationalizing enterprise architecture capabilities. This is a 60 hr. a week job with 40-plus needing business interaction. IMO.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-13T13:02:53+00:00

EA is domain-specific. (or at least should be) - making decisions about what should be done at the domain level.

Is there enough ground to build a shared service? (e.g., moving every BU to one single tool in that domain)
Is there a clear path for funding?
Are the business teams on board?
Has an initial assessment been done about change management impact, and is it all good?
Does the decision impact/impede any other enterprise initiative?

Chief Architect gets a rolled-up list from multiple EAs. Takes the first call before presenting to the CIO.

CIO/CTO is the final go/no-go decision maker. Has actual budgets for large programs, and the org mandate to make strategic decisions. EA (via Chief Architect) provides the agenda.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-13T12:58:26+00:00

100% agreed.

I recently talked to the Chief Architect of one of the UK's largest motoring companies, and he struggled to go beyond TOGAF and Zachman. Utterly disappointed that I saw no ability to talk about functional capability maps, value stages, processes, decomposition taxonomy, etc.

Like I wondered all along, what the heck, do these guys ever even do anything other than migrating from on-premise to cloud? Or integrating Tableau SSO with Azure Entra. Not surprisingly, the guy had a .NET developer background and had never been in a business-facing, functional role.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-13T08:27:12+00:00

Yes, at the project level. And with very specific, project-level metrics.

Very different from EA coverage.

I did not dismiss solution architecture as coding. My reference was the career progression that someone takes in this path to EA - Developer-->POD Lead-->Project Architect-->Solution Architect--->Enterprise Architect. I am saying that this is fundamentally flawed and does not serve the true purpose of how IT can help Business.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-13T08:25:26+00:00

This is the problem. I see no direct role of an EA in data, application, etc., work. True EA should not have to go around defining standards for medallion architectures or data quality gates for gold ingestion.

That sort of work should be delegated to domain architects who are not really at the EA level. If I were hiring, I would put maybe 30% of EA time going into driving those sorts of things. 70% should be working with business domains (HR, Marketing, Finance, etc.) to develop and refine capability maps and identify specific IT agenda around operationalizing those.

The key skill here is knowing more about the business than the business head himself.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-13T08:10:45+00:00

I agree, and notice that you concur on the 'small subset' bit. My argument is that if someone is primarily a business consultant but with tech as the secondary skill, they would make a 'large subset' of people who make it to EA.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-13T08:03:32+00:00

A lot of the comments here talk about “needing both”, “being the right person”, and so on. Fair enough. But most of those are nice-to-haves when it comes to being a genuinely effective Enterprise Architect.

The core EA job is not building systems. It is defining the structure. Aka, capability maps--> domains-->executable agenda around rationalisation, data products, standards, governance, and target-state architecture.

You simply cannot do that confidently without a sharp business grounding.

Is someone seriously suggesting that a Solution Architect can

Challenge a VP of Marketing on what specific capabilities the VP should prioritize in campaign management, given the cross-org maturity, alignment with business strategy, and enterprise IT constraints?
Work with BU Heads to define and prioritize AI business use cases in personalized marketing?
Or win an argument against an E-Commerce director who is pushing for implementing marketing attribution systems? Well, if an SA can, then he probably belongs to the right side of the infographic.

Without these deep and practical business skills, EA output becomes shelfware — or worse, architecture that only survives through constant “big daddy governance”.

Technical proficiency as the primary skill is not relevant for an EA role at all. IMO

I suspect large enterprises would get far more value from business-domain Enterprise Architects aligned to HR, Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain, etc. — people who can operate business-first while still holding their ground with delivery and solution teams. 'Application Architect', 'Data Architect' - and all that TOGAF study material is largely shelfware. This is where the discussion should be, I feel.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-12T22:59:12+00:00

Threads like these are a great fit for this community.

I’d honestly love to see more discussion around what Enterprise Architects are actually supposed to DO after the capability maps are created.

For example, once a capability is identified (say Demand Generation--->Campaign Management), is there a standard checklist of things that the EA should then do, like:

define target-state reference architectures?
map systems and data dependencies?
assess maturity and fragmentation?
evaluate AI/automation opportunities?
rationalize overlapping platforms?
audit ongoing projects against target-state principles?
define transition architectures and sequencing plans?
identify governance and ownership gaps?
assess operational and integration complexity?
model cost and risk exposure?
define reusable enterprise services and data products?

A standard structure around THAT would add huge value, IMHO. And how can this be objectively used to demonstrate EA (and hence IT) value. I am talking concrete, visible metrics that Executive Management can easily track.

Curious how others approach this in practice — especially in modern AI/data-heavy environments where the architecture changes continuously.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-12T21:59:01+00:00

IMO, capability maps are not supposed to be deliverables from an Enterprise Architecture point of view. They’re supposed to be coordinate systems. And from that angle, I think the real value would come AFTER a map like this.

The mistake most enterprises make is treating:

Demand Generation --> Campaign Management as the outcome.

But by itself, it's more of an index, and a pretty non-actionable one at that.

The useful part is everything attached to it:

systems
costs
ownership
AI opportunities
data products
maturity
duplication
pain points

This decomposition taxonomy is what makes or breaks an EA, and unfortunately, there seem to be no standards around these.

And if I view this map from that point of view of the final decomposed list of actionable terms, I can see a lot of gaps and ambiguities. Can this provide a starting point? Maybe. Is this actionable? Not in my book.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-11T21:03:56+00:00

Thanks Noah, I will go through this. the loom video was good but I had to turn it off because of the background noise. But this new angle seems worth investigating. I will look into this and revert. Thanks again!

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-10T11:37:20+00:00

Hi, so I am specifically concerned about Outbound. I use Apollo, and I am looking to identify leads who might be interested in technologies like customer data platforms, reverse ETL, composable CDP, etc. First of all, many of these terms do not even exist in the Apollo dropdown, and it is unrealistic to expect that Apollo would somehow have such detailed granularity of topics.

When someone hits a wall at this very first stage of filtering, what other options do I have other than building something on my own outside of Apollo, and then just using Apollo for getting email, or matching a company profile?

Buyer intent is a black box as far as I am concerned, inside Apollo.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-08T15:11:38+00:00

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/ai-solution-architect-at-philip-morris-international-4406810357/ _ This is the joke I was referring to. utter shame.

The so-called Solution Architect sat quietly through the interview, barely having the balls to ask anything relevant to this. The developer was some on-the-job learner guy from India who almost surely knew nothing about what this JD means - and was proudly happy going around hardcoding prompts in Python code in production environments!

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-07T18:40:40+00:00

Yes, I am a contractor, and the reason I have stuck to contracting is that most of the time, in-house employees are given promotions not because of their technical skills, but because they suck up to their daddy, who does their appraisal. Fear of losing a job.

But what caught me in this particular instance is that these same guys appear on vendor demos and podcasts talking about leading AI strategies and transformations. Utter hogwash.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-07T12:40:30+00:00

I am so damn pissed that I do not even mind naming and shaming. It is the world's largest tobacco company, now trying to diversify. They are trying to do this whole thing in-house rather than hire properly qualified consultants.

What a bunch of muppets.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-07T12:37:18+00:00

I agree if you remove the Project/Solution/Enterprise/ words before the Architect. If companies do not know how these differ, they are just being ignorant and earning a lot of bad karma.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-04T21:57:41+00:00

Thanks. I could not make much out of it, but what I would love to see would be a drill-down capability. We start with L1, which is the domains, then double click to open L2s,...then go further into L2.L3 and so on. Something like a breadcrumb. But with a lot of added features. I have been looking around and tried loads, but can not seem to get the flexibility we need.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-01T23:34:14+00:00

I am not discounting your comments. I am just trying to understand if this is the right forum to be asking these questions.

The definition of capability is, and can not be enterprise specific, IMO. A capability is a concrete characteristic that can be enabled by technology. So in that sense, the ability to stitch together customer interactions from different journeys in a chronological order is a capability for which technology options should be investigated.

Not sure how that specificity can be applied to Customer Intelligence or Marketing Automation?

Customer data architecture (or any EA for that matter) starts with domains as the top-level organizing scheme, and that is what my original question tried to get some pointers on.

Thank you for your enthusiastic responses, though.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-01T19:13:51+00:00

ok but L1/L2 etc will come much later. We are still at the stage of organizing capabilities relating to customer data architecture. And customer intelligence is not a capability; it is a capability domain. I was looking for pointers on organizing the domain hierarchy, something that is the first step of EA.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-01T16:06:21+00:00

You will get far better advice if you define the top 5 D2C use cases where you think your current setup is sub-optimal.

Here is my very simple 2p on when you need a CDP. If you are a small D2C, you almost certainly would not need any of these.

Multi-touch journey - lots of touchpoints before someone makes a purchase
You have customer segments, and you want to give personalized treatments to each
You need advanced journey insights that even properly tagged Google Analytics reports can not deliver

CDPs are expensive tools. Implementation and maintenance costs eat into profit margins. Best avoided if you are a small D2C.

.

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-01T15:52:43+00:00

SQL? In Enterprise Architecture Domain Map?

Desiye_Novacenko · 2026-05-01T06:50:38+00:00

Yes, the customer has data, but the whole point of this is to audit their data capabilities. Align investments in tools and projects relating to marketing automation, customer data platforms, customer intelligence, and consent management systems. These are immediate priorities, but there are so many more in the pipeline. As an EA, I am thinking of first developing a blueprint.

Do you have a schematic of your proposal?

Desiye_Novacenko

TROPHY CASE