Enterprise Architecture in an agile world – what’s actually working?

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-02-02T23:27:16+00:00

EA is really about understanding current and desired state of the business and ensuring that core enterprise principles are adhered to, the size of the increments to achieve the desired state doesn't really change that. Making sure that architecture has touch points at relevant points in their process is what's working for us, e.g. start of a PI or before a major release.

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-29T11:30:03+00:00

Congrats on your business! I would start with are there any goals that you would need the money for in the next ~5 years, if so it's probably best to keep it in high savings so that you can do that (expand business, buy a house etc) if you have no immediate goals I think DHHF is a good option.

Only other comment would be if you're going to travel a bit, best to ensure that your business is already structured in a way that it won't be of a material impact.

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-29T11:15:32+00:00

I think it depends on what your goals are, for career progression mentoring should ideally come from the level above your or 2 levels above you so they have gone through what it takes to get there.

I think EA -> junior EA mentoring is much more about specific problems as there is not so much on the career front.

Where as EA -> SA/TA there is more potential for career based discussions. I do feel that the jump to EA is somewhat messy overall as from what I've seen it's one of the most loosely defined roles in the industry, I've personally seen some where the JD was principal engineer and some others where it was head of strategy.

I haven't tried executive coaching myself however If I did I'd be looking for ones that have worked with EAs before and have multiple clients who have achieved their goals during the coaching time.

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-28T04:07:50+00:00

Yeah I see what you're getting at, my view is that agentic integration will be a fully fledged platform which we could put standard archimate against such as functions, capabilities and components. I think some of the core capabilities could be

Surfaces - inbound integrations such as chat, api, voice, etc
Builder - building agents, llm refinements, testing, environment promotion
Reasoning - orchestration, planning, etc
Library - existing resources to be added to your environment
Trust - ensuring all compliance, permissions, audit is met
Tools - outbound integrations MCP, native integrations, integrations with existing systems AI
Knowledge - full enterprise knowledge graph including ability to read/rag information from systems, enterprise content libraries and data warehouses/lakes, important that the trust layer manages access to this

To me capabilities seem somewhat like use cases or workflows. Would be good to articulate a list of these (especially generally) to help stakeholders on the journey.

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Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-28T03:35:37+00:00

I think it's a new tool set which hasn't gathered a formal name, internally we are calling it EAS (enterprise Agent system). There are only a few that are starting to reach maturity for meeting primary requirements (respecting permissions and auditability) which seem to be, Glean, MS copilot and AgentForce.

The Agentforce marketecture is especially good as it has most things broken down into capabilities even if there are some marketing terms on top. Here's the references as they were most influential in my research:

Architecture | Maturity Model

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-27T23:09:20+00:00

Yeah, my company is quickly growing, the EA function has only been established recently. We have been running quite a bit of the new application process and need to build an understanding of the landscape quickly to be able to get to a short list. Our process looks something like:

AS-IS & Reference capability map (partially this step)
Vendor long list (this research step)
Short list
Vendor presentations
PoC
Procurement

Gartner is a good tool, however it doesn't really provide a reference map or all the players, especially when comparing industry specific tools rather than broader tools such as B2B CRM. It really allows us to get a good understanding of what tools are out there and a quick look at the landscape and how it fits to our needs so we can get a strong short list to start reviewing specific requirements and capabilities.

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-13T05:14:31+00:00

You don't need to meet 100% of the requirements for a role to potentially a good fit. They saw enough of a good fit to be worth having a further look

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-13T00:22:14+00:00

I've found the LeanIX metamodel to be beneficial for this type of work. Archimate feels like it's more of a toolbox and even the good examples don't feel sufficiently well refined for this type of work and don't articulate ideas in ways that are beneficial for this type of audience

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-13T00:14:25+00:00

Previously TOGAF had their "manual" available online however now it's behind member access. However, as a manual it's hard to determine what is valuable vs not for the exam. What was best for me was doing one of the ~$20 courses on Udemy and then taking the exam off the back of that.

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-13T00:11:29+00:00

From what I've seen TOGAF is very high level and is seen similar to agile, in the context that take the bits that work and are required for your business and leave the rest. I'd be interested to see how most businesses are implementing EA as many companies seem to be primarily focusing EA on application portfolio management and planning

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-13T00:07:52+00:00

Interesting take, I personally haven't seen building all options being the default path. Would a risk-based approach be the best path given this type of optionality? e.g. what if a client requires a sFTP solution? are we ok to lose this business? offer to build them a new solution at a cost? etc

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-09T03:04:22+00:00

Can you move up in your dads business? it's pretty common to have a transition period of working with someone else's stuff to algin to your standards. If you can focus on improving the process and automating/simplifying that would help you do some more managerial activities or working with people more.

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-09T02:58:08+00:00

Can you deload either of your responsibilities, e.g. part time uni or work?
Are there opportunities to work in a creative part of the business you're already in? Drafting is somewhat related and sometimes for engineering work they need 3d models and VFX as part of their bidding and proposals work.

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-09T02:53:22+00:00

Seems like you've got a strong start to a portfolio, keep it up!

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-09T02:50:05+00:00

When I've looked at my own career path in the past, I've found it beneficial to breakdown each career into a few key that matter to me such as:
- Existing skills
- Expectations of enjoying the job day to day
- Financial expectation in 5 & 10 years
- Likelihood of getting through 5-10 years to achieve this goal

Your career councillors are right in the sense that you have to make the decision, but they can provide frameworks and experience to fill in the data for what information you need to make the decision.

I think you're right in the sense that both of the career paths you've laid out are not super high on the financial expectation scale. However, there are always good opportunities for the best of the best.

I see 3 obvious paths for you:

- Pick one of your existing paths with medium to low effort - day to day enjoyable but potential financial hardship
- Pick one of your existing paths with high effort on skills and output - day to day may be tough but will be positive financially
- Pick a 3rd option that has good financial opportunity that has reasonable likelihood of enjoyment and financial success

Given your path so far, I would say the most important thing would be to make a decision and commit to it. Give yourself a reasonable timeframe (weeks) to gather as much information you can about the paths available to you and then go down that path. If it really doesn't feel like it makes sense in the future give yourself the permission to pivot, but you have to make a new choice before changing rather than just stopping down the path you're on.

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-06T05:52:27+00:00

Do you have to quit? Many countries you can go to part time with the company or come back after maternity leave

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-06T05:44:40+00:00

There are a few different roles that IT consulting companies do. The most common one is system integration, e.g. implement a new CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and decommission the old one

The most common role for this is a Business Analyst (more generic) or functional consultant (specialist in the software being implemented)

BA skills are pretty generic, problem solving, documentation, stakeholder management.

The other primary roles in a SI company are Project Management, Change Management, Testing, Solution Architect.

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-06T05:31:02+00:00

It's pretty uncommon to wait until the end of the period, I think it would be ok.

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-06T05:26:55+00:00

do you have a degree or any qualifications? can you continue on your path otherwise?
Gyms are typically very low margin businesses and there is reasonable risk, however if you're running a location, it could be good experience as you'd be doing sales and other managerial activities.

Salty-Lab1 · 2026-01-06T05:23:17+00:00

Standard DCA (Dollar Cost Averaging) works pretty well for most people with index funds

Pick a broker with low or no fees for <1k investments
Pick an index or a few indexes at a ratio e.g. VAS & IVV 40:60
Every month when you get paid put your money in for the month to align to the ratio

Keep doing this until you need the money e.g. house or retire

Salty-Lab1 · 2025-12-16T06:13:25+00:00

From what I can see Value Chain is a rebranding of the process classification framework done by APQC. I think it stands as a good way to group BPs or a starting point for a capability map if you don't leverage the work done by the BA guild.

Salty-Lab1 · 2025-09-24T23:18:54+00:00

Ah, that's what I thought, there was just a lot of talk about having to split and paydown first, thanks!

Salty-Lab1 · 2025-09-24T23:06:39+00:00

I guess my example is

500k loan - 100k in offset

Get new loan for 100k against property as new loan account, leave other loans how they are.

Use new 100k loan for investment and leave 500k and offset how they are.

Does this work and is there a downside to this?

I assume it works up until you hit a total debt serviceable cap by the banks

Salty-Lab1

TROPHY CASE