- 29 August, 2008 11:09 AM EST
- Get It In Writing
After doing quantitative research that suggested that the most critical success factor for enterprise architecture (EA) was that ability to "develop and maintain stakeholder involvement and support," I embarked on a journey to discover scientifically proven methods to "develop and maintain stakeholder involvement and support." I stumbled upon the work of Dr. Robert Cialdini, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University. His publications have incredibly useful techniques to "develop and maintain stakeholder involvement and support" that are backed by science.
I've recently published a note that shows how this material can be applied to "develop and maintain stakeholder involvement and support" for EA; however, I wanted to provide a basic, simple, powerful technique as a blog entry: Get key stakeholders to provide their support for EA in writing and make it public. The simplest way to do that is to get them to sign an EA charter, then scan that signed charter and put it on your organization's intranet. By doing this, at least in seemingly similar situations, the adherence to the commitment almost doubles. The keys are to involve the stakeholders in some form of action while agreeing to support EA (from their physical signature), making the agreement public (by posting it on the intranet) and doing it in an uncoerced manner. Try it out. It can't hurt.
While you are at it, consider putting success criteria (such as milestones that, if attained, will equate to the EA effort being deemed successful) in the charter. People sometimes forget what EA teams are supposed to deliver, but if you can demonstrate that you delivered against that which was agreed to in the charter (in writing, made public, in an uncoerced manner), then you come from a much stronger position. This simple technique may come in handy if your organization embarks on a "cost management" exercise.
