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- Henry Pruitt and Ashish Pandit and Beth Schaefer ran a pre-conference workshop about enterprise architecture that was well-attended (thirty-five people including a CIO) and highly regarded. This was a three-hour half-day session.
- Ashish facilitated a workshop segment about skills, both the soft skills and the SFIA skills and highlighting the wide variety of career journeys people take on their way to becoming an architect. This was cemented upon The Phelps Paper Architecting the Architecture and the "above-the-line and below-the-line" competencies circle detailed there.
- Henry further explored the SFIA skills and explored further the enterprise architecture context, also from The Phelps Paper:
- Alignment (for example between IT and "the business") and noting the different things that architects focus on in different contexts and different practices (e.g., sometimes it's technology plans and sometimes it's business strategy).
- Examples were also explored of how to create a Strategy on a Page for an EA Strategy (noting the expectation that it be business-aligned). One example was technology-focused and one example was business-focused (e.g., graduation-rate outcomes).
- Beth worked the segment on EA Maturity Models, and called out the Itana EAMM-EDU and noted its virtues for EDU around simplified language and EDU context and that it separates scope definition from the EA archetypes. One workshop activity asked participants to select one maturity attribute (e.g., Scope, Management) and use their strategy-on-a-page to explore how they would progress maturity on that one attribute in the context of their own institution.
- Takeaways:
- 4 hour session, Looking at a full day for next year
- Out of 35 people there are maybe 4-5 enterprise architects
- Architects were at most tables
- As the audience was pleasingly quite diverse, it would be worthwhile ensuring | planting an architect at every table.
- Thinking about next years session
- Defining what an Enterprise Architect is
- Need a full day session
- Defining what an Enterprise Architect is
- In-person provided opportunity for drive-by discussions
- Many folks were doing EA work but not branded as so
- EA does not mean title but somebody who working to break down the silos
- Had a CISO in the session
- Champion for the architects
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- The full publication will be released on Monday 16 October 2023 — see the EDUCAUSE site for details!
- Top 10 (Louis)
- Using data to bridge touch-to-relationship:
- Making the services for students universally and flexibly accessible
- We are not sure we are looking at the right problems to make the right decisions
- Maintaining the culture that was developed during the pandemic
- AI didn't make it (beyond being an "honorary top ten" item) because it is not clear what the impact is
- AI we don't necessarily know yet whether it's a friend of a foe!
- Lots of "noise" about AI, but that lack of certainty makes it difficult to bank on just now.
- Overall themes on Institutional Resilience:
Artificial Intelligence
- The best advice from the best session was from somebody doing study and research into AI. Particularly:
- Don't follow the hype: keep focused and don't panic.
- Do follow the work: keep up with the trends and the use-cases, be informed.
- LLMs are also trained by people: there are thousands of people being paid to use these models and point out what is wrong with these models and how to correct them (the responses are not entirely unhuman).
- Need to see the model to understand: transparency and explainability are essential but note the this is very difficult with the commercial models!
- Open-Source is almost competing with commercial: don't be thinking there is only ChatGPT and nothing else!
- Hard to evaluate output:
- Hard to detect AI outputs: ...though six-fingered-hands are a giveaway!
- Models amplify stereotypes: beware, and consider the necessary literacies our people need.
- Possible to use in teaching and learning: ...maybe essential!
- AI is best if it belongs to everyone:
- AI Concerns
- bias
- copyright
- content
- consent
- consumption = power and carbon costs are huge
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- How to start a practice on the side
- Startup
Final Thoughts
- Starting up an EA practice
Further Information
Resources
- Phelps, J. (2020) _Architecting the Architecture: Necessary Steps for Setting Up an EA Practice_, EDUCAUSE Review, available at https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/10/architecting-the-architecture-necessary-steps-for-setting-up-an-ea-practice — Colleges and universities that identify and understand the drivers, goals, and environmental factors of an enterprise architecture practice can create the structure needed for EA to be successful.
- EDUCAUSE 2024 Top Ten = https://www.educause.edu/research-and-publications/research/top-10-it-issues-technologies-and-trends/2024
- Pandit, A., Pruitt, H., & Schaefer, B. (2023) _Enterprise Architecture: Developing, Driving, Delivering_, EDUCAUSE Annual Conference Pre-Conference Workshop, outlined at https://events.educause.edu/annual-conference/2023/agenda/enterprise-architecture-developing-driving-delivering — Join us for an informative session that will help you mature your enterprise architecture (EA) practice. We will explore key strategies for developing the right talent, refining your EA practice, and creating a roadmap for success. You will gain practical insights and actionable advice for delivering business value and influencing your enterprise.
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Participants
Chat
- 07:10:56 From Louis King To Everyone:
We had 35+ people including CIOs and other interested roles. - 07:11:08 From Kelsey Lunsmann To Everyone:
Reacted to "We had 35+ people in..." with ❤️ - 07:21:46 From jeff kennedy To Everyone:
Reacted to "We had 35+ people in..." with ❤️ - 07:21:48 From Beth Schaefer/UW-Milwaukee (she/her) To Everyone:
This was a 3 hour session. - 07:23:40 From jeff kennedy To Everyone:
+1 to "Have a Louis on every table"! - 07:23:54 From Beth Schaefer/UW-Milwaukee (she/her) To Everyone:
Reacted to "+1 to "Have a Louis ..." with 🙌 - 07:24:16 From Dana Miller To Everyone:
Reacted to "+1 to "Have a Louis ..." with 👍 - 07:29:45 From jeff kennedy To Everyone:
Susan is amazing! = https://members.educause.edu/susan-grajek - 07:30:38 From jeff kennedy To Everyone:
2024 Top Ten will be published Monday! = https://www.educause.edu/research-and-publications/research/top-10-it-issues-technologies-and-trends/2024 - 07:45:56 From Dana Miller To Everyone:
Reacted to "{9C92C70D-A4A9-4135-AB83-135572B7F212}.png" with 👍 - 07:49:31 From jeff kennedy To Everyone:
Gartner has one of the "AI Prism" devices populated for the potential use and application and effect of AI on.... enterprise architecture! This slide from another session, curious questions about our practice, and wondering what you think and see: - 07:54:16 From Louis King To Everyone:
Thanks jeff. Maybe we do a session on that for next year’s EDUCAUSE. - 07:56:09 From jeff kennedy To Everyone:
Reacted to "Thanks jeff. Maybe ..." with 🤡 - 07:56:15 From jeff kennedy To Everyone:
Replying to "Thanks jeff. Maybe ..."
...great idea! - 07:56:27 From Louis King To Everyone:
@jeff. I think we will see AI sitting on top of our enterprise IT tools such as ServiceNow and others that will help us answer some of our Enterprise questions. - 08:00:12 From jeff kennedy To Everyone:
Replying to "@jeff. I think we wi..."
...yes, mostly at this stage (and this might be an observation you made previously) things that are based on structured data rather than nuance and strategic leadership (nothing in the high-and-high value-and-feasibility in that Gartner "prism" so far), though that will change, and what will this mean for a day in the life of an architecture in the future, or in The Future? - 08:00:49 From Dana Miller To Everyone:
Thanks for the EDUCAUSE Update! - 08:01:13 From Glenn Donaldson To Everyone:
Thx for sharing the Educause update !!!
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