If you work with EA, you could do a stellar job and but a strategy or transformation program would fail regardless of your effort. As an EA you don't walk alone, you work with teams in an organization. This role is not a one man/woman show.

Done more than 100 different assignments as an Enterprise Architect since 1998. Some shorter and some of them longer.

I have only a few really successful examples, but more grand failures. Mostly positive results when I have recommended stakeholders to close down large programs, or done due diligence to keep them confident to continue.

Learning from the failures is part of life as an architect. As a consultant, you often get those assignments nobody else would take, making it even harder to succed.

I often have a role as an external advisor, to give recommendations, and say what would go wrong if they don't follow my advice. If they neglect the advices, and the program fails, is this an EA failure or not?

If you don't have direct access to major stakeholders, CxO level or Business units in global organizations, then it's a bad sign from the start. Another mission impossible scenario is when all stakeholders have very different priorities.

Not invented here is another syndrome, especially when comming from the outside. A bad situation, becomming even worse if the chief architect is utterly incompetent.

In large transformation programs, failures are mostly related to the classic triangle of love. Budget, time and quality. As lead architect, you can recommend to close down, or help the program manager with prioritization and hopefully have the stakeholders to improve the pre-conditions.

If you want to do a career as an Enterprise Architect, expect huge challenges in your profession, and falling flat on the ground at regular intervals. If not your cup of tea, don't jump into the saddle.

Same when riding horses. You need to understand why you fall off, and learn from that.

Happy New Year to all of you.

Disruptive architecture