A project plan typically represents the planned activities as horizontal bars plotted over time. Rapid-results initiatives cut across horizontal activities, focusing on a miniversion of the overall result rather than on a set of activities. Here is a simplified version of the Nicaragua project described in this article. Each vertical team depicted as a group by the vertical bar includes representatives from every horizontal team, which makes the two types of initiatives mutually reinforcing.
The vertical team establishing service contracts between technical experts and farmers drew on this work, providing the farmers with coupons they could use to buy the technical services.
This, in turn, drove competition in the private sector, calling on the work that the people on the horizontal training teams were doing—which led to better services. The team working on securing commitments between farmers and technical experts in the dry farming region, for example, had to knit together a broad set of activities. The experts needed to be trained to deliver particular services that the farmers were demanding because they had heard about new ways to increase their productivity through the information management system.
So team members had to draw on a number of the broad horizontal activities laid out in the overall project plan and integrate them into their vertical effort. As they did so, they discovered that they had to add activities missing from the original horizontal work streams. Undeterred and spurred on by the desire to accomplish their goal, team members drove through the towns of the region announcing with loudspeakers the availability and benefits of the technical services.
Over the following 20 days, the gap to the goal was closed. How fast is fast? Rapid-results projects generally last no longer than days. But they are by no means quick fixes, which imply shoddy or short-term solutions. And while they deliver quick wins, the more important value of these initiatives is that they change the way teams approach their work.
The short time frame fosters a sense of personal challenge, ensuring that team members feel a sense of urgency right from the start that leaves no time to squander on big studies or interorganizational bickering. In traditional horizontal work streams, the gap between current status and the goal starts out far wider, and a feeling of urgency does not build up until a short time before the day of reckoning. Yet it is precisely at that point that committed teams kick into a high-creativity mode and begin to experiment with new ideas to get results.
That kick comes right away in rapid-results initiatives. They delegate execution risk to project teams, which are responsible for staying on time and on budget, but they inadvertently leave themselves carrying the full burden of white space and integration risk.
In World Bank projects, as in most complex and strategically critical efforts, these risks can be huge. When executives assign a team responsibility for a result, however, the team is free—indeed, compelled—to find out what activities will be needed to produce the result and how those activities will fit together. This approach puts white space and integration risk onto the shoulders of the people doing the work.
And in the end, they are rewarded not for performing a series of tasks but for delivering real value. Their success is correlated with benefits to the organization, which will come not only from implementing known activities but also from identifying and integrating new activities.
The milk productivity team in Nicaragua, for example, found out early on that the quantity of milk production was not the issue. The real problem was quality: Distributors were being forced to dump almost half the milk they had bought due to contamination, spoilage, and other problems.
So the challenge was to produce milk acceptable to large distributors and manufacturers that complied with international quality standards. The collaboration also identified the need for simple equipment such as a centrifuge that could test the quality of batches quickly.
The quality of milk improved steadily in the initial stage of the effort. Rather than invest in refrigeration facilities, the Parmalat team member now assured of the quality of the milk suggested that the company conduct collection runs in the area daily rather than twice weekly. Despite the obvious benefits of rapid-results initiatives, few companies should use them to replace the horizontal activities altogether. Because of their economies of scale, horizontal activities are a cost-efficient way to work.
And so it is the job of the leadership team to balance rapid-results initiatives with longer-term horizontal activities, help spread insights from team to team, and blend everything into an overall implementation strategy. In Nicaragua, the vertical teams drew members from the horizontal teams, but these people continued to work on the horizontal streams as well, and each team benefited from the work of the others. So, for example, when the milk productivity team discovered the need to educate farmers in clean-milking practices, the horizontal training team knew to adjust the design of its overall training programs accordingly.
The adhesive-material and office-product company Avery Dennison took a similar approach, creating a portfolio of rapid-results initiatives and horizontal work streams as the basis for its overall growth acceleration strategy.
Just over a year ago, the company was engaged in various horizontal activities like new technology investments and market studies. In August , Neal and president Dean Scarborough tested the vertical approach in three North American divisions, launching 15 rapid-results teams in a matter of weeks.
One was charged with securing one new order for an enhanced product, refined in collaboration with one large customer, within days. Another focused on signing up three retail chains so it could use that experience to develop a methodology for moving into new distribution channels.
A third aimed to book several hundred thousand dollars in sales in days by providing—through a collaboration with three other suppliers—all the parts needed by a major customer. By December, it had become clear that the vertical growth initiatives were producing results, and the management team decided to extend the process throughout the company, supported by an extensive employee communication campaign. The horizontal activities continued, but at the same time dozens of teams, involving hundreds of people, started working on rapid-results initiatives.
CEO Rob Fishman and chief underwriting officer Gary Kaplan commissioned and launched dozens of rapid-results initiatives between April and December Their overall long-term objectives were to improve their financial performance and strengthen relationships with core clients. A good EAP strategy considers the latest innovations in business processes, organizational structure, information systems and technologies. It will also include standard language and best practices for business processes, including analyzing where processes can be integrated or eliminated throughout the organization.
The ultimate goal of any EAP strategy is to improve the efficiency, timeliness and reliability of business information. EA can offer support for re-designs and re-organization, especially during major organizational changes, mergers or acquisitions.
EA is also used in system development, IT management and decision-making, and IT risk management to eliminate errors, system failures and security breaches. It can also help businesses navigate complex IT structures or to make IT more accessible to other business units. Therefore, several frameworks exist to help companies effectively implement and track EAP. These are just four of the most commonly referenced and recognized EA methodologies, but others exist.
These frameworks are specifically targeted to individual industries or products, targeting more of a niche market than the more generalized EA methodologies listed above. Enterprise architects need several soft skills to be successful, including communication, problem-solving, critical thinking, leadership and teamwork.
According to PayScale, the most commonly reported hard skills for an IT enterprise architect include:. For more see, " 7 traits of successful enterprise architecture. View PDF. Save to Library Save. Create Alert Alert. Share This Paper. Figures and Tables from this paper. View 1 excerpt, references background. Collaborative Evolution of Enterprise Architecture Models. Enterprise Architecture EA management seeks to align business and IT while realizing cost saving potentials, improving availability and fault tolerance, and increasing flexibility of an … Expand.
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