Why Traditional EA Conversations Still Sound Right but Achieve Nothing

The Sunil (ICMG)–Anil/Steve (Name changed for privacy) Exchange.

This interaction highlights a subtle but recurring pattern in the global Enterprise Architecture community — where practitioners appear aligned in language but remain fundamentally divided in meaning.

1. Context

Anil/Steve publicly agree with the critique that “Enterprise Architecture” has been reduced to IT project governance.

However, their corrective language — educate, document, rationalize, optimize — exposes the persistence of the same IT Governance mindset that caused the problem in the first place.

They still define EA as a combination of:

• Business domain awareness

• IT literacy

• Improved documentation and alignment

This framing assumes that the absence of domain knowledge with IT people is the root cause — implying that “education” will fix Enterprise Architecture. But they are not able to understand that it is only aimed at fixing Enterprise Architecture within IT Function only.

2. Sunil’s Response

Sunil reframes the entire issue. He clarifies that:

• The vocabulary itself (educate, rationalize) perpetuates the problem.

• The real failure lies in the loss of visibility of enterprise anatomy — the 15 Function (Departments) and 6 perspectives (P1–P6) that define how an enterprise functions.

• The goal is not to train or convince executives but to make the anatomy visible. Once the anatomy is modeled, it becomes self-evident; no education campaign is required.

This marks a philosophical shift from governance → anatomy.

3. Diagnostic Observation

The exchange exposes the structural misalignment between traditional EA IT practitioners and anatomical thinkers:

• Traditional EA IT practitioners focus on IT, process, and awareness.

• Anatomical thinkers focus on visibility, linkage, and systemic interdependence across Departments.

Until the internal anatomy of the Enterprise is revealed — showing Strategy (P1) through Operations (P6) as one coherent system — Traditional EA IT Practitioners will continue to be ignored by Business Leaders.

4. Reflection

Anil/Steve speaks the old language that management does not understand & needing education; Sunil speaks the language of Anatomical restoration.

The case stands as a live example of why the discipline itself must evolve from IT Thinking to Enterprise Thinking, from education to visibility, and from IT alignment to Enterprise Anatomy.