Jargons, Jargons & more Jargons
My Goodness, it never ends
As an EA, you’d think I’m somewhat of an expert when it comes to reading EA-specific articles. But the reality is, my eyes glaze over with all the jargon.
“We align investments with business strategy. Our EA function turns vision into actionable capability requirements.”
This is typical EA-speak. If you understood it in your bones and can visualize the activities that make this happen, excellent! Are you sure you’re not an EA??? :)
But if you’re like me, and your brain drifts off or you have to read it reeeaalllllyyy sssslllloooowww, then great — you’re just like me. A human.
Why is this hard? Because the moment I read these lines, my brain starts firing off questions.
“We align investments.” What investments? How are you aligning?
“With business strategy.” What’s your business strategy? How do you figure out which investments align with which strategy? Is that what alignment means? And don’t you need business folks for that?
“Our EA function.” What’s an EA function? Are you talking about the team or the organization?
“Turns vision.” What vision? Who sets the vision? Is it at the CEO level, EA team level, or enterprise level?
“Actionable capability requirements.” What’s a capability? Do you mean business capability? What requirements? What does actionable even mean?
Oh geez! I’m tired already.
Enterprise Architecture as a practice is complex — it lives in a very niche space within the enterprise. But we should aim to simplify it so a wider audience understands what we’re doing. If you ever catch me speaking in jargon, please call me out.
So, how would I simplify that statement? Honestly, I can’t make it sound elegant in just a few words. But here’s my attempt:
Before:
“We align investments with business strategy. Our EA function turns vision into actionable capability requirements.”
After:
“We (EA) figure out how money is used for technology so we can support the business in what they want to do. If the business has a vision or goal, we figure out what capabilities are needed and see how technology can help make it happen.”
How did I do?