Enterprise Architects (Part I)

Name: Enterprise Architects (Part I)
Rating: 4.5 (13 reviews)

Introduction to Enterprise Architects

Created bySvyatoslav Kotusev

Last updated 5/2025

English

What you'll learn

The notion of digital transformation with its drivers and challenges in organizations
Digital transformation initiatives with their ideation, implementation and hierarchy
The meaning of architectural planning with its technical and organizational sides
Competencies, specifics, occupation and personality of enterprise architects
The place of enterprise architects in the organizational environment and their value

Course content

5 sections • 30 lectures • 4h 16m total length

Lecture 1.1: The Historical Evolution of IT6:01
Trace the historical evolution of information technology across four epochs—from process automation to digital transformation—and examine how the internet, online business, and artificial intelligence reshape modern organizations.
Lecture 1.2: Digital Transformation in Organizations3:40
Digital transformation in organizations uses old and new information technologies to optimize existing processes, enable new products, and drive radically new business models through coordinated cross-functional efforts.
Lecture 1.3: Drivers of Digital Transformation16:57
Identify six digital transformation drivers, deliberate intentions, emergent opportunities, operational problems, ad hoc demands, permanent imperatives, and technical concerns, and their links to business strategy and motivational context.
Lecture 1.4: Technical Challenges of Digital Transformation5:35
Explore technical challenges of digital transformation, including selecting information systems, integrating them into complex landscapes, ensuring security, and navigating IoT complexity and deployment options.
Lecture 1.5: Organizational Challenges of Digital Transformation14:52
Address the organizational challenges of digital transformation by aligning business and IT for synergy, balancing conflicting interests across units and levels, and navigating evolving regulatory constraints.

Lecture 2.1: Digital Transformation Initiatives3:51
Explore how digital transformation initiatives convert organizational drivers into ideas for IT-driven change, producing meaningful, coherent, and manageable initiatives with clear goals and ongoing ideation.
Lecture 2.2: Implementation of Digital Transformation Initiatives7:22
Implement digital transformation initiatives through a three-phase process: conception, planning, and execution, moving from idea to concept to plan to delivery with increasing commitment, exertion, and funding demands.
Lecture 2.3: Stakeholders of Digital Transformation Initiatives4:51
Identify and map the diverse stakeholders of digital transformation, from initiative sponsors to executors, and understand how power, interests, and conflicts shape conception and execution.
Lecture 2.4: Different Types of Digital Transformation Initiatives6:42
Classify digital transformation initiatives into projects, programs, and strategies, and compare their scope, timelines, stakeholders, and outcomes.
Lecture 2.5: The Hierarchy of Digital Transformation Initiatives11:26
Map the hierarchy of digital transformation initiatives, from autonomous initiatives to derivative programs and projects, and learn how motivational context shapes planning, execution, and delivery across levels.
Lecture 2.6: Execution of Digital Transformation Projects6:13
Explore the execution of digital transformation projects through building, testing, and deployment, driven by multi-profile project teams; compare waterfall and agile methods and their practical enterprise mix.
Lecture 2.7: Technical and Organizational Challenges of Initiatives7:18
Explore how technical granularity and stakeholder diversity shape challenges across projects, programs, and strategies in digital transformation, showing technical challenges dominate projects while organizational challenges rise at the strategy level.

Lecture 3.1: The Notion of Architectural Planning6:09
Explore architectural planning as a collaborative process to develop architectural decisions, solutions, and plans for digital transformation initiatives, guiding execution across projects, programs, and strategies.
Lecture 3.2: Stakeholders of Architectural Planning6:34
Identify and balance primary and secondary initiative stakeholders in architectural planning for digital transformation, from business executives to operations specialists, shaping architectural solutions and material architectural plans.
Lecture 3.3: Technical and Organizational Sides of Planning13:29
Explore the technical and organizational sides of architectural planning, showing how technical solutions meet business needs and how organizational solutions balance stakeholder interests.
Lecture 3.4: Organizational Domains Relevant to Planning6:09
Identify six organizational domains—business, applications, data, integration, infrastructure, and security—and their place in a multi-layer stack for digital transformation planning.
Lecture 3.5: Organizational Domains and Architectural Solutions13:14
Explore how organizational domains map to architectural solutions, distinguishing technical versus non-technical, functional versus non-functional, and substantive versus non-substantive domains, driving digital transformation.
Lecture 3.6: Architectural Planning at Different Levels10:57
Explore architectural planning across strategy, program, and project levels in digital transformation initiatives, detailing how technical and organizational solutions vary in granularity and flow from parent to project levels.

Lecture 4.1: Competencies and Occupation of Enterprise Architects4:48
Enterprise architects lead architectural planning and enable digital transformation by aligning it with business needs, navigating the external and internal it environment, and communicating with leaders.
Lecture 4.2: Enterprise Architects and Enterprise Architecture7:02
Enterprise architects use EA artifacts to align business and IT and guide digital transformation through artifacts like solution overviews, target states, and architecture strategies.
Lecture 4.3: Enterprise Architects as Internal Consultants8:17
Learn how enterprise architects act as internal management consultants who influence managers through informal, trusted advice and two interaction forms, voluntary and mandatory, in digital transformation contexts.
Lecture 4.4: Enterprise Architects as City Planners3:54
Explore how enterprise architects resemble city planners, viewing organizations as evolving cities with landscapes and buildings. Highlight daily decisions, technical and value tensions, and the limits of planning.
Lecture 4.5: Enterprise Architects at Work13:54
Enterprise architects influence organizational decision making across the digital transformation lifecycle, from ideation and conception to planning and execution, by engaging stakeholders, proposing initiatives, and supervising implementation.
Lecture 4.6: Two Hats of Enterprise Architects17:18
Demonstrate how enterprise architects wear two hats—technology experts and change agents—to merge technical designs with organizational change for digital transformations.

Lecture 5.1: Enterprise Architects in the Organizational Structure4:47
Discover how enterprise architects reside in the architecture function, drive digital transformation through architectural planning, and deliver services to all units through the delivery function.
Lecture 5.2: Enterprise Architects in the Position Ecosystem8:30
Enterprise architects occupy a unique position between business and IT, and exclusively lead architectural planning and digital transformation efforts across the organization.
Lecture 5.3: Enterprise Architects in the Strategy Execution Chain2:25
Enterprise architects translate abstract business considerations into actionable prescriptions for IT professionals by bridging business leaders and project teams in the strategy execution chain.
Lecture 5.4: Enterprise Architects in the Industry2:56
Explore how enterprise architects fit the industry context across organizations with IT departments and information systems, startups, and B2B providers, and why informal or part-time roles shape hiring shortages.
Lecture 5.5: The Value of Enterprise Architects for Organizations6:48
Explain how enterprise architects deliver robust decisions, translation between business and IT, and strategic alignment to guide digital transformations.
Lecture 5.6: Who Enterprise Architects Are Not24:38
Enterprise architects are not business strategists or universal transformers; they act as change agents and business communicators who orchestrate digital transformation through participative planning, stakeholder engagement, and better decision making.

Requirements

Basic understanding of both business and IT

Description

Part I of the course Enterprise Architects provides a general introduction to enterprise architects and the overall context in which they operate. This part discusses different aspects of digital transformation in organizations, the role, personality and activities of enterprise architects as its leading agents, the meaning of architectural planning as the central duty that they perform and their place in the organizational environment.

Part I consists of five consecutive sections:

Section 1 (Digital Transformation) introduces the very notion of digital transformation, different types of transformation drivers that stimulate the respective efforts and the most typical technical and organizational challenges associated with them
Section 2 (Digital Transformation Initiatives) describes digital transformation initiatives in organizations, their initial origination, implementation lifecycle and stakeholder groups, their typology, hierarchy and nuances of execution at different levels
Section 3 (Architectural Planning) discusses architectural planning with its technical and organizational sides, different domains relevant to architectural planning and the planning of hierarchical digitalization initiatives
Section 4 (Welcome, Enterprise Architects) introduces enterprise architects as the agents of digital transformation, explains the specifics of their role in organizations, describes their work in change initiatives and discusses the two hats that they wear
Section 5 (Enterprise Architects in Context) explains the place of enterprise architects in the organizational structure, ecosystem and environment, their costs, benefits and value propositions for organizations, as well as who they are definitely not

Who this course is for:

Aspiring solution and enterprise architects
Students of enterprise architecture
All other people interested in the occupation of enterprise architects

Enterprise Architects (Part I)

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Section 1: Digital Transformation5 lectures • 47min

Section 2: Digital Transformation Initiatives7 lectures • 48min

Section 3: Architectural Planning6 lectures • 57min

Section 4: Welcome, Enterprise Architects6 lectures • 55min

Section 5: Enterprise Architects in Context6 lectures • 50min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: