Compliance at the project level is essential for enterprise architecture success. Without compliance, investment in enterprise architecture design will be wasted as it fails to gain traction at the level where it really matters. Therefore, since compliance in any context is rarely an outcome of random decision-making, some form of governance is required to help encourage the right behaviours and decisions, even where there’s no brazen defiance of the enterprise architecture guidelines.

But initiating an expansive governance programme with complex processes, detailed templates and a new organisation also can be counter-productive. The negative consequences could include lengthy delivery of the desired results, box-ticking for technical compliance but not producing what the business needs, and the development of antagonism between the governors and the governed.

This approach seems rather heavy-handed where, for the most part, non-compliance is the result of either doing the easiest thing at the time or a lack of awareness that the decisions being made contradict an established standard or policy.

Rather, any organisation with an enterprise architecture must develop a culture of consistent compliance through increased awareness and convenience of exercise.

Most compliant behaviour results from convenience and awareness, but focus on convenience

Discounting deliberate non-compliance as a contributor, there are two primary dimensions that drive compliant behaviour:

• Convenience of doing the right thing; if it’s easy to do, then your constituents are more likely to comply with the rules
• Awareness of what the right thing is; if you don’t know the rules, then only common sense prevails and technical decision-making isn’t always (rarely?) common sense.

The diagram illustrates the combination of these two dimensions to produce four general scenarios.

Chaos results from high barriers to compliance and low levels of awareness of rules & standards, as ignorant decision-makers choose the path of least resistance to achieve tactical outcomes.

Frustrated Disorder results when decision-makers are aware of the right way of doing things, but are faced with high barriers to achieving compliance; people are forced to knowingly do the wrong things as their decision making is channelled away from compliance.

Accidental Compliance is a state resulting from the condition where the barriers to compliance are low, making it easier to naturally do the right thing, but there is general ignorance of the rules; here, the right thing is done by default but, typically, inconsistently.

Deliberate Order is the Nirvana state, where compliance is as convenient, if not more, than doing the wrong thing and awareness of the rules is high; the right decisions are facilitated by reinforcing environmental conditions and an informed constituent acts as agents for compliance, with consistent and repeatable results.

Note that this model suggests that making people aware of the rules and guidelines without providing the facility to comply with relative ease will only result in a frustrated and disillusioned constituency. Surprisingly, many governance implementations feature a detailed communication of the rules and new processes that often disregard the current way of doing things. Perhaps this explains the poor reputation that architecture governance has earned – all it takes is one poor experience for a frustrated architect to tell his / her colleagues, fellow professionals and future employers, emulating the reputation network effect for marketing – it’s harder to go from good to great than to tumble down the league.

Haste and forced urgency results in inconsistency and tends compliance outcome toward chaos

We know the scenario all too well. A dictum from above increases the urgency for a project and applying normal procedures to ensure the outcome is compliant are now viewed as an impedement to the business. "Treat this one as an exception …" is the direction and the governance processes are circumvented. This signals a convenient alternative to other project managers who are always pressed to find faster ways of delivering. Before you know it, this ‘exception’ is being accepted as a norm, devaluing the enterprise architecture and, by ironic extension, resulting in a general failure to enable the business strategy.

Therefore, it is essential that any governance solution includes a defined ‘exception’ process that provides a convenient but procedural means of ensuring the same compliant outcome as for any other project. This would be achieved with an effective prioritisation framework that may accelerated the pace of decision-making for urgent projects, but in relation to the other priorities for the enterprise.

Develop a culture of acceptable behaviour to strengthen compliance

Communicate your enterprise architecture vision to every constituent group, ensuring that the message and benefits are relevant to each audience. Without a common vision that corresponds to the role of each member, the message will be lost and individuals will work towards their own interests and not that of the common good.

Once the common vision (and common good) has been articulated and accepted, then it will be easier to allow the natural social pressures of acceptable behaviour to help add weight to compliant behaviour. For example, specifying a new COTS solution application that has not been included on the EA roadmap for a project solution would result in a loss of reputation for the solution architect at the next architecture review board – not a good look. This pressure will also encourage architects to ask questions from domain engineers to ensure that their designs are compliant, improving collaboration and demolishing those ivory walls.

Clearly, architectures and technical designs that are discordant with the enterprise architecture will produce consequences felt at the business management level. Establishing a culture for compliance across the organisation will ensure that non-compliance will be unacceptable at ever level – it will no longer be non-compliance within IT, it will be non-compliance with the business as a whole, raising the stakes for anyone bold enough to defy the EA.

Conclusion – make convenience a priority and reinforce compliant behaviours with a postive culture

• Make it convenient to do the right thing first, then improve awareness of the rules to drive compliant behaviour
• Ensure urgent ‘exceptions’ don’t derail your governance initiative by establishing a process for managing exceptions in a prioritisation framework
• Develop a strong culture of acceptability and make everyone a stakeholder in the outcome, encouraging the connection with business enablement.

Common sense, isn’t it?