Wide Angle

I'll admit, before this class, I don't think I'd ever heard of Enterprise Architecture.  If I had, I dismissed it as one of my school engineers, "techno-babble."  While I was reading, I couldn't help thinking about how EA is more than an organizational framework, it's a thought process.

Before entering the education profession, I worked in the private sector.  The best managers I ever had were those with an understanding of the "big picture."  These people paid attention to what departments other than theirs, and understood how everything was interconnected.  After reading Chapter 1 in Bernard, it seems that those who we would call good managers, and CEO's were implementing a form of EA on their own.  Like Obi-Wan Kenobi told the Gungans on Naboo in Star Wars Episode 1, everything is interconnected, what happens in one department has an impact on others.  EA is understanding and planning for that impact.

In my current environment, an understanding of EA would help teachers understand why the technology department makes decisions.  We currently have some lack of communication between the two, which leads to frustrated feelings.  If we were able to have an open conversation and see into the realm of the technology department, we could potentially be partners in educating our students, and not (self) perceived as opposing forces.