“Execution is the great unaddressed issue in the business world today.  Its absence is the single biggest obstacle to success and the cause of most of the disappointments that are mistakenly attributed to other causes.” – Ram Charan, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done

Yesterday, after a particularly trying conference call, I tweeted “too many inventors, too few executors”.  Later in the day, I ran across the above Ram Charan quote while sampling Alan Fine’s You Already Know How to be Great.

I think it’d be a fair statement to substitute “business” with “enterprise architecture” in Charan’s quote: ‘Execution is the great unaddressed issue in the enterprise architecture world today’.

Too many enterprise architecture teams eschew project management and delivery responsibilities, and then complain, no one listens, or uses their ideas. These disappointments are attributed to communication issues, shortsightedness, and lack of management support.

While those issues might exist, perhaps the root cause is lack of execution ability on part of the enterprise architecture team.  If you can’t transition your idea to practice, why do you think your constituents can?

For enterprise architecture success, your team must include the rarest of EA types, someone who sets (or gets) the vision, and can strategize and drive the execution.

If I was feeling marketing, rather than preachy, I’d tell you I have a tremendous ability to execute. 🙂