Systems, Architecture and Systems Architecture

If architecting is socio-technical, then “progress” depends on more than technical correctness: it depends on coordination across stakeholders. The enterprise architecture literature is direct about this: communication and stakeholders are key problem areas, and a “lack of communication and collaboration” is characterized as a core obstacle to effective work (Kurnia et al., 2021, p. 4).

Engagement is not a soft add-on

Stakeholder engagement is treated as critical and defined as an umbrella concept covering communication, collaboration, mutual understanding, and partnership; more specifically, it involves active communication, collaborative decision-making, and mutual commitment (Kurnia et al., 2021, p. 3). That definition is operational: it tells you what engagement looks like when it is working.

Why decisions are difficult even when the design is “obvious”

Kurnia et al. (2021) describe how decisions often require agreement among broader circles of decision-makers, making agreement hard; conflicting stakeholder priorities generate disputes over objectives and complicate agreement (pp. 7, 16). Hierarchical stratification introduces communication barriers across levels of decision-makers and makes productive dialogue and collaborative decision-making more problematic (p. 18).

Crucially, the study identifies inhibitors that can derail engagement, including the inability of business stakeholders to work with EA artifacts, which undermines meaningful dialogue between business and IT stakeholders (Kurnia et al., 2021, p. 17).

What to do in practice

• Run a “stakeholder map” for every major decision: who must agree, who influences, who implements, who operates.
• Reduce “agreement surface area”: decide what must be agreed now versus what can be delegated.
• Create an explicit “priority collision” step: surface conflicting objectives early (cost vs reliability; speed vs compliance).
• Reduce hierarchy barriers by designing an escalation path that preserves dialogue rather than short-circuiting it.
• Improve artifact literacy: treat “ability to work with artifacts” as a capability to develop, not a stakeholder defect.

Bibliography

Kurnia, S., Kotusev, S., Shanks, G., Dilnutt, R., & Milton, S. (2021). Stakeholder engagement in enterprise architecture practice: What inhibitors are there? Information and Software Technology, 134, 106536.