The Enterprise Architecture and Complexity paper was created by Jackie O’Dowd August 2024 to advance the conversation on the inherent complexity found in the majority of Enterprise Architectures that almost every organisation, regardless of size or industry, must content with.

Business and Enterprise Architectures commonly describe the logical organisation and alignment of ICT infrastructure, applications, business processes and data into the organisation’s operating model. The connection between the designed conceptual model and its actual implementation is important. It is important because Enterprise Architectures typically comprise several reference architectures which describe how the various technologies and layers fit and work together. Having clarity and visibility of these reference architectures is crucial as they translate requirements into an integrated technology and systems solution. However, with each reference architecture and additional component comes increasingly broad complexity, often involving non-linear relationships and ad-hoc feedback loops along with other emergent properties that may only surface once systems are in use. It’s fair to say that in the world of Enterprise Architecture, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. 

Historically, efforts have emphasised simplifying complexity. From an Enterprise Architecture perspective, simplification can introduce its own set of problems, such as loss of context, a shift to reductionist thinking, and not having visibility of emergent risk.