Do you have a language barrier? Do you have a language barrier without even realizing it?
Welcome again to our EDS Touchpoints, where we talk about about Enterprise Design Services. Enterprise Design Services is a one-stop-shop for delivering Enterprise Architecture, Business Design and Information Management. These three practices all intersect in a sweet spot when you, as an example, develop new customer facing digital services.
We are Nils and Julia, two members of the Enterprise Design Services team, and we are writing this blog to discuss about recent topics in the fast paced, changing, more and more digital world. We interview experts on their field of specialty and want to understand what it takes for businesses to make it in today’s competitive world.
Do you have a language barrier without even realizing it? – Defining common business concepts
In this post we interview Riikka Huttunen, an Enterprise Architect in the Enterprise Design Services (EDS) team, to learn the importance of defining a common language and how to avoid a language barrier.
Q: Could you introduce yourself in two sentences and tell us more about your role KPMG?
I work as Enterprise Architect specializing in Information Architecture and data management in the Enterprise Design Services Team. I have collected over 10 years of experience in several similar roles.
Q: What does an information architect do?
Information architecture revolves around the data that organization handles, needs to operate and to make decisions.
As an information architect you often need to go to the most profound concepts and terms of what a business is working with. So, for example how they understand their customers, what kind of products they offer and how do they offer their products or services. It’s not just about the data in systems, even though that is also important to understand.
Q: What happens when companies do not define their core concepts?
Common symptoms are repeated misunderstandings between different organizational units of a company. People think they talk about the same things but still understand those things differently. For example, sales might think about a customer in much broader terms than accounting.
This especially shows during larger IT-projects. When even organization’s business units do not have a unified understanding of common core concepts it makes it particularly challenging to form requirements around those concepts and implement those into IT system correctly.