{"id":115452,"date":"2026-11-11T11:37:20","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T10:37:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/industry-science.com\/?post_type=article&p=115452"},"modified":"2026-11-11T11:38:40","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T10:38:40","slug":"skills-for-sustainable-enterprise-architectures-in-a-vuca-world","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/industry-science.com\/en\/articles\/skills-for-sustainable-enterprise-architectures-in-a-vuca-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Skills for Sustainable Enterprise Architectures in a VUCA World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Abstract.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our understanding of enterprise architecture (EA) is evolving from \u00a0EA as a way to align business and information technology to EA as enabler of \u00a0organizational innovation and sustainability. This perspective fits the new \u00a0realities of today\u2019s global business environment, which can be described through the acronym VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and \u00a0Ambiguity). In a VUCA world, it is extremely important to create EAs that are \u00a0sustainable, i.e. that can last a long time and evolve in response to internal and \u00a0external changes. The new VUCA world and the need for sustainable yet agile \u00a0EAs create new requirements for EA skills that will be valuable in the future. In \u00a0this paper, we present an exploratory conceptual study of VUCA characteristics \u00a0and skills in the context of sustainable EA. Our contributions are the new \u00a0conceptualization of the skills and of the approaches that enterprise architects \u00a0can use to develop these new skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An enterprise architecture (EA) includes the strategy plans, organizational charts, \u00a0procedural instructions to business process models, application landscape and \u00a0network plans as well as software structure and data models that help an organization \u00a0maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of its information technology (IT) while minimizing the risk [1]. An EA attempts \u201cto optimize across the enterprise the often fragmented legacy of processes (both manual and automated) into an integrated \u00a0environment that is responsive to change and supportive of the delivery of the \u00a0business strategy\u201d [2]. A good EA can help companies create synergies from an integrated IT strategy, respond to changing business needs though innovation, and \u00a0ultimately achieve competitive advantage [2]. This alignment of IT and business objectives has helped establish the importance of EA for both theory and practice. \u00a0The understanding of the EA term is continuously evolving, and it now encompasses \u00a0three schools of thought with different belief systems, definitions, assumptions and \u00a0implications: enterprise IT architecting (which views EA as the glue between business \u00a0and IT), enterprise integrating (which views EA as the link between strategy and execution), and enterprise ecological adaptation (which views EA as the means for \u00a0innovation and sustainability) [3]. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enterprise architects are central members of an EA team and play a leading role in  achieving the EA goals by ensuring the EA completeness (addressing the concerns of  all stakeholders) and integrity (linking different perspectives, reconciling differences,  and explaining tradeoffs) [2]. Enterprise architects need skills to gather and articulate  a vision, coach and lead others, liaison between the business and technical groups,  and operate with complex technology and industry concepts [2]. Since the EA  development process can be very complex, and involve many actors (stakeholders,  business executives and middle managers, project managers, designers, etc.),  enterprise architects need to make sense of this complexity, identify critical details to  concentrate on, adopt a practical view and develop fit-for-purpose (rather than  theoretical) architectures. Thus, they need inductive rather than deductive skills as  well [2].  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The job of the enterprise architect is becoming increasingly difficult because the nature of today\u2019s business environment is more dynamic than ever before – defying \u00a0confident diagnosis and full of traps to navigate [4, 5]. As the environment is no \u00a0longer easy to understand and complex cooperation and interaction networks emerge, \u00a0companies find it hard to plan their actions in line with pre-determined static \u00a0objectives. A way to describe these turbulent environmental conditions and their \u00a0oftentimes destabilizing effects for organizations is through the acronym VUCA \u00a0(Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity). VUCA was first coined by the \u00a0U.S. military in the 1990\u2019s and is now used by business leaders throughout the world [4, 5, 6, 7]. Volatility refers to unstable situations and unpredictable change (in nature, \u00a0speed, volume, magnitude, and dynamics) [4, 5]. Uncertainty refers to a lack of \u00a0relevant information necessary to predict effects or actions – truths considered to be \u00a0undeniable are no longer valid and executives can no longer base their decisions on \u00a0past events. Complexity refers to situations that have many interconnected parts and \u00a0massive amounts of information, creating a complex set of conditions in which cause-effect relationships and long-term effects become very complicated. Finally, ambiguity refers to situation where there is doubt about the nature of a relationship, \u00a0particularly the cause-and-effect dynamic of that relationship. This ambiguity is \u00a0sometimes caused by situational newness and the doubt that can occur when trying to \u00a0make decisions within this new context [4, 5, 6, 7]. The main difference between \u00a0complexity and ambiguity is that ambiguity most often involves change \u2013 so that the \u00a0\u201crules of the game\u201d become unknown. For example, moving into foreign markets is a complex situation that involves managing numerous, new and multipart rules and \u00a0regulations. Moving from print to digital media, however, is an ambiguous situation, \u00a0since the customers\u2019 behavior in the new technology environment is not fully known [5]. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a VUCA world, it is extremely important to create sustainable EAs \u2013 \u00a0architectures that are long-living, but can be efficiently maintained and evolved [8, 9] \u00a0and thus can endure and \u201ctolerate changes resulting from shifts in requirements, environment, technologies, business strategies and goals\u201d [10]. Sustainability of EAs can be viewed from five perspectives \u2013 economic (effects on value creation\/profitability), environmental (effects on natural ecosystems and resources), \u00a0individual (effects on individual well-being), social (effects on equity, justice, etc.), \u00a0and technical (longevity of the system) [10]. Sustainable EAs fit the enterprise \u00a0ecological adaptation conceptualization of EA [3]. They can help increase corporate \u00a0agility \u2013 the ability to adapt to the unexpected changes of the VUCA environment\u2013 by positively impacting a company\u2019s time to market, flexibility, innovation, quality and profitability [9]. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, the new VUCA world and the need for sustainable yet agile EAs create new \u00a0requirements for EA skills that are future-proof. However, according to Bob \u00a0Johansen, a distinguished fellow with the Institute for the Future in Silicon Valley, \u00a0confusion about VUCA is paramount: \u201cIf you are not confused, you’re not paying attention\u201d [11]. Academics echo this opinion, finding that the VUCA definition is \u00a0unclear, which in turn leads to a lack of information around the skills needed for a \u00a0VUCA world [5]. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To shed light on these issues, we present the results of a conceptual study \u2013 a \u201cnon-empirical study of ideas related to real objects\u201d [12] intended to build an exploratory \u00a0framework for VUCA characteristics and skills for sustainable EA. The methodology \u00a0involves identifying the knowledge gap, adopting a conceptual exploratory method, \u00a0identifying relevant books and peer-reviewed articles, extracting the key concepts and \u00a0conducting snowball-type searches to find other concepts\/ideas, analyzing and synthesizing the concepts, and proposing an exploratory framework [12]. The \u00a0contributions of the paper are a) the first (to our knowledge) conceptualization for \u00a0VUCA skills in general and EA skills in a VUCA world in particular and b) practical \u00a0recommendations for methods, tools and frameworks for developing these new skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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