The latest Gartner® report, How Can Heads of EA Help Design Strategic Portfolios?, available for download on our website, highlights key strategies to help Enterprise Architects (EAs) effectively support strategic portfolio planning. Among these strategies, the use of business architecture techniques, particularly business capability planning, is suggested as a tool that can support value delivery.
The Essential Enterprise Architecture Management Tool is perfectly positioned to enable Heads of EA and their teams to support the design of strategic portfolios to bridge the gap between strategy and execution. By leveraging Essential’s features, organisations can utilise established business architecture techniques to align their portfolios with business goals and maximise outcomes.
How the Essential EA Management Tool Supports Strategic Portfolio Design
The Gartner report identifies various business architecture techniques, and Essential provides features to effectively implement these methods:
- Essential’s Business Capability Dashboard and Value Stream Analysis
Use to ensure portfolios are aligned with organisational strategies, critical business capabilities and required business outcomes - Essential’s Business Portfolio Modelling and Strategic Roadmap Planning
Use to:- Identify and assess new opportunities
- Support prioritisation of initiatives
- Address capability gaps within the portfolio

Essential Support for Strategic Portfolio Design
Tailoring Deliverables to Executive Temperaments
The Gartner report also highlights how different executive temperaments influence their response to business architecture deliverables. Essential’s tailored views allow EAs to effectively communicate and gain buy-in from the various executive types highlighted in the report:
- Abdicator – Essential’s Business Portfolio Manager can present a list of options to be selected from.
- Opportunist – Essential’s Business Strategy Overview to highlight alignment with strategic goals.
- Cowboy – Essential’s Value Stream Maps delivers clear insights into processes and value streams.
- Entrepreneur – Essential’s Roadmap Dashboard can highlight interdependencies and impacts on other projects and portfolios.
Summary
The Essential Enterprise Architecture Management Tool equips EAs with the business architecture tools they need to support Portfolio Leaders in the design of strategic portfolios.
To learn more, download Gartner’s report, How Can Heads of EA Help Design Strategic Portfolios? here.
To discuss how Essential can support your strategic portfolio management planning contact us.
Useful Links
How Enterprise Architecture relates to Business Strategy