Ken Hales obtained a BSC engineering degree (Electrical) from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1983, and after national service as a signals project officer, and joined Eskom as a systems engineer.

After working at Eskom’s national control centre, a power station and corporate head office, in 1989 he took on the responsibility of establishing the “information management” function of Eskom’s Generation division. During this time he pioneered formal strategic IS planning and the use of structured application development methods in Eskom.

In 1994, Ken was appointed Chief Engineer (Information Architecture) in Eskom’s Transmission division, responsible for developing an information vision and architecture and co-ordinating the implementation thereof. He led the development and implementation of an integrated client server application suite supporting the Transmission business.

In 1996, he was appointed Chief Information Architect, Eskom Corporate. In 2002 he led a project to consolidate and mature the enterprise architecture effort in response to the transformation of the electricity industry. In 2004, Ken was appointed Eskom’s Corporate Consultant (Enterprise Architecture).

Ken has a passion for the transformational effects of information systems and technology on an organization’s working culture. Ken is single, lives in Midrand, and is an avid microlight pilot.

Presentation
Maturing the enterprise architecture process in a large corporation
Eskom, like many other companies, has grappled for many years with the implementation of an effective enterprise architecture effort. A diversity of approaches and architectures have been tried across the various divisions, with mixed results. The last four years have been spent consolidating our approach to enterprise architecture. A number of valuable insights and lessons learned have emerged in this period. In order to achieve sustainable improvements in a large corporation’s enterprise architecture effort, the nature and value proposition of enterprise architecture needs to be understood, and the enterprise architecture process need to be carefully designed, implemented and matured. Large organizations are characterized by a combination of formal command and control and tactical behavior, and the architecture process must be workable in this environment.

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