Why are these Mandates so important?

Not only will the EA Mandates help the entire organization on its path toward digital transformation, they will also help you and your team to navigate the tough questions and decisions that you encounter while building modern solutions. By providing more explicit architectural guidance, we can begin to eliminate uncertainty and doubt within teams trying to do the right thing.

With the right processes in place to support you, we will be able to start building the foundational pieces that will accelerate the delivery of digital solutions across ExxonMobil – helping the business win now and in the future.

Who is impacted by this change?

The Mandates became effective July 1, 2018, and apply going forward to new solutions we buy or build.

• For the first 3 months (Jul 1 – Sep 30), the Mandates were applicable to projects in Stage 2 or earlier.
• The Mandates are now applicable to any effort where solution selection is not complete—including non-project based initiatives.

The Mandates apply in the following use cases:

• When we buy a solution from a vendor.
• When we build a solution ourselves.
• When we have third parties build a solution on our behalf.
• When we co-innovate or co-develop a solution with others.

What should I do if my solution cannot meet the mandates?

We know that meeting the mandates may be a challenge, especially at the beginning. We are enhancing our architectural guidance at every level to better support you throughout the process of designing, building and deploying modern application solutions.

The newly formed Architecture Strategy Council (ASC) is responsible for clarifying and supplementing existing architectural governance processes. The ASC leverages a collaborative approach to promote ownership of architecture broadly across the organization and to establish clear accountability for architectural deviations. While the Council is responsible for defining architectural guidance at the Enterprise level, we are relying on architects throughout the organization to self-identify specific solutions that deviate from the EA Principles and Mandates.