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Selecting approaches toEnterprise Architecture

Enterprise Architecture Conference EuropeLondon 17th June 2010

Sally Beansally@sallybean.com

External Environment

Running theEnterprise, day-to-day

How can we best apply Enterprise Architecture to manage complexity and change?

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Changing theEnterprise

StrategicThinking,

Policy and macro change

Change Projects

Bright Ideas

OperationalManagement

+ adaptive change

EA people today are engaged in a diverse set of activities

Coordinating technical infrastructure standards, patterns, & roadmaps

Design Authority overseeing IT Development Projects?

Portfolio analysis & planning of assets and projects?

Current state documentation/description?

Business design, enablement and innovation?

Solving multidisciplinary ‘wicked problems’?

…….

EA today has evolved from a number of distinct domain-oriented practices

Field Approaches/Frameworks/Gurus

Information planning/Engineering

Zachman 1, Clive Finkelstein

Technical Infrastructure Planning

TAFIM, Meta, Gartner, TOGAF 7

Business Process Improvement

BPR, BPM, Hammer&Champy

System Architecture

INCOSE, DODAF, MODAF, TOGAF 8 Fred Brooks

Component Architecture O-O, CBD, SOA

“Whole-Enterprise” Zachman2™ TOGAF™ v 9

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There’s usually a blend of different types of activity….

Prescriptive (City-Planning) Determining, agreeing and promoting fundamental principles,

policies, guidelines and standards to support the organisation’s operating model, cohesiveness and strategic direction

Descriptive (Blueprinting) Creating an aligned set of models and other artifacts that

define/coordinate key elements of business, its information systems and technologies or provide pattern-based knowledge

Programmatic (RouteMap) Designing a target state architecture and a coordinated portfolio

of projects to achieve it, including high-value ‘infrastructural elements’ that can be shared by organisations or projects

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….Often a variety of reasons for doing EA ..

Efficiency and Cost Reduction Avoid duplication of effort Contain technology variety

Flexibility, Innovation and Agility Enable faster change (processes, information content/distribution,

system functionality, technology) More effective performance and decision-making Exploitation of new technologies and information sources

Alignment and Integration Align IT change with strategic objectives and business intent Identify cross-departmental synergies, reduce inconsistencies and

disconnects Common source of knowledge for training

Risk Improve visibility and compliance with regulatory requirements Better understanding of interdependencies Reduce dependency on failing technologies

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Str

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….and different EA orientations

Horizontal EA: Promoting enterprise-wide coherence of domains (business activity, information, technology)

Vertical EA: Integrative approach to large programmesor issues, so that business changes and IT systems are vertically coherent across the scope of the programme.

Multi-Enterprise EA: organizations trying to join themselves up - with emphasis on defining business services and interoperability standards.

‘Whole-Enterprise’ EA: organizations establish governance policies, a framework and appropriate artifacts to promote incremental achievement of horizontal and vertical coherence.

Challenges for Enterprise Architecture

EA aims for structure, coherence and clarity yet is itself diverse and not always coherent Architecture or Engineering?

Role and Value of EA models?

IT-Driven or Business-Led?

Mechanistic approach of mainstream EA frameworks All have value but cannot be applied blindly - need to be adapted to

context and culture

Treat the organisation as a machine

“EA-Centric”- not clear how they fit into an organisation’s way of working

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This presentation is about making EA more realistic, accessible and inclusive

Blend structured EA thinking with other approaches to business change

Tailor approach to context and culture and allow for ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ complexity – you can only engineer what you understand

Develop an ‘EA operating model ’ that recognises that architecture is more of a discipline than a

department

is more accessible by people outside EA

Aim to diffuse architectural thinking across the organisation with a participative and progressive approach

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Other business disciplines with relevance to EA

Business Discipline Relvant Ideas and Contribututors

Strategy Mintzberg, Porter (Value Chain), Treacy/Wiersma (Value Disciplines), Geoffrey Moore (Chasm Model)Osterwalder (Business Model Canvas)

HR Organisation DesignLearning Organisation

Quality Deming, Lean, Six Sigma?

Commercial Design Design Thinking (Tim Brown, Roger Martin)

Knowledge Management Snowden (Cynefin model ),Davenport, Allee, Dervin, Wenger

Systems Thinking and Management Cybernetics Forrester (Systems Dynamics), Senge, Beer (Viable System Model), Checkland (Soft Systems Methodology), Ackoff (Idealized Design)

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Thinking about EA Approaches:Do we confuse Architecture and Engineering?

Architecture - Shaping Concerned with overall

context, purpose, conceptual integrity, structure, broad feasibility and sustainability

Pay more attention to whole than parts

Identify key elements and relationships that really matter

Requires generalists

Engineering - Producing Working to a clear

specification within overall architecture

Have to make things actually work

Pay more attention to parts than whole

Comprehensive and detailed Necessary for ‘hard’ systems,

dangerous for ‘soft’ ones Requires in-depth skills

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‘Hard’ and ‘Soft’ complexity (Checkland & Wilson)

Concorde Aircraft - a designed System with clearly defined physical characteristics Shape Technical Specification Operating Characteristics

Concorde Programme - a Human Activity System with many possible purposes: To transport people safely

at supersonic speed To provide prestige to a

national airline To celebrate technical and

engineering achievement To persuade the French to

let the Brits into the Common Market (EU)

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Peter Checkland on the Concorde programme

“The Systems Engineering thinking that we were armed with intellectually was not rich enough to deal with the

problematic situations we were trying to deal with”

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http://www.open2.net/systems/practice/pet.html

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Cynefin Sensemaking Framework (Snowden/Kurtz)5 Domains

SimpleCause and effect relations repeatable and

predictable

ComplicatedCause and effect separated

over time & space

ComplexCause and effect coherent only in

retrospect

ChaoticNo Cause and effect relationships

perceivable

ORDERUN-ORDER

INVISIBLE

VISIBLE

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Can be used to understand the type of approach that is most suitable in a given context

SimpleSense and Categorise

Take actionBEST PRACTICE

ComplicatedSense and Analyse

Utilise expertiseGOOD PRACTICE

ComplexProbe and Sense

ExperimentDistributed Cognition

EMERGENT

ChaoticAct and SenseTake Charge

NOVEL

ORDERUN-ORDER

INVISIBLE

VISIBLE

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Where might we place some typical IT activities according to the Cynefin model?

Simple

ComplicatedComplex

Chaos

Understanding new technical paradigms (e.g. cloud)

Coping with a System Failure

Infrastructure Operations

Physical Database design

Conceptual Data modelling

Coding simple data entry

Some perspectives relevant to modelling

The Conant-Ashby Theorem says that you cannot regulate a system without a model of it.

“All models are wrong, but some are useful” (Box)

EA models aim to represent some aspects of an enterprise Ontological models aim to represent things in the real world

Epistemological models are mental learning devices to explore ideas about the real world (Reynolds & Holwell)

“We always know more than we can say, and we will always say more than we can write down” (Snowden)

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Where might we position architectural activities?

Simple

ComplicatedComplex

Chaos

EA Practice

Development

EA Modelling

“Infrastructure”Component Architecture

Strategy

Exploration

Design

Exploitation

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EA OPERATING MODEL: how to relate Enterprise Architecture to other activities?

External Environment

Running theEnterprise, day-to-day

Changing theEnterprise

StrategicThinking

Policy, and macro change

Change Projects

Bright Ideas

OperationalManagement

+ adaptive change

Models of EA itself address particular facets of EA

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Zachman Framework?(Abstract content; no process)

Sogeti DYA FrameworkProcess-oriented

TOGAFIT process oriented

The DYA framework is easiest for a non-EA person to understand

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Environment

Template for a ‘blended’ approach to EA - A core of expertise supporting a distributed network of activities in Strategy, Change and Operations

‘CORE’ EA: Enterprise architects coordinate the practice of EA and design and manage EA artifacts – they contribute to other activities as required.

Running the Enterprise

Strategy(Business, Information, technology)

Change Projects and Programmes(Business, Information, Technology)

EA standards, principles and models document business strategy + high-level business/technology design decisions

EA promotes coherence, efficiency and flexibility in implementation projects

EA models provide a ‘big picture’ view of the organisation

‘DISTRIBUTED’ EA:Activities embedded in other business or IT activities

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An organisation can then create its own ‘operating model’ of EA involvement and influence

‘CORE’ EA:Principles & FrameworkEnterprise Model MgtStandards management

GovernanceCommunication ChannelsEtc….

ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE Shows varying levels of EA influence across major activity segmentations. Both the segmentations and the EA contributions are highly context-dependent

StrategyFormulation

Strategic Architecture

PortfolioPlanning

Experi-mentalProjects

ComplicatedProjects

Simple Projects

MgtBusinessActivities

EnablingBusinessActivities

CoreBusinessActivities

Project kick-off advice and Design Authority

Key Elements of Strategy

Enterprise Modelling

Patterns

Synergies and dependenciesRationale for programmes

Learning, Trouble-shootingPointers to sources of expertise and info

Environment

PRACTICECommunities

EA Process MgtProject Mgt

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Don’t lose sight of the fact that EA is just one of many relevant ‘practice communities’

StrategyFormulation

Strategic Architecture

PortfolioPlanning

Experi-mentalProjects

ComplicatedProjects

Simple Projects

MgtBusinessActivities

EnablingBusinessActivities

CoreBusinessActivities

Project kick-off advice and Design Authority

Key Elements of Strategy

Enterprise Modelling

Patterns

Synergies and dependenciesRationale for programmes

Learning, Trouble-shootingPointers to sources of expertise and info

ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE Larger organisations may have internal practice communities or CoEs (implicit or explicit) in several disciplines – they may have interests in governance, business change, etc

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A PROGRESSIVE APPROACH TO EA ensures incremental building of understanding and delivery of value

EA Capability

Development

• What does EA really mean for our organisation?

• What is its contribution to Strategy, to Project Execution and Business Execution in each of the different domains?

• Which types of artifact are likely to bring value to whom?

• What types of projects do we have and what should be the architectural constraints and contributions?

• Who are the friends and enemies of the EA approach?

Enterprise Architecture

• High-level principles and enterprise-level models

• Enterprise Segments and Target Architectures for each one

• Kickstart and guidance for projects

• Patterns

Enterprise

“Engineering”

( Only where appropriate)

• guidelines and methods for designing fully integrated, modular Business & Systems

Sources

Books and Papers Rechtin E, Maier M. 1997. The Art of Systems Architecting . CRC Press Wilson, B. 1990. Systems, Concepts, Methodologies and Applications 2nd Ed,

Wiley Reynolds, M, Holwell, S. 2010. Systems Approaches to Managing Change: A

practical guide, Springer. (contains chapters on Systems Dynamics, Viable System Model and Soft Systems Methodology)

Kurtz, C. & Snowden, D. 2003, The New Dynamics of Strategy: Sense-making in a Complex-Complicated World, IBM Systems Journal, vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 462-83.

Snowden, D.J. Boone, M. 2007. "A Leader's Framework for Decision Making". Harvard Business Review, November 2007, pp. 69–76

Green, N, Bate, C. 2007 Lost in Translation. Evolved Technologist Press. Wagter, van den Berg, Luijpers, van Steenbergen. 2005, Dynamic Enterprise

Architecture How to make it work, Wiley Websites/Online articles

www.cognitive-edge.com http://www.agilearchitect.org/agile/articles/order%20and%20unorder.asp http://eng.dya.info/Home/dya/index.jsp

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