Articulation of the IT Strategy

The Coherency Architect needs to be able to deal with the IT strategy otherwise he or she will not be able to drive any value from the Enterprise Architecture. There are many approaches to how an IT strategy can be articulated and what the primary focus should be.

This blog post will deal with the approach Chris Potts have proposed in his book titled “FruITion”. Chriss Potts have proposed a bit controversial approach to IT strategy e.g., he focuses on other models and claim that when the organization manages its investments then the right portfolio of technology will be selected, likewise does he propose that the role of the CIO isn’t an imperative. In the novel Chris Potts suggest the title “CIIO” for Chief Internal Investment Officer.

The Coherency Architect can make use of the approach to challenge his or her own view on the strategy and thereby be able to produce better strategy.

It is notable that the book is organized around a novel that deals with a CIO that faces a situation where he can’t pin point what kind of value the IT department brings value to the organization.
Potts then write emphasize some observations that can be made on each of the chapters in the book.

The Strategy Articulation Process

This section is based on the definitions that Potts describes in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p. 13):

1. Most robust strategies emphasize high value on its environmental feedback.

2. Make sure the strategy is meaningful to the stakeholders of the strategy.

3. Distinguish between the strategic level and the operational level thinking.

4. Disinterest should never be understood as trust.

The following four statements are based on Potts’s “fruITion” (Potts 2008, p. 25):

1. A document that contains the strategy is not the strategy.

2. The language used to articulate a strategy shows the mindset of which the person who articulated made use of (or has).

3. If the host organization (enterprise) has an IT strategy then it is necessary to include all of the Information Technology the organization (enterprise) makes use of.

4. It is an imperative that the IT strategy has to summarized in one meaningful sentence; otherwise the strategy needs to be reworked.

5. If the organization (enterprise) has an IT roadmap then it is imperative that the driver of the roadmap isn’t the suppliers but the tactical goals and strategies of the organization.

6. If the CIO runs the IT department as an external business (weak links to the enterprise) then the enterprise will threat the IT department as such.

The following four statements are based on Potts’s “fruITion” (Potts 2008, p. 54):

1. Shape the strategy by exploring why the company isn’t already fulfilling its promise.

2. The CIO should validate who the promise is “talking about”.

3. Build the strategy on a model that emphasize the customer and supplier perspective and never the “Business and IT” perspective. The over all reason for this is that the organization and IT department is one and the same.

The following four statements are based on Potts’s “fruITion” (Potts 2008, p. 204):

1. If the organization manages its investments well then it is likely that the most appropriate technology will be selected.

2. The organization should assign an executive accountability for maximizing the total value the company creates by its internal investments in change.

This leads to the Alignment phase.

The Alignment Phase

This section is based on the definitions that Potts deals with in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p.34):

1. Never under estimate the pace (of change) of the Corporate Strategy.

2. The strategy has to be compatible that stakeholders change their minds.

3. Build the IT strategy on a promise and not on aims.

4. If the IT strategy is organized around solving a particular problem, then it is a necessity that the IT strategy solves the problem.

5. Are the persons who develops and articulates the strategy (strategists) game players?

This section is based on the definitions that Potts deals with in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p. 44):

1. If the business side of the organization perceives the IT department as an external supplier then it is likely that the IT department and the CIO can’t influence the corporate strategy.

2. Different kinds of strategies needs different kinds of strategists.

3. The CIO should know his relative strengths and weaknesses when it comes to analysis and synthesis. In a strategy it is the synthesis part that is the most important thing to handle.

4. If the IT department or organization (enterprise) have issues with identifying what value the IT brings to the organization then it is likely that the organization (enterprise) experience wider business related problems.

This section is based on the definitions that Potts deals with in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p. 61):

1. A corporate strategy that is focused on exploiting IT is focused on value, money and organization. The corporate strategy is not focusing on technology.

2. The directors of a company is an independent community that adds value to the company.

3. Value is defined as a portfolio of measures and types.

4. The “business side” of an organization will in many cases assume the money the enterprise is spending on IT is a random number.

This section is based on the definitions that Potts deals with in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p.124):

1. Each stakeholder in a strategy has something distinctive to offer.

2. Language and communications are critical to a strategies success.

3. The concept of theoretical, practical and abstraction depends on the audience. The strategy should be articulated and aligned to the audience.

4. People in organizations develops the projects rather fine but they tend not to make the most out of the projects when the projects have been implemented.

This leads to the value adding phase.

The Value Adding Phase

This section is based on the definitions that Potts deals with in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p. 70):

1. Many relationships are based on perceptions and high profile characteristics.

2. The business side of the organization expects service and therefore should service levels between the IT department as a supplier and the customers be negotiated and incorporated into the strategy.

3. The corporate strategy is about numbers. The focus of the IT strategy should be the same.

4. Often there is a gap between those in the enterprise who adds value and those who spends the value. Is that also the case for the IT strategy?

This section is based on the definitions that Potts deals with in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p. 159):

1. The CIO (or the Coherency Architect) should make use of color coding to distinguish the business investments from the IT investments.

2. The CIO (or the Coherency Architect) should prove that looking and managing the IT investment as something apart from the business investment isn’t sufficient.

3. The CIO (or the Coherency Architect) should show that the strategic projects aren’t necessary those projects that aggregate the highest ROI.

4. Explorer the cause and effect with of IT investments and business investements.

This leads to the change management phase.

The Change Management Phase

This section is based on the definitions that Potts deals with in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p.72):

1. When changes occur (as it will with the implementation of a new strategy) then the change process will also impact the employees (and managers) personal life.

2. Numbers is a dispassionate way to analyze the strategic landscape with. It should include what the CIO and the enterprise knows and doesn’t know.

This section is based on the definitions that Potts deals with in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p.81):

1. The IT strategy has to be articulated in an iterative approach.

2. Look at the numbers in the budget and evaluate if they speak for themselves.

3. The CIO (or the Coherency Architect) has to explore how the company budgets , manages, and measures business change that comes through IT related projects.

This section is based on the definitions that Potts deals with in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p.175):

1. The CIO (or Coherency Architect) has to cause other people to change.

2. The CIO should know what he would die in the ditch for.

3. The business side of the organization often experience the IT side of the organization as being “promising a lot and never keeps the promises and it doesn’t care about the business side”.

4. 100% alignment among strategies can be dangerous and it occurs rarely that the strategies are 100% aligned.

5. The future role of the CIO is not assured.

6. The CIO or Coherency Architect has to understand that there are competencies else where in the enterprise that is in duplication of the those competencies that are in the IT department.

7. The new strategy for IT demands a new operation model.

This section is based on the definitions that Potts deals with in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p.180):

1. Strategists deal only in success and so should the CIO and the Coherency Architect.

2. It can be hard for the CIO and the Coherency Architect to challenge the orthodoxies of the organization.

3. If the CIO will not cross the bridge then let someone else take care of the investments.

This section is based on the definitions that Potts deals with in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p.182):

1. Leading strategy can be a lonely job.

2. The over all focus of a strategy is about winning. If the CIO or the Coherency Architect is not committed 100% to achieving the strategy then it is not really a strategy.

This section is based on the definitions that Potts deals with in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p.191):

1. Set down your Promise, Principles and Tactics for the key stakeholders to explore and ratify.

2. The stakeholders wants to see the combination of ideas in relation to the organizational system.

3. The strategy can look like the obvious but it is important that the CIO or Coherency Architect emphasize that the strategy isn’t applied.

4. The CIO or Coherency Architect should test the best practice of the industry.

5. The strategy is what the CIO or Coherency Architect does (de facto strategy).

This leads to the implementation phase.

The Implementation Phase

This section is based on the definitions that Potts deals with in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p.96):

1. Use the “Promise, Principles and Tactics” framework while the strategy is in the articulation process and when it is about to become executed.

2. The “Promise and Principles are the stabile core of the strategy. Tactics are more fluent or adaptable when it comes to events.

3. Address each of the stakeholders individually (preferable personally) before the stakeholders are addressed as a group.

4. Lead the execution of a strategy don’t manage it.

5. When it comes to the investigation of IT investments then start with identifying value and then work backwards. When using a spreadsheet then the focus should be on columns and not on rows. This should help create the overview that is needed (according to Potts).

This section is based on the definitions that Potts deals with in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p.103):

1. The strategist (CIO) is the embodiment of the strategy.

2. Organize the collaboration around one set of numbers and strategic themes; however each person who works with the strategy should be given the opportunity to have an influence on that part of the strategy that they work with.

This section is based on the definitions that Potts deals with in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p.115):

1. A relationship is owned by two people.

2. Experimenting with the numbers (in the budget) can uncover a new understanding of the problem.

3. The CIO (or Coherency Architect) should make use of a bottom up value portfolio.

4. The CIO (or the Coherency Architect) should evaluate the investment strategy to sparkle a discussion on what priorities the organization (enterprise) has.

5. The Coherency Architect should be focusing on the exposing the scenarios for what will happen if the investment strategy is changed.

This section is based on the definitions that Potts deals with in his work “FruITion” (Potts 2008, p.134):

1. Strategy is essential about options and opportunities and it is not about being right.

2. Take the lessons for what didn’t work as expected.

3. The relationships that people builds are influenced of previous events and relationships.

4. Look for the subtleties in the responses of the stakeholders.

Types of Managers

Potts presents the model (illustration 1) that serves as a compass for characterizing managers within the organization. Note it is a compass and most managers aren’t purely technical, purely operational, purely environmental or for that matter purely organizational.

Potts's View on Managers.

The operational manager focuses on execution and internal processes.

The environmental manager focuses on how the strategy’s external context.

The technical manager focuses on specifications, technologies and products/services etc.

The organizational manager focuses on organization models, cultures, structure, internal politics and sourcing.

That leads to the conclusion.

Conclusion

The Coherency Architect should be aware of that there are various ways to develop and articulate an IT strategy. Potts approach is rather clear and can in many ways be considered as a practical approach to articulate an IT strategy. Potts approach can be considered an alternative approach to IT strategy and it can be used to challenge the “industry orthodoxies” which in itself can create a competitive advantage.

The Coherency Architect has to understand how an IT strategy is and how the artifact can be produced if it doesn’t exist in an enterprise already and that makes the concept of the IUT strategy rather important to understand and challenge.

Sources

Potts, C., 2008. fruITion: Creating the Ultimate Corporate Strategy for Information Technology illustrated edition., Technics Publications, LLC.

Download the paper her (articulation_of_the_IT_strateg.).

When an organization implements an EA program and a Coherency Management program then it will eventually lead to changes in the enterprise. The change in the enterprise will eventually lead to changes in the business model.
The Coherency Architect should know of how the concepts of Business Models since they are some of the core concepts of the corporate strategy. The corporate strategy is the basis for developing and articulating the IT strategy. The corporate strategy and the IT strategy are two components of Enterprise Architecture. Enterprise Architecture is the foundation for working with Coherency Management.

Context of the Business Model

The Business Model in Context

There are many different perspectives that can be applied to the understanding of a business model and how the business model interacts with the company and the corporate strategy.
In illustration I argue that the Business Models evolves and eventually drives the Corporate Strategy (Weill & Vitale 2001) & (Seddon & Lewis 2003).
In the other hand there it can be argued that there is some overlap between the business model and the way the business strategy. The business strategy differs from the business model by taking the competition into consideration and how to enable a competitive advantage compared to the other actors at the industry.
This leads to an examination of the business model.

Elements of a Business Model

The business model includes a focus on creating value for the customers, revenue generation, cost estimation of service or product, distribution of the product. The business model has to emphasize how the specific product or service creates value.
The business model consist of four perspectives of which the above mentioned elements can be organized around:
1)    Infrastructure that deals with the core capabilities that are needed to produce the service or the product needed.
2)    Offering which is the value proposition. The value proposition is the value which the product or service gives the customers.
3)    Customers which deals with the target customers or audience the product or service. There to the distribution channel which basically is how the service or product is provided to the customers. The last element in this section is customer relationship which is the link between the customer and the company.
4)    Finances deals with the cost structure and the revenue that needs to be generated to finance the production of the service.

Sources

Weill, P. & Vitale, M., 2001. Place to Space: Migrating to Ebusiness Models 1st ed., Harvard Business Press.

You can download this paper here (Business Models: From a Coherency Architect’s Point of View.).

As you know that the organizations have evolved over time from once in the 19^th century where the organizations (companies etc.) where small and insufficient. The organizations in the United States were of the size of 1 – 4 employees who were not selected on their ability but through their social network.

The 20^th century formed organizations and created tendencies and pressures in the market that demanded that the organizations had to adapt to create the goods of a high quality for a low price so new markets could be reached. The 20^th century introduced a scientific approach to management which was introduced by Frederick W. Taylor. This approach led to the creation of Taylorism and the core principle of Taylorism was to eliminate ineffective work processes.

This led to the construction of a management paradigm which has led to the foundation of the current management approach for the organizations.

Today we see organizations that are multinational or global and these have thousands if not hundreds of thousands of employees e.g., International Business Machines, Ford Motors, Microsoft, Google etc.

All of these works with a specific organizational design typically these have been hierarchical and this has led to specialization, productions increase, profit maximization etc.; however since the end of the production economy by this I mean the economy which was dominated by companies that produced physical products e.g., Cars (Ford). The Western economies evolved from focusing on physical products into providing services and later to focus on how to produce knowledge. The knowledge economy is characterized by the employees are those who are the asset. Their knowledge is the asset which is used to create products and services; however the products and the services are normally produced or provided by a different company in the third world e.g., India, China, Vietnam or Indonesia. Since the employees are the most valued asset then the goal is to make sure that the employees don’t leave the organization and enable them to create more creative and sustainable solutions of which the organization will be able to capitalize on.

This leads us to the evolution of the concept of management.

The Evolution of Management:

Management is defined as:

“Management is the art to getting things done through people” – Mary Parker Follet (Barret 2003, p. 51).

Management has evolved over time like the organizations. There have been several views on how to manage organizations; however this blog post will only deal with what a Coherency Architect should conclude to be relevant.

As mentioned before then there are the first form of structured management is the Taylorism (as mentioned under Scientific Management). This form of management insufficient in the knowledge economy since knowledge workers needs other forms of stimulation than monetary incentives and written orders to perform.

Naturally there was a reaction to the Taylorist approach. This happened when the Japanese companies introduced cheaper products and of superior qualitative which meant that the Western companies had evaluate the way they managed and motivated their employees.

Since the 1970s have the Western companies in one way or the other tried to imitate Japanese companies by developing management and quality systems like Six Sigma, LEAN and Toyota Production System. The reason for why the Western companies haven’t been successful is that they so far have simplified the systemic approach the Japanese makes use of.

The Japanese have a very different approach than Western companies when it comes to management and motivation. First of all the Japanese companies make use of a bottom up approach when it comes to how the organization articulate and implement their strategies. Second of all the Japanese companies have been known for motivating their employees by making them proud of their work and putting an honor in quality. Third of all the Japanese companies are known for lifetime employment which means that they commit themselves to keep the employees employed and as a result of this they expect a higher degree of loyalty and commitment.

The IT waves in the 90s and early 2000s led to leadership and motivation; however to many organizations (typically IT related organizations) didn’t realize how to enable more productivity or for that matter crystallize better products by applying the new forms of leadership. As a result of that many of the organizations failed to survive the IT bobble which proved that to many organizations didn’t have the appeal of the market to survive or they simply didn’t understand their Enterprise Architecture. If these organizations had understood their Enterprise Architecture then a lot of them would have been able to scale the need of their consumption of resources and as result they would have survived.

The new paradigm is that the employees are the asset of the organizations and these should be encouraged to enable them to develop their own products.

Coherency Management:

All organizations have an architecture regardless if members of the organizations are aware of it or not (Doucet et al.).

Coherency Management then deals with how the organization can gain advantages by using Enterprise Architecture. This is done by maturing the organization by diffusing the knowledge of Coherency Management and the by applying the tools from Enterprise Architecture to other parts of the organization. This diffusion needs to be build upon the idea that these have to be embedded in the business processes and continuously be applied with the maturity of the Enterprise Architecture.

In many ways the concept of Enterprise Architecture is based on the same paradigm as the management systems of the 20^th century which is defined as structuralism and according to Doucet (Doucet et al., 2009) Coherency Management and the underlying tools such as Enterprise Architecture are typically defused by the IT department to the rest of the organization. This is typically done by the Chief Information Officer who anchor the paradigm in the middle and top management of the organization and gives the members of the IT department the “necessary protection” to enable change within the organization.

Therefore it is safe to assume that the Coherency Management approach will lead to a top down approach as it was the case for many other Western styled organizations. This might lead to the conclusion that Coherency Management in some way will be in a different paradigm than those tools which are suggested by Gary Hamel. However Coherency Management do also have elements which needs to be diffused via the bottom up approach and it has to be embedded into the organizational culture and employees with many different backgrounds have to apply their own views onto the concepts of Enterprise Architecture.

When this come to the consideration of Coherency Management then the drive to implement the concepts of Coherency Management and Enterprise Architecture is defining what paradigm to make use of. If Coherency Management is build upon the idea that the employees should help define the framework and tools the Coherency Management Office will apply in the various processes in the organization. In the other hand quite a few people are scared of change and change anchored in the hands of employees won’t necessary led to change or innovation like Henry Ford mentions in relation the innovation of the mass produced car: “If I had asked them then they would have asked for faster horses”. Therefore should the Coherency Architect keep in mind that the only way to enable change in an organization is to influence the organization culture. The culture can be changed in many ways by the tools of many different paradigms.

In this article I will however only deal with a few frameworks for change.

The first framework is the structuralist approach which where Kotter’s framework will fit into. John P. Kotter presents in his article “Why Change Fails” and this could be supplemented by Kurt Lewin’s unfreeze, move and freeze approach.

The second framework is the interpretive paradigm where the organization constructs some form of “internal” economy where the members of the organization can influence the projects which the organizations initiates. This is done by establishing a form of stock exchange where all the members can invest a fictional amount of company-money to found the projects.

The organizations that adapt this framework needs a strong Enterprise Architecture and move towards Coherency Management; otherwise will the entire change effort be in wane.

The third framework is based on the idea that the employees themselves should be able to choose their leaders and regulate their own production schedules etc.. This kind of coordination needs like the second framework a strong focus on their Enterprise Architecture and thereby also on Coherency Management to assist the employees and the management with keeping the organization on track.

The New Age of Management: A Focus on Coherency Management!$

Coherency Management is about gaining agility, assurance and alignment and these gains are closely linked to the maturity state of the architecture of the organization. All organizations have an architecture the question is how matured it is.

It is therefore desirable for most organizations to one way or the other to identify, mature and monitor the process. Before the identification takes place then the various characteristics of the architectures have to be dealt with.

The Architectures

In this section I will shortly deal with the architectures that are presented by Doucet et al. (Doucet et al. 2009)

The architecture that hasn’t been exposed to Enterprise Architecture and as a result of this the management or other actors in the organization are not aware of how the organization, its processes and its various layers are designed and interacts. This includes that the organizations isn’t aware of how their IT is used to support the various business processes.

The Foundation Architecture is an architecture that has been exposed to Enterprise Architecture; however this has only been applied for the IT side of the organization to bridge the gap between business processes and IT. In this state the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the IT department has a great influence on how the Coherency Management tools are applied though this a downside and that is that the rest of the organization rarely understands the idea of Enterprise Architecture.

The Extended Architecture is bit more mature in the context of applying Enterprise Architecture. In context this means that other departments in the organization have identified that Enterprise Architecture tools can be made use of to improve the ability of the organization. In relation to who is in charge for the Coherency Management implementation then it is likely that this has passed from the CIO.

The Embedded Architecture is the so far the most mature level an organization can reach by applying Enterprise Architecture tools and change management. This means that the entire organization make use of Enterprise Architecture tools identify, initiate and implement new processes. This means that the organization has enforced a framework that has to be taken into consideration when new processes have been applied.

In addition to the above mentioned architectures the Balanced Architecture (Doucet et al 2009 p. 224) can be added. This is a future state within the Coherency Management concept.

I will therefore discuss the tools that can be applied.

Why Should Architectures be Matured?

When an architecture matures then the organizations that make use of them also become more agile and better in the sense that the organization easily can implement new processes, flows, systems etc.

This means that the organization can gain value for its stakeholders if the organization apply Enterprise Architecture tools to mature its architecture.

The Tools

There are several tools that can be applied to identify and monitor the state of the organization architecture. I have chosen to make use of Barnard & Grasso (Doucet et al. 2009) that have written a chapter which deals with how Enterprise Architecture can be matured.

According to Barnard & Grasso then these factors are useful to measure:

• Enterprise Budget & Procurement Strategy.

• Strategic Governance.

• Extended Enterprise Architecture Architecture Results.

• Extended Enterprise Architecture Developments.

• Extended Architecture Program Office.

• Business Units Involvement.

• Executive Management Involvement.

• Extended Enterprise Involvement.

• Business & Technology Strategy Alignment.

The above mentioned indicators can be used to identify on what state the organization is on. If the organization is pre-dominantly in the un-mature part of the scale e.g., that the organization has an un-mature architecture. If the organization in any way has indicators that indicates that the organization is on a better level than the sublevel then the Coherency Architect should assume that the organization is maturing its architecture (perhaps implicitly).

There are methods that can be used to mature the architecture. For this the EAAM approach can made use of. The EAMM approach deals with how the Coherency Architect can measure and audit the architecture of the organization.

Control

As with all plans then it is a necessity to work with auditing and control which deals with controlling if the various goals used in the EA programs have been realized. This process is mandatory for every Enterprise Architecture project as it is for every strategic approach.

For this an Enterprise Architecture Audit Program should be established. According to Barnard & Grasso there are to forms for such a program. The first form is the light edition that consist of one to two persons who audit the EA programs in the organization. The analysis of the organization is build upon a superficial (high impact) analysis. The other is the advanced program where two to five persons go through a complete analysis of the EA program.

Coherency Maturity MindMaps

Sources

Gary Doucet et al., Coherency Management: Architecting the Enterprise for Alignment, Agility and Assurance (International Enterprise Architecture Institute, 2009).

Further Reading

Extended Enterprise Architecture Model (E2AMM v.2.0) (www.enterprise-architecture.info)

]]> http://coherencyarchitect.com/2009/12/21/architecture-maturity/feed/ 0 coherencyarchitect Cohereny Management Maturity http://coherencyarchitect.com/2009/12/02/coherency-management-and-innovation/ http://coherencyarchitect.com/2009/12/02/coherency-management-and-innovation/#comments Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:02:48 +0000 CoherencyArchitect http://coherencyarchitect.com/?p=104 ]]> When it comes to innovation then coherency management is an enabling tool. This means that the organization that is aware of the various processes, the various elements and various technologies enables the  apply radical innovation and evolutionary innovation.
Schumpeter was of the idea that the single most important function of the organization was to crystalize the innovation in to products that could be used on the market and therefore can innovation be viewed as specific competitive advantage.
When it comes to coherency management then innovation can both be radical innovation and it can be process innovation.
The difference between radical innovation and evolutionary innovation is that radical innovation is game changing e.g., by creating new business models or new ways to do business. Process innovation is different in the way that the issues e.g., the processes are improved over multiple steps.
Both forms of innovation have their impact on how the organization performs e.g., organizations that have a well developed culture based upon evolutionary innovation often have the ability to perform well within their industry they operate.
Organizations that are able to enable radical innovation are often good to define new products, business models and markets that all in all give them a competitive advantage and thereby they are often able to be the first movers at many markets.

Innovation

To sparkle innovation there is a need for using the right people for the right positions within the project organization.
Tom Kelley is of the opinion that these profiles should be combined to create HOT teams that truly creates innovations:
“

1. The Visionary is the type of person who is able to identify future possibilities (visions) and he is able to recruit the project team.
2. The Troubleshooter is a person who in way or the other who are able to identify problems internally in the organization and is able to handle all situations that might occur in the project organization while the project is being executed.
3. The Iconoclast is a person who is able to challenge the current believes of what is right inside the project organization and is able to see possibilities in other paradigms.
4. The Pulse Taker is a person who is able to work like a hearth does in a human. The person has to be versatile in his or her way of thinking and is able to channelize the “life blood” of the project on to other individuals in the project organization.
5. The Craftsman is that kind of person who is able to construct prototypes and work around with them to make innovative designs. These competences are vital for any kind of radical innovation.
6. The Technologist is what many people would call a geek. A person who is dedicated to work with technology and is able to handle complex tasks, uncover and create deeper meaning.
7. The Entrepreneur is a person who is able to work out with brainstorms, innovation, prototypes and communicate these to other persons.
8. The Cross-Dresser these kinds of persons who have studied or worked with a totally different form of field then he or she works with today. These individuals make use of their skills to envision new solutions.

”

This leads to the concept of the maturity of the architectures and thereby the concept of Coherency Management.

The Concept of Coherency Management

Coherency Management deals with the maturing process of the architecture within the organization. The architecture consist of the various layers of the organization which are:

1. People.
2. Organization culture.
3. Organization structure.
4. Bureaucratic structure.
5. Process structure.
6. Information structure.
7. Technology structure.

The more matured the architecture of the organization is the better the organization will be come to understand the processes, people, information and technology needed to create both evolutionary innovation and radical innovation.
Every organization has an architecture otherwise they wouldn’t be able to operate but there are three forms of architectures. The first architecture is called an architecture before Enterprise Architecture tools were applied and the organization is not aware of how it operates.
The more mature form of the architecture is called the foundation architecture. The foundation architecture is characterized by that the organization has applied Enterprise Architecture tools to the IT side of the organization. The first level of maturity with in this mode of architecture is where the IT structure and information structure is articulated for the enterprise wide perspective.
The second level of the architecture is when the needs of the business is articulated in a methodical way.
The third level of maturity is known by that the business side of the organization makes use of EA tools to identify, analyze and engineer the processes and structures after a methodical approach and after the change process has ended then the CIO takes over and apply the IT perspective.
The fourth and last maturity level for any organization is called the embedded architecture. This form of architecture is characterized by that all processes are aligned and by that there is a great need for design leadership. The design leadership has to create a framework for how the documentation and plans are to be designed. The other elements of the organization such as the Human Resources, annual planning, strategic planning, public reporting makes use of the structured framework and tools of the EA not to mention the that the strategic goal of the business drives the business requirements a and by that  drive the technological solutions.

Sources

Gary Doucet et al., Coherency Management: Architecting the Enterprise for Alignment, Agility and Assurance (International Enterprise Architecture Institute, 2009).

Tom Kelley and Jonathan Littman, The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America’s Leading Design Firm, 1st ed. (Broadway Business, 2001). 

Organizations will in the future be able to align them self to one or more syndicates to create products which are cheap enough to sell to the people in the third world. The organizations in these  syndicates have to know their architecture to understand and connect to these shifting syndicates and if these organizations either don’t know or understand their architecture then they will not be able to join the syndicates and gain the benefits from it.

Therefore is it of strategic importance that all organization work with and articulate their architecture to enable abilities of agility, knowledge and innovation and to that all the support functions and processes to enable interactions with so called networked organizations and syndicates.

To give the analyst some insight into how IT influences the an Architecture then it is advised that the analyst reads about critical issues in IT management.

Therefore have I chosen to publish my notes from the course “Critical Issues in IT management” which I attended at Copenhagen Business School in year 2008.

As with all other documents at this blog the license for the document is Creative Commons V3 U.S. Edition share alike (read more under the general license for this blog).

Link to document: issuu.com

Enjoy the notes.

The foundation architecture is characterized by that Enterprise Architecture tools have been applied which has uncovered processes both within IT and the business which can be managed by using an EA framework. The foundation architecture is usually under control of the CIO in the organization. This means that the project is largely IT related. The foundation architecture is superior to the un- articulated architecture since it can assist the management in the organization realize that the enterprise architecture can be used strategically.

The extended architecture is defined by that the architecture is build upon the idea that the organization has realized that Enterprise Architecture tools can be used to understand processes and alter improve the outcome of the processes by using Enterprise Architecture tools. The primary difference between the extended architecture and the before mentioned foundation architecture is that the business side of the organization has discovered that the tools can be used to obtain superior results. Doucet et al (2009) describes this as a situation which means that:
The management of the business side of the organization make use of EA to rethink the processes (obliteration).
The Human Resources department makes use of EA tools to describe what particular needs the organization needs and what courses the current members of the organization needs to be qualified to use the tools.
The business line managers conceptualize ideas by using the EA tools.
The IT department make use of EA tools to identify and support the core processes of the organization.
But as before mentioned the primary reason between the foundation architecture and the extended architecture is that the business side has adopted the tools and the EA paradigm to develop the organization.

The embedded architecture is the evaluation of the extended architecture which means that the organization has adapted processes which adds to the architecture and in that way aid the architecture. Never the less when a lot of changes are implemented over time then there is a need for a framework which evaluates and implement the various changes to the architecture.
This means that the embedded architecture becomes ubiquitous in the way that the strategy and the processes enforces the strategy.
It is worth to mention that the organization is beyond the agenda setting, matching, redefining / restructuring and clarifying phases. The organization has or is close to be through the routinization phase which means that all employees in the organization understands the innovation is relates to it when they work.

* Gary Doucet et al., Coherency Management: Architecting the Enterprise for Alignment, Agility and Assurance (International Enterprise Architecture Institute, 2009). 

The Outcome of the Report
The consultants articulated their findings in the final report to the management in the organization. The report came to the conclusion that it would be most efficient if the company went through a Business Process Re-Engineering effort. That meant that each of the high impact processes had to be identified and all subprocesses had to be aligned to them. Each of the processes had to be enabled by IT so as many of the processes could be automated and the employees could use their time and energy to work with more profitable (π) processes or projects. That meant that the structure of the organization had to be altered as well and eventually also the tasks the people of the organization had to take care of.
The first EA project was commissioned to the Chief Information Officer who was in charge of IT maintenance and IT development in the organization. Besides that then the CIO had the overall responsibility for the IT Organization.
The IT organization started with a consolidation of the fragmented systems that supported the cleaning division and the security division. The IT department came to the obvious conclusion that the security division and the cleaning division had  very different processes and vary different ways to handle various was of 1) administration, 2) deployment and 3) Contract negotiation. Besides that the organization had a lot of different ways to communicate. The cleaning division had regional and local offices where the employees gathered and where coordinated where the security department had two offices located in the business areas and most of the information was communicated by telephone to the teams who handled the various clients.
The CIO and the IT department came to conclusion that the organization needed to be reformed and yet the IT systems had to be designed on the same platform (ERP system) but the processes of each of the divisions had to be configured for the particular usage.
The CIO presented his proposal to the board directors and the Chief Executive Officer. The CEO supported the idea and the project was officially initiated by the CEO and the top management. The top management wanted quick victories to show the stockholders that they did their duty to the organization and performed above expectations.

The Transformation
The processes started with the various IT systems where analyzed and all data was backed up and moved to a prototype area which would be used to convert the data so the data could be inserted into the new information systems. The prototype systems proved to be sufficient for the first tests of the ERP systems. The first tests proved to be satisfying. However the users who where invited to take place while the systems had to be designed where of many different user levels and none of them could easily picture the deployment of the new processes and how to interact with the new information system.
Thereto it proved that the language used in the user interface was too complex and often it didn’t cover what the users thought they should insert into the interface. This lead to that the final time plan for the project had to be postponed until the prototype proved to be successful. The issues with the user interface lead to a redesign so the interface was designed to be different with a different language for the two major divisions (cleaning and security).
The second prototype proved to be more understandable for the users and the processes was in some way represented as the employees and middle managers understood them. However the employees and the managers were of the opinion that the system could be better if the workflow of the ERP system worked with the various under accounts and the workflow of the subprocesses and task descriptions could be defined better.
The prototype period became a fundamental architecture for the organization since the members of the organization and the IT department made use of tools to articulate the processes, structure and IT used in the organization.

The Deployment of IT and Processes
After the modifications of the standard ‘off the shelves’ system so it supported the underlying architecture the system was rapidly deployed in the organization. This meant that the organization had to apply training for the employees and managers of the organization. This meant that the new systems had to go through an education period and extensive testing. The knowledge about the system was originally implicit in the persons. These persons spread the knowledge to other persons  by showing, talking and train them. The persons who started to test and work the system articulate then it was articulated into books, reports and manuals which was read and professionalized by other testers and persons who worked with the system in practice out in the two primary divisions. The persons who worked was about to work with the system read the manuals and reports etc. which gained knowledge from the reports and manuals and diffused the knowledge  to other persons to the organization.
Besides the knowledge process in the organization then the company had to organize its processes in a new way so the processes all in all where designed smarter and resulted in better agility and more resources to gain competitive advantage. The organization of processes led to a slightly decrease in productivity in the first two quarters after day zero. This led to some criticism from the press which influenced the stock price and by that the equity of the company. The top management chose to stand firm on the project since they realized that the organization had invested heavily in the project and therefore there would be “no going back” especially after the processes had been aligned with the new information systems. Some other organizations had tried similar projects but they had not realized the great potential of recycle the components of the system to enhance the spin off organizations.

The Outcome
The first EA / business IT – alignment project led to that the organization had their first approach to how improve the processes and how to work smarter it also led to that the organization became aware of their architecture. The project led to the organization reached its foundation architecture (the basic step of maturity). The project led to the management and stockholders understood the need to become more mature to go for the extended architecture where the business managers make use of EA tools to redesign their business.

Nonaka's Framework

The SECI model deals with that all knowledge is made by individuals, the individual share his or her knowledge with other individuals (first quadrant) in order to diffuse knowledge then it has to be articulated e.g., in papers, reports, books, blogs, videos or podcasts or other media (second quadrant). When knowledge is diffused then there are individuals who can enrich it by adding to the articulated knowledge (third quadrant). Individuals then read the papers, reports, books, blogs or watch the videos or listen to the audio and then by that learns how to make use of the knowledge and by that makes the knowledge implicit (fourth quadrant).

As before mentioned then the members of the organization are key in relation to the development of the organization architecture. Which means that the members of the organization have to be enabled to share their knowledge with one another and they would need some incentives to do so.
It is notable that economic incentives for sharing knowledge almost certainly will lead to that the cost for knowledge will increase and yet it will lead to that at some point then the members will stop sharing their knowledge and eventually when they have received all the incentives the organization can provide them with then will stop sharing knowledge.
E.g., who might want four company cellphones that are exactly a like or two company cars or multiple company paid DSL connections etc.?
To avoid this situation then the Coherency Architect has to understand the organization culture and thereto the Coherency Architect has to influence the organization culture so it becomes a necessity to motivate the members of the organization to make use of the IT tools (web 2.0) and to share their knowledge with the rest of the organization.
To enable the members of the organization to share their knowledge then the Coherency Architect has to empower the members and by that focus on moving the organization typology towards the adhocracy (Primary coordination is mutual adjustment) or towards the professional bureaucracy (primary coordination form is the skills the individual member has). Thereto should the organization should give the employees the resources to form communities of practice where they can go and communicate, work with and share the knowledge. It is notable that Coherency Architect or for that matter the organization can’t go in and interfere in the process which will lead to the members of the communities will lose their interest in working in the communities.
To make knowledge management coherent with other processes in the organization then the Coherency Architect should work with how the business processes can be supported by 1) decentralization and empowerment, 2) how IT can enable the members to break down the barriers in the organization (so the knowledge can flow freely), 3) how a functional compensation system should be designed (cultural based) so it enforces the urge to share knowledge and 4) deployment of communities of practice (winning trust among the members of the organization and providing the necessary support) and continuously align the primary business processes to the knowledge sharing processes.
The Coherency Architect has to think in new terms to ensure that the organization achives its goal in a smarter way which means that the work processes have to be obliterated and designed to interact with the technology new and smarter processes; however it is notable that the Coherency Architect has to understand that if the members of the organization finds the changes undesirable then they will reject the processes and work against them and key employees will eventually grow discontent and leave the organization taking the knowledge with them.