From the Frontlines: An insight to Enterprise Architecture

4 02 2010

What is Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise Architecture is a form of management and a documentation method. This means that the Enterprise Architecture can aid the management of the organization with a better view of how the enterprise works and how to bridge the gap between the current architecture and the desired future state of the architecture with a so called EA program. The EA program has to be based on an EA transformation management plan.

The documentation framework of Enterprise Architecture can be viewed as a tool the management and top leadership among others can make use of to understand how the organization interacts with the various components the organization consist of.

The best way to enable understand of how the enterprise works will be by applying (and installing) as so called repository that has to be available for all the members of the organization so they understand how the enterprise architecture is defined.

Why Enterprise Architecture is important and is diffused through one industry to another is that the management style and the documentation framework is comprehensive and tries to communicate how the systems in one way or the other can be understood by the members of the organization. Thereto are there several benefits associated with implementing Enterprise Architecture and later on Coherency Management correctly.

The rumor of the benefits often leads to that organizations in various industries wants to implement Enterprise Architecture.

“Everyone have to join the hype. Therefore should and will the business side of the organization demand that the organization (as a whole) should be able to the same as the rest of the industry” – John Goetze.

However this blog post also deals with the benefits of successfully implementing an Enterprise Architecture. Remember that all organizations have an enterprise; however the maturity of the enterprise has a great impact of how the organization can use it strategically.

Advantages of Implementing an Enterprise Architecture

There are several benefits associated with an Enterprise Architecture and as before mentioned one of these is that the organization becomes aware of the gaps in its current Enterprise Architecture and the gaps in how the “line of sight” works compared to its own architecture. This can eliminate irrational tasks and processes.

The Enterprise Architecture will lead to a greater degree of alignment of resource allocation to those processes that adds value to the organization and its customers (and other stakeholders).

The awareness that the Enterprise Architecture creates enable the advantage of greater awareness of the security of the organization.

Disadvantages of implementing an Enterprise Architecture

Implementing an Enterprise Architecture often leads to that the organization in one way or the other will allocate resources to an EA program that have to focus on how to work with several different identification tools and methods. Thereto a consultant, certification, employing a chief architect and enterprise architects aren’t cheap and since all organizations in the world have to relate to “capacity constraints” then the implementation of an Enterprise Architecture Program will be associated with a certain risk.

There are some risks that are more common than others e.g., rejection of the Enterprise Architecture if the members of the organization feels that the EA program is a hostile take over of their departments (loss of freedom), large costs of diverting people away from the business processes to focus on assisting the EA program and learning from the EA program.

It is however worth noticing that Enterprise Architecture rarely can be implemented as a “big bang” change; however CXOs often see Enterprise Architecture as a method and management style that requires .This can be summed up in the quotation below:

”Boil the Ocean – - to use all means and options available to get something done” – Louis Gerstner, Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? HarperBusiness (2002).

However experience from the 1990s shows something differently which can be summarized in the quotation.

”If we’ve learned one thing from the 1990s, it’s that big bang, IT-driven initiatives rarely produce expected returns.” – Brown & Hagel, HBR comment to Nicholas Carr’s IT Doesn’t Matter.

This means that the Coherency Architect or the EA program manager has to manage the stakeholders expectations to the Enterprise Architecture and what it will be able to provide for the Enterprise.

Legacy systems can become an obstacle for the implementation of Enterprise Architecture but it is not an imperative to decommission legacy systems or to convert them to a new platform.

“Every Architects dream is to gain access to a ‘green field’ which can be a field that is totally empty and where the architect can build something on” – John Goetze.

The Conclusion

It can therefore be concluded that Enterprise Architecture can lead to major benefits for those organizations who apply the management style or choose to apply the documentation framework; however the allocation of resources to initiate an EA program can lea to disadvantages as well; if not to mention that the EA program can be rejected by the employees of the organization.

However for many organizations the implementation of an EA program that is based on iterations can unlock a competitive advantage for the enterprise. Never the less it demands management commitment.

The Frontlines of EA (1)


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Categories : Discipline, Enterprise Architecture

Coherency Management and Innovation

2 12 2009

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 and Coherency Management

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). 


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Categories : Alignment, Discipline, Innovation

A Coherent Architecture as a Strategy

22 11 2009

There are several issues that influence the competitiveness of any organization.  These factors are to be found in any domain (and are almost generic). This means that the organization will lead to the innovation, growth and decline of organizations.
Some organizations are privileged by owning a monopoly either backed by a government or by the fact that their products or services are superior to any of the competitors on the market. This makes the organization rather good to earn money since they often can set the price for the products and services as they want to; however this also leads to lack of agility since the pressure of the free market isn’t influencing the decision making of the management or the employees.
When organizations growth then they have a tendency to become more bureaucratic since there is a greater need for coordinating among the members of the organization, departments and management. This leads to a great degree of standardization but it also leads to a decline in agility compared to changes in the domain of the organization.
Therefore it becomes a question on how to cope with the need for coordination (bureaucracy) and the need for agility.
This can become an influence that impacts the organization and if it is used correctly then the organization can gain a competitive advantage.
Likewise can the way the organization make use of a technology become a competitive advantage for the organization. An example of this is that the organization might be superior to any competitors to utilize their information technology like software and hardware to support and develop their processes. These processes might in return prove to become easier to handle and create more value than the processes the competitors of the organization have.
Organization culture might also prove to become a competitive advantage since it indoctrinates the employees to act in a specific way. If the organization culture makes the members of the organization find and discover errors and eliminate the errors then the cost of repair and service fall and re-enforce the brand of the organization and re-enforce the good will the customers of the organization has to the organization.
Thereto will coherency management assist the host organization with creating a competitive advantage since it will assist the management and the various other stakeholders in the organization developing the necessary overview and consistent information that can be used to make the proper decisions.
Thereto if IT, business processes, organization culture, corporate strategy aren’t aligned then the organization will experience that the system is not able to fulfill the its potential and will therefore the organization will experience opportunity costs.
It is therefore in the interest of the management to work with the organization to achieve its goals and it is in the interest of the employees to assist making their work place better for them. It is the interest of them to feel productive and feel that their work matters for the organization. It is therefore a paradigm to involve them in the decision making but they too should be kept informed on how the organization develops.
Coherency Management is building on the principles on identifying the underlying architecture in the organization and enhancing the development of the architecture and by that the organization.
This is done by applying the tools from Enterprise Architecture to identify and evaluate the various processes and adding the technology needed to enhance the processes or re-think the processes to generate more organizational value.
It is therefore a strategical tool to evaluate and rebuild the architecture of the organization to match those tasks and challenges the organization will face in the future competition. A solid architecture which can be extended and reused will be a necessity in the future so the organization can grow and develop an architecture that can be used to connect the processes, people, departments and organizations to develop the right products and services to the right price.

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.


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Categories : Alignment, Discipline, Knowledge Management, Up in Time

How to Identify Architectures?

8 10 2009

Every organization has an architecture otherwise it wouldn’t be possible for the organization to do business or transform raw materials into products or labour power into services.

However the Coherency Architect has to focus on how to identify the architecture in a methodical way so the Coherency Architect can make develop a functional approach on how to define potential coherence related problems and how to mature the architecture so the organization will make progress and work in a smarter way to reach the goals of the organization (those defined in the official strategy).

To identify the various problems then the Soft Systems Methodology or the Work System Method which can be used to collect data about the architecture in a systematic way. If the Coherency Architect doesn’t make use of a systematic approach then it is likely that he or she will miss potential flaws, errors, dangers etc. that might have a great impact on how good the coherence of the organization is.

There are two general approaches the Coherency Architect can make use of to identify the processes in the organization. The first one is the so called exhaustive approach that deals with the Coherency Architect identify all the processes in the organization and create plans for them. The second one is called the “high – impact” approach that deals with that the Coherency Architect deals with identifying the core processes in the architecture (organization). To start with then it might be preferable for the Coherency Architect to deal with the core processes and then adapt the Coherency Program to alter them.

Besides the two above mentioned methodologies then the organization can make use of various techniques such as the rich picture and flowcharts to analyze how the various elements in the organization impact the general outcome of the organization.

An example of a functional approach to analyze an architecture could be that the Coherency Architect made use of a qualitative data collection method which means that the Coherency Architect would go an observe and interview potential members of the organization. The members have to be put located various places in the organization so the Coherency Architect can create the best overview of the organization as possible. When the first round of interviews have been collected and processed then Coherency Architect should go observe the members of the organization perform their daily tasks and identify how the raw materials are transformed into products or services. The Coherency Architect should especially focus on how the various linked processes interact use this view to identify potential problems with the coherency of the processes. When these problems have been identified then it is likely that the Coherency Architect should make use of either the SSM or the WSM methodologies. These methodologies are used to create an understanding of what is happening within the system. However it is notable that the two methodologies belongs to two different paradigms which view the world very differently.

The Work System Method belongs to the “functional paradigm” where the Soft Systems Methodology belongs to the “interpretive paradigm”. The two paradigms are defined by Burrell and Morgan (1979) in their article dealing with sociological paradigms and organizational analysis.
The functionalist paradigm works with the idea that the architect will collect the needed data and then come to a conclusion based on his or her own world view. The interpreting paradigm works with the idea that the architect has to facilitate the different world views in the organization and thereby assist the members of the organization with developing a solution e.g., a new work system, information system or a third solution.

The two paradigms will lead to various kinds of conclusions and of which there might be opposing. It is therefore vital that the Coherency Architect is able to identify the limits of his or her own world view and identify how the members of the organization thinks and acts according to their world views. If the Coherency Architect makes use of the wrong approach then his or her suggested solutions might turn out to be out of touch with how the organization assume its business works and the solution will be turned down.

When the Coherency Architect has gone through this process then he or she will be able to identify one of the three different forms of architecture an organization might have. As mentioned earlier then every organization has an architecture.

Doucet et al. (2009) identifies three possible architectures. The first one is the architecture of an organization before an EA (enterprise architecture) toolkits have been applied. The architecture is called the articulated architecture.

The more mature architecture is called extended architecture where the EA toolkits has been applied for the IT side and some of the processes at the business side has been identified and is making use of EA principles.

The most mature architecture is called the embedded architecture where the EA principles are embedded into every business and IT project. Doucet et al (2009) defines this state as where the EA grid is put into practice and where all project, processes and sides of the business work with practices from EA and therefore have achieved the goal of Coherency Management.

To summarize then the Coherency Architect has to focus on:

  1. The methodology used to collect data.
  2. The paradigm the Coherency Architect make use of to identify issues with the Coherency of the processes, structure, people, tasks and technology within the organization.
  3. The world view the Coherency Architect make use of when he or she develops his or her coherent solutions for the organization.
  4. The states of the architectures in the organization and how to reach them.

Sources

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

* Burrell, G., & Morgan, G. Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis (1979).


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Categories : Business, Discipline, Organization, Up in Time

The New Enterprise Architecture

20 09 2009

Gary Doucet came to the IT University in Copenhagen the 18th of September 2009 and held a keynote for the Ebuss Association. He presented the ground principles of Coherency Management which in many ways make use of the established Enterprise Architecture theories.

An important note in comperency between Coherency Management (CM) and Enterprise Architecture (EA) is that

Ross and Weill (2005) fell into a trap with their definition of EA since it is way to technology orientated. IT should be on how to improve the way the organization does its business. – Gary Doucet

and that opposite the EA perspective which mostly work with the idea of technology optimization then Coherency Management is based on the assumption that all companies have an architecture; however quite a few of them haven’t made them explicit.

If a company hadn’t an architecture then the company wouldn’t exist because the the company wouldn’t be able to do its business.

Another example of the differences between EA and CM is an enterprise wide perspective which includes the business side since CM is about making the business achieve its goals in a smarter way where EA projects often leads to dealing with technology in a smarter way.

The CM has to be put under its own office and should report the a CXO (top management) instead of the CIO since then it will often lead to a technology project.

So in a way the concept of coherency management includes the ideas and models from EA but in its way it will become a new discipline!


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Categories : Discipline, Keynotes