Link: http://coherencyarchitect.com/2011/06/01/week-22-enterprise-architecture-summer-camp-day-2/
This blog post deals with the second and final day of the summer school dealing with Enterprise Architecture. The tagline for the summer school is “Scandinavian Design and Oblique Angles”.
The day was characterized as a setup that was dominated by companies and industry professionals who presented topics of a wide variety of topics.
A Next-Generation EA Approach to Modeling the Firm using Capability Sets
John Gotze has in cooperation with Pat Turner written a paper on how to use capability sets in order to make Enterprise Architecture to work, how to sell Enterprise Architecture and what the value of Enterprise Architecture is all about.
The primary problem that the paper is about to answer is what capabilities the enterprise can get and how it can enhance it through shared capabilities.
John Gotze emphasized that one of the problems with the model that Ross and Weill (2006) proposed for Enterprise Architecture is based on that they don’t give a clue on what is their platform for execution and what is a part of the foundation platform.
John Gotze defines a capability as “an Ability or Expertise upon which that the Enterprise relies to fulfill its core functions”. Likewise does Gotze and Turner define an enterprise capability as “A capability that pervades across the whole of the enterprise”.
According to John Gotze, one organization that applies enterprise capabilities, is the U.S. Army. An example could be the tagline “one army”. With this in mind John Gotze made a reference to David A. Clark’s book on world poverty that deals with how to ensure capabilities among other things.
John Gotze later said that a capability set is directly coupled to the execution of the various processes. The second case that John Gotze presented was the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service. The agency should have one of the biggest Enterprise Architecture programs that John Gotze has ever seen and as such they have articulated a five year plan and roadmaps on how to achieve a better architecture.
In order to achieve enterprise capabilities for the enterprise John Gotze and Pat Turner has developed a rather comprehensive framework in order to achieve a better enterprise.
- A big part of the value of enterprise architecture program can be traced to the capabilities that the program can aid the enterprise with.
- The paper investigates case studies on how Enterprise Architecture could generate “enterprise capabilities”.
- An academic investigation of Enterprise Architecture is all about and how “competitive advantages” can be achieved through the implementation of a Enterprise Architecture program.
Vestas Wind Systems – Windy Architectures
The keynote speaker is Troels Fleckenstein who is Vice President at Vestas Wind Systems.
According to the keynote speaker all windmills from Vestas are equipped with technology that enable the windmills to communicate through the Internet with Vestas. Each of the Windmills communicate with Vestas 512 times yearly. This has created a large quantity of data that the corporation has to deal with in order to ensure maintenance of the windmills. Vestas hasn’t an Enterprise Architecture program, or at least that is what the speaker from Vestas said.
The keynote included a video on what Vestas is all about and Ditlev Engel appeared. Apparently Vestas has a slogan that they apply internally that is known as “people before megawatt” that as such means that Vestas doesn’t have HR-department but a department for people and culture (which I presume is pretty much the same). Vestas’ strategy is based upon that they believe they should be number one in wind energy. As such Vestas claims that 1/3 of all windmills sold on a global scale is produced by Vestas.
For Vestas the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of India represents the key markets due to the development of the various enterprises. Most likely are other countries in the BRIC group also of interest to Vestas Wind Systems.
Vestas has 15 locations around the world that develops on new products. Vestas produce nacelles in 15 locations, blades in 7 locations and towers in 2 locations and as such Vestas is able to deliver “Wind Power Plants” in eight regions of the world, or at least that is what the keynote speaker proclaimed.
Vestas’ current strategy is named the triple 15. The current corporate strategy goes to 2015 and they want to achieve a yearly revenue on 15% (currently it is 8.5%) and an EBIT (Earnings before interest and taxes) on 15%.
The keynote speaker presented the Vestas business model as titled it the strategy for empower the corporate strategy. With this approach in mind I am sure that Vestas applies an idea that is compatible with “Cybernetics paradigm”. Furthermore Vestas applies an approach they have titled “The Vestas’ High Five” that entails that energy should be competitive, predictable, independent, fast and clean. According to the keynote speaker the most important partners for Vestas are their customers. In other words Vestas would like to own the means of production of “wind energy” and thereby be able to set the price(s) for producing Windmills.
Vestas’ enterprise architecture team is located within the department for strategy and innovation and this is located in Vestas’ group IT. Apparently Vestas apply a model that includes four perspectives: 1) Innovation, 2) Roadmap, 3) Projects and last but not least 4) System Portfolio.
The Vestas’ Enterprise Architecture program is about “business and value adding activities”, or that is the opinion of the keynote speaker.
When working with enterprise architecture the keynote speaker presented the Vestas’ value management square, that most of all looks like a strategy map or balanced scorecard as Kaplan and Norton would define it.
“The way I see, we add value to the business is to have insight into what systems that the business would need” – Troels Fleckenstein (Week 22, 2011).
Vestas applies a framework that is known as the BSG-model in architecture. BSG stands for Business Service Group that is a sheet of paper detailing how the enterprise works. The documents details how the processes works in the enterprise. The BSGs are linked to the various enterprises processes in Vestas and as such the enterprise architects are working with modeling the architecture a long side the BSGs.
Besides the enterprise architects Vestas applies the title “domain architects” for individuals who have a specific knowledge on how the enterprise applies.
Vestas have made use of IBM, Accenture and other consultancies in order to develop their framework. In other words Vestas Wind Systems have developed a synthesis that hey apply in order to enable the systems.
According to the keynote speaker there aren’t any off-the-shelves process frameworks that Vestas was able to make use of.
“We are not such a box” – Troels Fleckenstein (Week 22, 2011).
Vestas applies Aris as a tool for modeling, but the keynote speaker has a rather controversial view on how the tool works which is represented in the quotation below:
“When speaking of Aris it is quite clear it has been developed by German engineers. It is not made for white people” – Troels Fleckenstein (Week 22, 2011).
Vestas’ IT fundamentals deals with providing fast prototyping, innovation lab, enabling agility, “show me – do it”, safeguard end-to-end transparency of business processes, partnering with the business and providing enterprise architecture to guarantee reliability.
It seems like the approach to Enterprise Architecture that Vestas makes use of, is dealing with communication on how the enterprise can deal with the problems and how the enterprise is able to deal with the problem.
When it comes to the focus on governance and advice Vestas have applied boards for processes, BPS community, Vestas Government and SteerCo where a representative from Group IT (and thereby a representative for the Enterprise Architecture group) is represented. The boards usually handles investments, strategy and innovation, program and projects. One of the many interesting things that Vestas works with in their Enterprise Architecture program is “the line of sight”.
“I’m not a particular big fan of frameworks since they tend to distract us from the communication side of EA and the value adding part of EA” – Troels Fleckenstein (Week 22, 2011).
While educating the enterprise architects Vestas applies an approach where they send their architects to Gartner summits and certification modules. However they haven’t made use of TOGAF or other approaches to Enterprise Architecture.
When Vestas works with IT forecasts they usually take in consultants from Gartner and other consultancies to give the various stakeholders in Group IT ideas on what kind of IT the enterprise should invest in.
Obviously Vestas experiences situations of when and where to break away from their own Enterprise Architecture standards. The way the keynote speaker presented the issue it seemed like that it is based on “intuition” and what the “business” defines as a necessity to cope with. The keynote speaker used an example from the implementation of the windmills and how the various committees dealt with the particular problem.
- Vestas’ is a rather complex enterprise that have developed its own framework to deal with its architecture.
- The Enterprise Architecture program is owned by the IT department, or at least it appeared that way while the VP presented the situation.
- The IT and EA agents are represented in various investment and governance boards in Vestas Wind Systems.
Qualiware Enabling Positive Change
The CEO of Qualiware, Kuno Brodersen, acted as keynote speaker on knowledge management and modeling.
The keynote speaker was of the opinion that the modeling of the change processes is a vital key to success, since the model can help the decision makers and individuals in the enterprise to focus on particular areas of attention.
The keynote speaker was of the opinion that many modern enterprises shares the same view on how the management model. In Denmark most enterprises agrees upon that the Scandinavian management model is the best way to achieve.
A fundamental part of the Scandinavian management model. According to Kuno Brodersen, social capital is what enterprises gains when the social systems solves problems.
There are several factors that impacts the concept of social capital e.g. the individual factors, job factors, group factors, company factors.
In reality these factors have to be included when you measure enterprises and their ability to deal go beyond the expected approach to achieve their individual goals.
“The point of modeling tools is that knowledge from the individual actors in the enterprise are modeling and archived in the model” – Kuno Brodersen (Week 22, 2011).
While implementing the modeling tools it becomes a necessity to involve all of the employees, understand knowledge sharing, we have to focus to create transparent management systems and the system has to facilitate distribution of decision making.
It seemed like that CEO Kuno Brodersen was a bit skeptical about the Gartner Group and their approach to information technology and Enterprise Architecture, though he chose to apply one of their models in order to define the “new way of thinking” in Enterprise IT and Enterprise Architecture.
In the future it becomes a necessity to know how the social networks and the way people interact in social networks in order to facilitate knowledge sharing.
Technology trends will have an even greater impact on how knowledge sharing can be facilitated. In the future modeling software trends like the “Like” feature or comments on the various artifacts. Likewise will the concept of rating most likely be implemented in modern modeling tools.
Features from the social networks will in time be incorporated in to the modeling tools, or this is perspective that Kuno Brodersen presented. The reason for this is that it can be used as a form for “information filtering” and “quality insurance”.
“One of the best qualities of an Enterprise Architecture program is that the various models can be viewed by various stakeholders in the enterprise, and as such this can be used to define the enterprise ontology” – Kuno Brodersen (Week 22, 2011).
The QualiWare EA Framework is an organization of artifacts, but according to Kuno Brodersen, graduate students who are about to start writing on their master thesis could or should think on how the Enterprise Architecture framework represents the “social capital”, social networks, and social knowledge.
Kuno Brodersen presented the QualiWare analytics approach to artifacts and modeling that was build like a balanced scorecard that could be used in order to define how KPIs are aligned with the various processes. As such the data that should be represented in the QualiWare models should be collected from the data warehouses and business intelligence systems, this should add value to the platform for enterprise ontology. His approach to business intelligence and knowledge sharing, Kuno Brodersen, applied a rather positivistic approach and as such this seemed slightly in contrast to his initial approach on the Scandinavian management school; however he did emphasize that the business intelligence approach should be used with caution.
Gamification is “the new black” and it will become part of the modeling tools, or at least this is the views that Kuno Brodersen presented. E.g. Qualiware as a modeling tool has a “treasure hunt” game embedded in the modeling tool in order to train or motivate people in order to make people learn about the new models, processes and activities.
- New tools are needed to document and deal with knowledge.
- Enterprise ontology is a part of knowledge management.
- In engaging the various stakeholders in learning more about the enterprise’s architecture the concept of gamification should be introduced into new products.
The Proof of the Pudding is in the Eating
Olov Östberg was the keynote speaker. As such his presentation dealt with e-government and changing social and technological systems in Sweden.
In his presentation Olov Östberg showed dias that stated that only 18% of IT projects are delivered on time and that are succesfull and he put this in light of the Swedish approach to e-government.. Through time (about 300 years) the Swedish approach to government has resulted into very independent public agencies.
There have been different approaches in order to deal with the data that the Swedish government has collected over time. In the 90s and the early 2000s the focus was onto developing portals.
From his experience there are three levels of e-government that should be dealt with in the future. Government 1.0 is the classical approach, the second level is dealing with more communication and at some point slightly more openness and the third and last level deals with engaging the citizen as a co-creator.
The Swedish approach to e-government includes a rather liberal approach to how the local agencies handles its processes. As such it can become increasingly difficult to implement one approach to Enterprise Architecture. Likewise did the national authorities (the Swedish government) refused to install a national CIO, national roadmap or for that matter a national portal for data and information sharing.
Olov Östberg presented various initiatives on how the Swedish approach to e-government dealt with common problems like insufficient road maintenance, electricity etc.
“We have to realize that the foundation of Swedish society is changing.” – Olov Östberg.
