Richard Sage

This isn’t the sort of thing i’d normally blog about, its not work related, its about something important 🙂

But its been on my mind for a while so i thought i’d put it out there, primarily to get it off my mind.

As the Dad of a daughter I’ve been thinking a lot recently about things that will impact her life as she grows up and what I can do as a Dad to protect her and/or remove impediments to her happiness, the one that i keep returning to and thinking about is Sexism.

Why sexism? Well, recent stuff like:

• The ongoing Lord Rennard debacle
• The horrendous stuff that caroline criado-perez had to endure off the back of the campaign to get a woman’s face on the £10 note
• Spend 5 minutes reading https://twitter.com/EverydaySexism (which often seems to depart from sexism into sexual assault and abuse)

But its not just these big obvious events that have got me thinking, often its the little implicit things that get my goat recent examples are:

• (daughter dressed up in medical outfit) ‘Oh are you pretending to be a nurse?’ (Why not a doctor!?)
• Family member: ‘I was going to buy [daughter] a book about rockets and space but thought, that is a boys book, so bought one about princesses instead’ (btw my daughter is currently mad about space and wants to be an astronaut)

OK, those two examples might be pretty lame in the grand scheme of things, but I guess i’m just stating the obvious that there are both the explicit and implicit forms of sexism.

Just like any parent I guess, I think my daughter is the most funny, clever, caring and insightful little person I know and possesses a boundless and energetic imagination with boundless potential.

I feel very strongly that its really important that, as a parent, I remove any possible constraint or impediment to that imagination and potential. So I’ve been pondering:

What can I do as a Dad of a daughter, or what can we (other Dads of daughters), collectively as Dad’s of daughters do together to help fight against sexism (in its implicit and explicit forms) to help make the world of our daughter’s future a better place to be the funny, clever, caring, strong women that they will grow into? 

Let me be clear though, I’m not a saint, I’ve been sexist in that concious post-modern/ironic way similar to when you tell an un-pc joke, except its not a joke and ironic sexism is still sexism just with added dickishness.

I’m mindful that in writing this post I’m probably still being sexist in that more implicit way by unconsciously reinforcing existing sexual stereotypes and disappearing up my own arse through some form of recursive sexism/patronising because i’m writing a post pondering how men can help women as if only men can help the damsel in distress

but i’m not, honest!

I feel passionately about my daughter being uninhibited by either explicit or explicit sexism in doing whatever she want with her life. If I had a son I’d feel exactly the same.

In my head at the moment I’ve just got this vague idea about would some sort of movement or collective, consistent action be a useful addition to existing efforts?

‘Dads Against Sexism’?

What do you think? please let me know.

‘My framework/metamodel/ontology is better than your framework/metamodel/ontology’ 

‘Have we tailored our framework correctly?’

‘Is our reference architecture complete?’

‘That is not a capability that is a service!’

‘Is that a Service or a Capability, a Function or an Information System Service or an Actor’

‘Is this a logical application component or a logical technology component?’

‘I was going to model this as a logical application component but i want to relate it to an actor, so i have to wrap it up in an information system services then a business service.’

‘What would TOGAF do?’

‘Is this this Solution Concept diagram the right type of artifact? should it be a Business Footprint diagram?’

‘Are we progressing in line with our architecture maturity model?’

None of these questions matter!

Why?

because they don’t matter to your stakeholders

Why?

If you are really doing enterprise architecture and not detailed solutions/technology architecture (where accuracy of semantics is more important), then the stakeholders that matter, the ones whose decisions you provide support for simply don’t f-ing care!

EA is really just a technique to provide decision support, to help decision makers (oh by the way if you think you are one of them you are deluded) make informed decisions that affect the success of the Enterprise.

All we need to do as EAs to be successful is communicate clarity to your stakeholder about the problem space they are concerned about. To do this you don’t need to gnash your teeth or gaze at your navel, you don’t need a fancy tool and the right template connecting the right concepts in your chosen meta-model.

What you need is an understanding of the problem space, the status quo and what pragmatic steps may need to be taken to achieve the target.

To much EA debate, whether with colleagues or in the wider community is Meta-bollocks

Definiton: A conversation between Enterprise Architects that results in no value delivered to the organisation but an increase in air pressure and temperature due to the production of hot air.

When you engage in one of these meta-bollocks debates either with yourself or your colleagues, stop. Ask yourself, If my most important stakeholder was in the room at this moment, would she understand and would she think the discussion was an effective use of your time? if the answer is no, curtail the discussion and get on doing some Enterprise Architecture.

One of my interests is coaching, I’m a real believer in the positive effect good coaching can have on work performance, morale, clarity and general well-being. I also believe the techniques used in coaching is an essential part of the toolkit of an enterprise architect.

A few weeks ago I was talking to a colleague who happens to be an experienced coach who is also starting to explore enterprise architecture and specifically TOGAF. I’ve got a love/hate relationship with TOGAF, but it was really interesting to hear how my colleague, coming from a coaching perspective had approached TOGAF. He is now using the TOGAF ADM as what i’d term, a ‘coaching compass’. The idea of bringing up structure/method/map to coaching isn’t a new concept, but it hadn’t hit me how well the togaf adm (or at least the structure it implies) lends itself to being used to orientate a coaching scenario.

I thought this was an interesting way of viewing the ADM and coachign, so thought i’d jot down some of my thoughts off the back of this conversation.

Lets take a look at the ADM (and I warn TOGAF purists i’m going to take some poetic licence with the ADM) from a coaching perspective.

A coach could use the ADM from two different perspectives, either as a compass to guide an ongoing engagement (of one or more coaching sessions) or as a compass for a specific session

Here are some thoughts as to how each phase might translate into a coaching context

Prelim

Creation of coaching ‘contract’ between coach and coachee

A. Architecture Vision

Explore the goals of the session/engagement

B. Business Architecture

Explore possible target state of the people/process aspects of the goal(s)

C. Information Systems Architecture (apps and data)

Explore the tools (in the widest sense of the word) that might enable achievement of the goal(s)

Explore the information that might be required to achieve the goal(s)

D. Technology Architecture

Explore the fundamental structures that might need to be put in place to achieve the goal(s)

E. Opportunities and Solutions

Having taken phases a-d into account, explore the opportunities presented by what has been uncovered and the possible solutions that may help achieve the goals identified in phase A

F. Migration Planning

Having decided on a solution, explore the approach to implementing to achieve the goal(s) and the steps (transition architectures :)) to implement.

G. Implementation Governance

Ensure the planned migration and the chosen solution remains on track, this phase could take the form of simply returning to the migration plan at each successive coaching session

H. Architecture Change Management

The landscape and context for the coachee will change over time and between sessions. This is the opportunity to assess changes to the context that may affect the ways in which the coachee’s goals are to be achieved, or even the nature of the goals themselves.

Requirements

Instead of requirements, think of every phase feeding into testing/validating/changing the goals defined within phase A.

This is just a sketch of how the ADM might be interpreted in a coaching context, i’m not saying this is perfect, maybe its not even useful. but I think its an interesting approach that i’ll explore more during my coaching practice.

I’m attending sdnc13 as a sort of interested and excited outsider. As an Enterprise Architect (hate the pomposity inherent in that title) I think there is a lot I can learn (and #entarch as a community can learn) from service design. I try to understand and sense check business strategy in order to plan the foundations for execution. Often this is within the context of talking the talk of customer centricity, but doesn’t consistently nail it in its design of services. It’s not baked into the process and this is where I find the promise of service design to be refreshing and exciting.

It was interesting to me that there is obviously a feeling within the service design community that there is a sense of growing up to be done, that people have got it so now we need to capitalise and be seen to deliver, that there is now ‘crossover appeal’ into the mainstream, about ‘focus on outcomes not process’ and ‘using the right vocabulary for our clients/customers’ This was interesting for me because it’s a very similar conversation that is constantly recurring within the #entarch community.

The parallel between the conversations within the two communities are interesting to me so I thought I’d share a couple of things thoughts that have been flying around my head (I haven’t unpacked these yet)

Self awareness is good

Navel gazing is bad

Avoid the ‘meta-bollocks’ conversations

The vocabulary that is used is part of the experience for your clients and will make or break it.

What is the fundamental principle (design principle, architecture principle, categorical imperative? )
Is it?

Do nothing that can’t be viscerally related to an outcome for client and customer

Really looking forward to day two of the conference and continuing to learn more seems like a really supportive and self aware community and that can only lead to good things 🙂

What is a zombie project? How do you know one when you see one? (you might even smell them before you’ve seen it)

1) It conforms to Sagey’s law of dysfunctional project reporting

2) People have tried to kill it previously, but it just keeps coming!

3) It has sucked the brains of some of your best people

4) It has been lurking in your change pipeline for too long distracting resource from other projects with its mindless flailing

5) It has eaten project managers (this isn’t necessarily always a bad thing)

6) It has just made no perceptible, meaningful progress and yet is consuming people, money and focus

7) It has delivered no tangible value to your org or your customers since its inception

A Zombie project looks like a normal project from a distance, it will shuffle along consuming brains making similar noises to other projects. Its only when you get close that you realise that those noises that you thought was distant talk is the mindless mumblings of the un-dead.

How do I avoid a Zombie Project?

Easy, there are only a couple of questions to ask yourself:

1) Is everyone clear on the objective(s) of the change?

2) Are you really sure everyone is clear on the objective(s) of the change?

3) Sure your are sure??

4) Does the change have a realistic amount of resource to achieve its objective?

To help answer this question answer this one first, was project resource assigned to the project before the scope and definition and the vision and initial requirements were defined? (if the answer is yes to this question then the answer is no to the first question). Change without the appropriate oxygen with which to exist will quickly become a zombie project.

5) Are the team members happy? This is a really f-ing simple question that is really f-ing simple to answer, it involves strange skills such as listening, empathy and talking to people

6) (important but less important than number 5) Are the stakeholders happy?

Answer ‘nope’ to any of the 6 questions above and the chances are if you don’t already have a zombie project you may well have one soon. Check for bite marks, drooling, distance stares and any mention of ‘brrraaaiiinzzzz’ in the project documentation.

Oh and if you do find one, do yourself a favour and shoot it in the head. it might resemble a project but its humanity departed long ago.

The Law is simple. When your change process is dysfunctional your project reporting will be like this:

Green = Amber
Amber = Red
Red = We are all f*cked! run!!

The thing is, when your project reporting is dysfunctional, everyone will know it, everyone will be doing this interpretation in their head.

Why does this happen?
It happens when:

– People are incentivised to operate the process rather than deliver value.

– People don’t let projects fail (or aren’t allowed to be seen to fail)

– People see project failure is seen as politically damaging

– People working within change Governance structures aren’t incentivised to govern, its too hard work, they might not like what they find

How can this be resolved?:

– Accept that failure is part of change

– Incentivise the reporting and killing or curing of sick projects

– Incentivise the accurate reporting of projects

– Change your change governance structure’s reporting (or maybe create some in the first place!) so its not focused on maximising ‘Greens’, but evidencing proper challenge.

– Remove the governance dead weight. Participation in change governance bodies is often a small part of a wider role. and yet often it can be the most significant part of the person’s role in terms of cost and value. Here are a couple of tests,

1) If attendance at the governances body isn’t the most important thing for that person that week, they are the wrong person and should be removed.

2) If the ‘govenor’ hasn’t read the material (this is usually very obvious and communicated through silence and nodding with others opinion’s or through asking questions that are clearly answered in the material), they are the wrong person and should be removed.

If Sagey’s Law of Dysfunctional Project Reporting applies to you then there are simple things you can do and they all have nothing to do with process and everything to do with people and the things that drive people’s behaviour.

The business does not exist.

Do people in your org use the term “the business”? yep same here. Please can we ban the use of this term?

The term, ‘the business’ is often used in the following scenario:

“Yeah, well we tried to do this really cool thing but ‘the business’ stopped us”

The hilarious thing about this is this usage is often circuitous! You have people in business unit X referring to the people in business unit Y as ‘the business’, meanwhile people in business unit Y referring to business unit X as ‘the business’.

Let’s try and clear this mess up:

1) Unless you are some sort of corporate stowaway that has secreted yourself into an organisation just for shits and giggles, you are part of ‘the business’ and therefore part of whatever problem you are having that makes you to resort to generalisations

2) There is no gigantic creature called ‘The business’ sitting in your stationery cupboard saying “no!” and stopping you from doing what you want. There are only individuals with opinions, aspirations, power and influence.

3) Referring to ‘the business’ is a sign of laziness. It is a sign that you can’t be arsed to put the effort into thinking about your context to the level of detail required to solve your problem. So you create a large intangible barrier, you give it a label and you divest yourself of the responsibility to do anything constructive about it.

Next time someone says “the business” stop them and say “who?” I bet they won’t know.
If you find yourself using the word (and I do from time to time) stop yourself and think “who?”

Maybe then you can stop hiding behind the imaginary constructs of your own creation and start solving your problem.