Nigel Green

@tetradian on Architecture v Design – my observations

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I just read Tom’s thought-provoking post 

Great conversations on enterprise-architecture here http://tinyurl.com/3uu2bn3

In this post Tom notes:
“The other point was an easy way to resolve the age-old argument about architecture versus design. They’re actually part of the same spectrum from vision to realisation, from ‘why’ to ‘how’ and so on. The only difference between them is which way they face: architecture tends to face ‘upward’, towards the big-picture,  the vision, or ‘why’, whilst design tends to face ‘downward’, towards the detail, the real-world realisation, the how and who and where and when and with-what”.

I’m afraid I believe  it’s not as simple as that. The design work I do is the design of the “big” not the detail. I also do architecture work and make use of the work of other architects. This helps constrain the “big” design with useful principles, patterns, reference models, standards and policies. These designs are the ‘action-focused’ means-by-which the business Vision is realised. This, IMO, has more do with mindset than with level of detail – I refer here to Roger Martin’s Design Thinking (I believe to be the basis of Gartner’s Hybrid Thinking) and his thought on Validity-Reliability continuum – I posted about a while ago here http://tinyurl.com/3488rlj – Balancing Reliability-X and Validity-Y

You can see from this post, made in 2009, I too, can be accused of ‘smudging’ the boundaries between Design and Architecture ( and sometimes strategy as well!). In my defence, these concepts often manifest as different views of essentially the same desired business outcome.

Maybe the difference is that architecture is more focused, on the contextual, structural and codes-of-parctice whereas design is more focused on a specific outcome. Both are pinned to Vision regardless of size and scope. The architecture frames the design and ensures consistency and coherence over the long term and, I would argue, that a Biz-Vision-focused EA is the foundation for good design. I strongly agree that the architecture should be business-led and therefore also facing ‘up’ alongside ‘Big Design’ of business change (aka Business Change Design). To put another way,  my work is mostly facing ‘up’ wether I’m acting as architect or designer.

One final observation is that in IT circles the term Design seems to have a narrower meaning than elsewhere. So the debate within IT-centric worldview seems to be rooted in the traditional argument about the differences between Analysis and Design, from an Systems Development Life-Cycle PoV, rather than Roger Martin’s more philosophical Design Thinking. I’m concerned that Tom’s observation “design tends to face ‘downwards'” adds fuel to this IT-centric understanding (which I know from many discussions he would be very unhappy about!).

Does EA practice include both ‘Architecture’ and ‘Big Design’? The debate continues.

N.

Nigel Green

5Di Ltd.
Mobile: +44 (0)7818  53 22 43
Sent from my iPad

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Clipart

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… Testing save to camera roll to avoid PDF generation

Nigel Green 5Di Ltd. Mobile: +44 (0)7818 53 22 43 Web: www.5dinnovation.com Sent from my iPad

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Dog on temple steps..

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.. taken by me when we were on holiday in Thailand over Xmas 2010.

Nigel Green 5Di Ltd. Mobile: +44 (0)7818 53 22 43 Web: www.5dinnovation.com Sent from my iPad

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Generic Management Chap

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Drawn on my iPad in Adobe Ideas.

Nigel Green 5Di Ltd. Mobile: +44 (0)7818 53 22 43 Web: www.5dinnovation.com Sent from my iPad

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Self portrait

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Created using Adobe® Ideas http://www.adobe.com/products/adobeideas

idea.pdf
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Nigel Green 5Di Ltd. Mobile: +44 (0)7818 53 22 43 Web: www.5dinnovation.com Sent from my iPad

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A real example of the dangers of ‘EA’ not covering Enterprise Systems

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I have a real example of the problems of IT-focused EA with a client. #entarch #bcdesign Their IT team are wrestling with the requirements to modify IT systems within the context of a very large business change programme. The problem is that there is a disconnect between the feature and function aspects of the IT change and the ende2end business process perspective of the change. The latter includes all the human ‘systems’ that must adopt the change. Without a holistic view it is impossible to know if the piecemeal changes planned within the IT space in fact are correct and, more worryingly, whether they might introduce unintended consequences. Moreover, the way ‘the business’ has specified the changes they want from  IT have tended to ignore ‘failure demand’ and are ‘happy path’ centric. There was once a time when an Industrial Engineering team might’ve picked up this joining-up of people, process and technology, ( although that tended to focus more on Six Simga than Adoption, Trust  and Value Systems)  but it seems these days this is left with the CIO to figure-out. So this leads me to support  Tom Graves’ PoV that EA should cover all aspects of business change because if it doesn’t I don’t know who will!  More about here: 

http://www.5dinnovation.com/5Di/Business%20Change%20Design.html

(typos fixed)

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Business Change Design and WHY, WHAT,WHO, WHEN & WHERE

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Following a Twitter chat over the weekend with Alec Sharp, Chris Bird et al, I thought I’d put together this table to show how one company sees the 5W+H focus the main roles involved in designing business change. We had a fair debate about the focus…

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VPEC-T template for designing business change

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Here’s an example / template for applying VPEC-T to a large scale business transformation ( like a post M&A situation).

Steps:
Start with any of the four inner columns – usually Events or Values and capture the various stakeholder perspectives (usually a Post-It on brown paper exercise).

Stand back and discuss the relationships between the four columns and note any points.

Lastly, look at the final wrap-around Trust dimension in the context of the discussion around the inner four columns.

00_vpect_template

Nigel Green
5Di Ltd.
Web: www.5dinnovation.com
Sent from my iPad

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