Business Architecture

Publishing Tetradian e-books via Leanpub

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I have at last found a viable workflow to produce e-books of my various books and blogposts, via Leanpub. There’s one significant constraint in this form of publishing: Leanpub uses Markdown text-files for input, which is a fair bit more limited in its formatting than my books normally use. But that constraint fits well with the […]

New book ‘The enterprise as story’ is published

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Also launched at the Integrated EA 2012 conference was my new book ‘The enterprise as story‘: Full title: The Enterprise As Story: the role of narrative in enterprise-architecture ISBN: 978-1-906681-34-0 Description: Most current approaches to enterprise-architecture describe everything in terms of structure. Yet people work better with story than with structure – and people are the enterprise. As […]

Presentation ‘The enterprise is the story’ now online

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‘The enterprise is the story‘ – my presentation from the recent Integrated-EA enterprise-architecture conference in London – is now online on Slideshare: The enterprise is the story View more PowerPoint from Tetradian Consulting The slidedeck is just under 80 slides, split into five sequences: “What’s the story?” – introducing the idea of story as a […]

How Enterprise Architects can cope with Opportunistic Failure

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You may not think that Failure is a desired outcome, and on the surface, there are some negative connotations to failure.  It just sounds “bad” for a team to fail.  However, there are times when a manager will INTENTIONALLY fail in a goal.  Let’s look at the scenario where a manager may choose to fail, and see whether EA has a role in either preventing that failure, or facilitating it.

What is Opportunistic Failure?

Does your organization manage by objectives and scorecards?  Scorecards and metrics are frequently used management tools, especially in medium and large organizations.  In a Manage-By-Objective (MBO) organization, a senior leader is not told “how” to do something, but rather a negotiation takes places that results in the development of a measurable objective.  The term “measurable objective,” used here, is a well-defined idea.  It is specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-bound (SMART).  A measurable objective is a description of the results that a senior manager is expected to achieve.  In BMM terms, the objective is the “ends” while the senior leader is expected to figure out the “means.”  In business architecture parlance, the objective describes the “what” while the senior leader is expected to figure out the “how.”

Now, in many situations, a senior leader has to rely on other groups to perform, in some way, in order for him to achieve his measurable objectives.  This is quite common.  In fact, I’d say that the vast majority of senior-level objectives require some kind of collaboration between his or her people, and the people who work in other parts of the organization (or other organizations). 

For a small percentage of those dependencies, there may be competition between the senior leader’s organization and some other group, and that is where opportunistic failure comes in.

The scenario works like this: 

Senior leader has an empowered team.  They can deliver on 30 capabilities.  Someone from outside his or her organization, perhaps an enterprise architect, points out that one of those capabilities is overlapping.  Let’s say it is the “Product Shipment Tracking” capability.  The EA instructs the senior leader to “take a dependency” on another department (logistics in this case) for that.  The senior leader disagrees in principle because he has people who do a good job of that capability, and he doesn’t want to take the dependency.  However, he cannot convince other leaders that he should continue to perform the “product shipment tracking” capability in his own team. 

So he contacts the other department (logistics) and sets up an intentionally dysfunctional relationship.  After some time, the relationship fails.  Senior leader goes to his manager and says “we tried that, and it didn’t work, so I’m going to do it my way.”  No one objects, and his team gets to keep the capability.

In effect, the senior leader felt it was in her own best interest to fight the rationale for “taking a dependency,” but instead of fighting head-on, s/he pretends to cooperate, sabotages the relationship, and then gets the desired result when the effort fails.  This is called “opportunistic failure.” 

Thoughts on Opportunistic Failure

Opportunistic failure may work in the favor of anyone, even an Enterprise Architect.  However, as an EA, I’ve most often seen it used by business leaders to insure that they are NOT going to be asked to comply with the advice of Enterprise Architecture, even when it makes sense from an organizational and/or financial standpoint. 

In addition, one of the basic assumptions of EA is that we can apply a small amount of pressure to key points of change to induce large impacts.  That assumption collapses in the face of opportunistic failure.  Organizations can be very resistant to change, and this is one of the ways in which that resistance manifests. 

Therefore, while EA could benefit from EA, I’ll primarily discuss ways to address the potential for a business leader to use operational failure to work against the best interests of the enterprise.

  1. Get senior visibility. – If a business leader is tempted to use opportunistic failure to resist good advice, get someone who is two or more levels higher than that leader to buy in to the recommended approach.  This radically reduces the possibility that the business leader will take the risk to his or her career that this kind of failure may pose.
  2. Get the underlying managers in that senior manager’s team on board, and even better, get them to agree to the specific measures of progress that demonstrate success.  This creates a kind of “organizational momentum” that even senior leaders have a difficult time resisting.
  3. Work to insure that EA maintains a good relationship with the business party that will come up short if the initiative does fail.  That way, they feel that you’ve remained on their side, and will call on you to escalate the issue if it arises.
  4. Play the game – look for things to trade off with.  If the senior manager is willing to risk opportunistic failure, you may be able to swing them over to supporting the initiative if you can trade off something else that they want… perhaps letting another, less important, concern slide for a year.  

 

Conclusion

For non-EAs reading this post: EA is not always political… but sometimes it is.  Failing to recognize the politics will make you into an ineffective EA.  On the other hand, being prepared for the politics will not make you effective either… it will just remove an obstacle to effectiveness. 

How Strategic is IT? – Assessing Strategic Value

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Why do we care?  Understanding the role IT plays in the business will be important in establishing proper scope, obtaining support for initiatives and delivering the greatest value to the organization. 

Recently I was working on strategies for Data Center Transformation.  The challenge was a scope focused on the technology domain during the Architecture Vision Phase.  How do we create alignment to the broader business architecture, when the drivers and KPIs tend to be tied almost exclusively to IT operating and capital expenses, or an idea of supporting business agility?

I was concerned that the technology architecture strategy that I was defining was too vague and treated IT as if it was applied monolithically – Standardize, Consolidate, Optimize.  I looked to Strategic Significance as a way that I could potentially provide a more nuanced technology strategy, that took into consideration that IT has more strategic significance to different parts of the organization.

Taking a broad brush approach – we could imply that IT is strategic to almost every modern business.  That being without IT capabilities much of the organizations functions would come to a halt.  However, what we really are looking at is most likely a wide-ranging application of tactical capabilities applied across the different business functions.  So, in this light, IT is as Strategic as a reliable Electric provider.

I think it is fair to say, that the Business Leaders assume that competent facilities people will keep the lights on, just as IT will keep their processes rolling along.  So, how strategic is IT?

What is Strategic Value

Strategic Value is about Competitive, Pricing, Cost, Product or Market Differentiation.  Wal-Mart’s strategy touches on three of these – Pricing and Cost are talked about widely.  Being the low-cost leader establishes a unique place in the market.  The can achieve this through their cost strategy, influence upon suppliers and the generation of Wal-Mart specific low-cost products based upon their buying power.  Finally, geographic spread – Wal-Mart is everywhere, is a part of a Market dominance strategy.

Strategic Relevance – When IT “Is the Value Chain”

So, when does IT take on the role of a Strategic Differentiator?   Ever here of Google or Amazon? There product is IT.  This is a bit of an extreme example, but the point is that the closer IT is to the Product or Service the more strategic it’s value is to the organization.  In the absence of Information Technology what would their product be?  Even within the Amazon example, you can not diminish the capabilities that they have developed around order fulfillment.  This includes a lot of manual picking and packing, and they are very efficient in how they have implemented this capability.  However, if it was not for their ability to reach customers and match customers to products via the Web, they become a catalog retailer of the 1950’s.

Strategic Relevance – When IT is a “Part of the Value Chain”

When else do we see IT as providing Strategic Value?  A Recent story about Target and their customer targeted marketing has been in the news.  This is how Target uses Predictive Analytics to selectively market to individual customers based upon their buying habits and trends, in conjunction with some very sophisticated algorithms.  This allows Target to maintain mindshare and attract new customers, which they claim provides them with about a three-year attachment run.  Here we see this Predicative Analytics playing a significant role in Targets Marketing Strategy.  The capability is core to their Marketing approach for customer capture and retention.

So Strategic Value can be identified on broad terms where IT is the Business or as specific functional segments within the business.  The importance is how close the IT capability is to the actual fulfillment of the business strategy.  Both Amazon and Target see IT as strategic; it is just a matter of scope.  I am sure they both have General Ledger and HR Systems, but do those IT capabilities provide strategic differentiation?

Technology Archtiecture Strategy – Data Center Transformation 

So, if I am in an EA Engagement establishing the Architecture Vision and my scope is the Technology Domain, what are some of the tools I can apply to assess the strategic significance?

A reasonable place to start might be at the Business Architecture.  We need to establish our understanding of the Capabilities and Processes that drive the business.  Paul Silverstein has developed some useful models for evaluating business value vs. business scope – how much value the organization receives versus how broadly a capability or process impacts the organization.  Funding Models might be a useful piece of the puzzel as well.

By individually, assessing each capability we can define them in terms of tactical impact and strategic impact.  Next, we can evaluate each from the perspective of IT support required to deliver the capability.  We can start with the organizational alignment of IT and the business function to see to what extent the IT function is integrated within the business capability. Where there is tight alignment, we might want to highlight that capability for further analysis within the Architecture Vision Phase.  Funding models may provide us with insight concerning the functions dependencies on IT, and how much control the business function maintains over their IT capabilities.

Often we use Strategy Maps, and they provide value.  But what if I want to refine the assessment in order to establish tighter line of sight between functional stategies and IT.  I have seen some examples of balanced scrore cards used in assessing IT’s relative value, but it tended to be applied very broadly.    I am suggesting that by assssing IT significance to the individual business function strategies in scope, we may be able to define a technology architecture strategy that focuses where the different standardization, consolidation, and optimization strategies will be most impactful, and return the greatest value.

Models and Tools for refining Strategic Alignment and Significance?

Are there tools you use for IT Strategic Assessment? 

I would be interested in hearing how you define the role of IT within your customer’s organizations, and how they determine strategic significance?  “Leveraging the New Infrastructure”, a book from Peter Weill and Marianne Broadbent, has some very interesting models depicting IT Investment to IT Impact.    

Do you have models or re-purpose models such as Balanced Score Cards to focus on IT value and strategic significance? 

Are there specific metrics that you or your customers find useful in defining strategic signifcance?  

Business Model and Business Architecture: Synonymous or Dissimilar?

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When I read Tom Graves’ (@tetradian) post Who is the customer? published on July 14th, 2011, it was not the first time that I thought: “Hey, wait a minute. Using business model and business architecture interchangeably is not right.”  But did I expect Tom … Continue reading →

How organizations filter out change agents in their hiring process

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Hypothesis: One way to change an organization is to join it.  Can we prove or disprove this hypothesis? I had a long lunch with a friend of mine (whom I’ll call Joseph) who was interviewing at an analyst firm that freely shares opinions on Ente…