Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
More than a few years ago, my son and I were watching one of the Harry Potter movies when Professor Snape came on the screen. My son said, "Oh I’ve seen that actor before, what’s he been in?" I replied, "That’s Hans Gruber from Die Hard, played by Alan Rickman."
My son looked at me with the awe that a father dreams of, and said, "How did you pull that out?" I’m sure this was his nice way of
I’ve been asked a number of times over the years if I can explain the theory of Enterprise Architecture. I decided recently to reopen that idea. It’s not a new discussion. I refer to Tom Graves post on the Theory of EA from 2012 where he posits that the theory of EA, if one were…
What is and why would we need a reference business map? For the purpose of this, a business map is the functional organisation of an enterprise while a reference business map is a business map that is generic enough to apply to most industries. &n…
In my post From Convenience to Consilience – “Technology Alone Is Not Enough” (October 2011), I praised Steve Jobs for his role in the design of the Pixar campus, whose physical layout was intended to bring different specialists together in serendipitous interactions.
Thanks to @jhagel and @CoCreatr, I have just read a blogpost by @StoweBoyd commenting on a related project at Google to build a new Googleplex. Because this is Google, this is a bottom-up data-driven project: it is based on a predicted metric of coincidensity, which is sometimes defined as the likelihood of serendipity.
With the right technology (for example, electronic monitoring of the corridors and/or tagging of employees), a corporation like Google can easily monitor and control “casual collisions of the work force”.
But as Ilkka Kakko (@Serendipitor) points out, such measures of coincidensity cannot be equated with true serendipity. I wonder whether Google will be able to correlate casual meetings with enhanced knowledge and understanding, and measure the consequent quantity and quality of innovation? And then reconfigure the campus to improve the results? Hm.
However, the principle of designing physical spaces for human activity rather than for visual elegance is a good one, as is the notion of evidence-based design. Form following function.
Stowe Boyd, Building From The Inside Out (February 2013)
Paul Goldberger, Exclusive Preview: Google’s New Built-from-Scratch Googleplex (Vanity Fair, February 2013)
Ilkka Kakko, Are we reducing the magic of serendipity to the logic of coincidence? (April 2013)
The most common concern our customers voiced in 2014 was the unexpected outcomes of Agile projects. They don’t talk about failure as such. But they do talk about loss of consistency; inability to govern; lack of coordination AND THE INCREASING TIME TO MARKET caused by these precise issues.
I was struck by the results of the Agile Adoption Experiences Survey 2014 published by Scott Ambler. The really significant result to me is that 40% of respondents rates their organizations adoption of Agile as neither a success or a failure. Add to this the categories of Failure, Great Failure and Too early to tell and you have 58% that are not successful! This synchs with my customer feedback referred to above.
The advice my colleagues and I give when customers approach us looking for answers to these questions, is to look at how architecture is integrated into Agile projects. And there are some key areas that we look for in our assessments:
1. Is there a good reference architecture and associated contextual patterns?
2. Are there clear policies attached to work products together with the rationale?
3. Are developers and architects working as a community of interest to evolve the reference architecture, patterns and policies?
4. Are the reference architecture, patterns and policies integrated into the tooling and the architecture runway?
5. Is the architecture runway model based – allowing it to provide a reusable design time platform to be evolved by projects?
Agile projects can be successful in an enterprise situation. But architecture and governance need to be coordinated for consistency and mechanisms (automation) enforced to ensure consistency.
I wonder why the Agile Adoption survey didn’t ask any questions along these lines?
It has been quite a while since I last posted here and I am very sorry for that. There is so much I want to do and share with the Enterprise Archtecture community which just piles up on a long (very long, indeed) list of things. Among quite some posts …
This is a typical artefact from an architect: It consists of the typical modelling constructs found in those work products from architects: squares, blocks, rectangular things stacked on each other. For many people, even architects I am afraid, architecture is more or less synonymous with stacking blocks in layers. The work products in TOGAF are […]
2015 is an anniversary year for Enterprise Architecture. It is 40 years since Richard Saul Wurman coined the phrase “Information Architecture” — in 1975. Information Architecture became Information Systems Architecture, and then Enterprise Architecture. I predict that enterprise architects will use this anniversary to reflect on the history of our discipline and its position within the Read more
In the next three years, more enterprises will reposition their Enterprise Architecture practices to become architecture truly at the Enterprise level, going beyond using “Enterprise” as a mere prefix to what, in reality, has been an IT-centric architecture. There will be a critical mass of enterprises doing this — enough to make Enterprise Architecture understood Read more
The world of digital is changing the face of the business landscape. Established household names are now going toe to toe with new kids on the block, and in some cases their customers are becoming the competition. The product is no longer the differentiator, it is about owning the eco system, and it is the Read More
QualiWare Center of Excellence is pleased to offer a three-day certification course for Mastering Enterprise Investment. The course is given by Chris Potts. This intensive three-day course provides a comprehensive exploration of the strategy, key principles and techniques for success at Enterprise Investment. Through the powerful combination of Enterprise Architecture and Investment Portfolio Management into … Read more
In the previous Shearing Layers post, I was talking quite theoretically about the rate at which stores could change their layouts to suit some time period. E.g. changing seasonal merchandise, etc.How about we get even more radical. Perhaps we…