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There was a time when having an application at all; the mere presence of an automated solution was a competitive differentiator for a company. I remember when our on-line banking product was considered novel, not so much for unique features, as for its…
I’ve spent a few years designing and facilitating strategy and planning processes (aka business performance management or BPM) and have gained some insight that I thought might be interesting to folks. This article is a work-in-progress set of best practices I feel are worth sharing. Top Business Performance Management Lessons Learned 1. Be clear on…
On Friday 14th June, there was a public meeting of the EAST group, entitled Perspectives on Enterprise Architecture and Systems Thinking, kindly hosted by BT in its offices near St Paul’s. Tom Graves has posted a detailed write-up on his blog At ‘EA and Systems-Thinking’ conference.
What is the purpose of dialogue between EA and ST? Putting aside the debate about what the labels “Enterprise Architecture” and “Systems Thinking” might mean, there is certainly a thought that the two (or more) communities can learn from each other. There are strengths and weaknesses on both sides – so we may be able to produce a critique of EA from an ST perspective, or a critique of ST from an EA perspective. For example, in his presentation, John Holland asserted that “EA is broken – How ST can help”. (See Tom’s blog for summary.)
This kind of material often arouses a certain kind of resistance. “He’s not talking about me, he must be talking about someone else.” Where are the EAs to whom such a criticism as John’s might apply? Surely the fact that we are going to these meetings, or reading these blogs, or participating in these Linked-In discussions, puts us into the most sophisticated and reflective quartile?
One of the fundamental questions underlying discussion of EA and ST is imagining some kind of landscape with more or less distinct zones: EA over here, ST over there, this or that school of EA, this or that school of ST, good EA versus bad EA, authentic ST versus fake ST, mainstream versus next practice.
I have written several pieces on the relationship between Enterprise Architecture (EA) and Systems Thinking (ST), on this blog and elsewhere, but such pieces are always open to challenge by those who disagree about the correct use of the labels.
So it sometimes seems that we cannot even start talking about EA and ST, and about the relationship (if any) between them, until we can agree what these terms mean. The desire to name things properly is an ancient one, and can be found in the Analects of Confucius. (See my post on the Wisdom of Confucius). But the prevailing desire to impose one’s own definitions leads to endless and mostly unproductive debate on Linked-In and elsewhere. For this meeting, we hoped for a more productive energy, and I like to think we largely succeeded.
Some of the speakers fell into a dialectic mode of presentation – on the one hand EA, on the other hand ST. This can be useful as a starting point, but if the distinction between EA and ST is taken too seriously it may drive a wedge between practitioners. As Tom commented, “there don’t seem to be any clear distinctions, any absolute boundaries that determine who’s ‘in’ and who’s ‘out’ – all a bit blurry all round, really.” For my part, instead of trying to avoid making any distinctions whatsoever, I put up a few slides with some provocative and playful distinctions, flagged with “possibly” and “tongue-in-cheek”. But I haven’t always been consistent about this, and (as someone pointed out to me) I probably need to be more careful when making a rhetorical contrast between “mainstream” and “next practice”.
The EA/ST landscape may include Confucian and dialectic modes, but it should also include Daoist and dialogic modes. (For a brief explanation of the difference between dialectic and dialogic, see Wikipedia: Dialogic.) Robust debate between dogmatic EA and dogmatic ST may lead to schism, but even that is preferable to bland and empty speech. If we want to have a serious discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of current practice, then we must be prepared for robust critique, and we should not have to worry about over-sensitive practitioners taking everything personally.
One possible aspiration is to build a bridge between two communities, or perhaps even one single community. In their presentation, Patrick Hoverstadt and Lucy Loh presented some recent work of the EAST working group, showing how the concepts and techniques of EA and ST could be combined to address business challenges. This work is ongoing.
If we take the view that community building depend on affiliation (finding common beliefs and values), then any schism and doubt may seem to undermine this agenda. However, there is a more robust path to community building, based on alliance (accepting and overcoming difference for the sake of collaboration). For an eloquent defence of what she calls Deep Disagreement, see Margaret Heffernan’s TED Talk Dare to Disagree.
Perhaps some people will think me perverse, but I look forward to plenty more friendly disagreement between EA and ST in future.
Admittedly, it’s a bit of a leap – addressing the converging roles of the CIO and CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) with an Enterprise Architecture perspective, particularly when a CMO’s “Enterprise” ranges far and wide of the actual organization they serve. The Internet does extend now into outer space a bit, after all.
The classic scope of the Enterprise is that which is contained within both an operating and investment budget (OPEX and CAPEX) – the assets and resources that are produced, consumed and used under a common business (or mission) strategy. Perhaps a company or agency, a department or line-of-business, or some other facility or organization segment. Enterprise Architects (EAs) most often influence these sorts of enterprise contexts.
A CMO certainly runs a business segment, investing in people, assets and consumable resources – most of which can be touched, inventoried or governed in some way to align with the segment’s business strategy (make revenue, deliver goods or services, be a public steward, contain costs, mitigate risk). A CMO’s “Enterprise”, particularly in this digital age, is also that of the online, networked audience. Social media profiles, data feed providers, branded communications channels, publisher networks and web app platforms – these also are part of the CMO’s “Enterprise”, and require some degree of monitoring, governance, investment control, integrated standardization. Digital marketing campaign assets and advertisements aren’t usually just thrown to the wilds of the Interwebs (unless they are) – they’re carefully planned, tested, optimized, controlled, monitored and analyzed – both their original forms and any derivations.
Note that, for purposes of this blog, the “CMO” is readily compared to the “Government Services PR Lead” or “Constituent Relationship Communications Lead” – or basically any other leadership position in charge of outreach, communications and basically marketing of Public Sector capabilities or services.
“Traditional” EA doesn’t seem to address the Internet of things, stuff and services as something to be modeled, or deemed compliant, or aligned with standard reference frameworks. This isn’t unlike trying to apply one EA’s influence across an SOA interface boundary – while there are certainly very useful, open standards for both to leverage in delivering SOA success, one organization’s EA model compliance and content isn’t necessarily usable or useful to another organization.
Can or should one’s Enterprise Architecture scope and framework be applied to all those 3rd-party Internet-hosted products and services a CMO relies upon? Why not – particularly if this “External Interactive Marketing” business domain is scoped according to some kind of “services taxonomy” (that may likely have parallel definition back within the organization). For example “Data Publishing” services (like Equifax), “Search” services (like Google), “Information Sharing” and “Community Management” services (like Facebook and LinkedIn). While these Internet capabilities aren’t owned by the organization, how they’re used can certainly be modeled and approached from the same architectural principles, standards and experience as a already found within the organization.
Enter the “Chief Marketing Technology Officer” (CMTO), a role that combines digital marketing practice and Internet services technology knowledge, with the classic IT investment, management and operations knowledge of a CIO (or CTO). The CMTO not only understands what’s necessary to secure and control information within his organization, but also understands what does or can happen to this information on the public Internet – planned or not.
Below is a proposed standard “Domain Reference Architecture” for the CMTO role, depicting also the intersection (and expansion) of the traditional EA role.
Helping the CMTO apply architectural principles, governance and repeatable methods for the information lifecycle external to the organization – that’s a worthwhile and appropriate role for the Enterprise Architect…and may be all the more relevant as programs and lines-of-business holistically outsource their information management capabilities to 3rd-party providers and cloud services. Full-scope alignment of the EA practice to the CMO/CMTO’s domain is probably inevitable, as more industry analysts point to the rapid and dominant global enterprise demand of marketing departments on their organization’s IT investment portfolio.
As written on the Oracle Social Spotlight Blog, “CMOs must see the science behind the art. CIOs must see the art behind the science”. EAs must align the art and science to meet the business case.
Before the start of the football season, football journalists have little to write about except transfer speculation – wondering which player might be about to transfer from one overpaid job to another overpaid job. This period is known as the Transfer…
Lets look at the fundamental aspect of creating an Enterprise Architecture brand within your company – Enablement OR Control?In some organizations, the “control” part of EA is given an unhealthy amount of attention. Not that control is not important, b…
Welcome to financial year 2014! Whew! July marks the new financial year and for some of us, the end of a strategy, planning and budgeting cycle. Once again, I had the opportunity to design and facilitate my organization’s business strategy, planning and budgeting process and it seems that each time I learn tons. As a…
Despite all the incumbent benefits offered to businesses that own and operate their own Private Cloud, adoption rates since its emergence have been slower than anticipated, especially across Government organisations. This is largely the result of repeated reports from experts warning against the associated security risks that come from placing sensitive data in cyber space. …
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“The best executives I have met have had a great understanding of how to use technology to gain competitive advantage and improve operations. They also worked with the CIO to help them to understand the business. They worked together to identify the technologies that could improve the company’s competitive advantage versus technologies that were needed to support the business. Once this was done, the executive leadership and CIO focused on implementing technologies that improve the company’s competitive advantage”.
The demise of the IT Department is not a new prediction, it was first suggested in 2004 by Nicolas Carr in his book ‘Does IT Matter?‘ and again in 2007 when Chris Anderson published his ‘Black Wire – White Wire’ article. This post talked about how corporate IT was being over-taken by consumer-IT. Later, in January 2008, Nicholas Carr famously pronounced “The IT department is dead” referring to the up-take of utility computing since his 2004 prediction.
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Old Habits
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New Habits
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1.The department of ‘No’
2.Products focus
3.Internal SLAs
4.IT Strategy
5.Cyber security tooling
6.CAPEX-first mentality
7.Solution-focused technology architecture
8.Product standardized IT portfolio management
9.Governance of large IT projects
10.IT Cost Centre management
11.Internal procedures & methods
12.‘Family’ of IT vendors
13.Gadget-focused innovation
14.Periodic, internally-focused, measurement
15.Technology focus
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1.The department of qualified ‘Yes’
2.Services focus
3.Services internal/external ecosystem –SLA-chains
4.Integrated BT strategy
5.Cyber security culture
6.Balanced, outcome-focused, investment
7.Adaptive, value-focused, Enterprise Architecture
8.Principle-led architecture & standards-based integration
9.Company-wide, joined-up, BT-governance
10.BT services broker, innovation-lead and advisory
11.Internal & external engagement
12.Consumer-driven, ecosystem of suppliers
13.Customer-story-based innovation
14.Constant, external & internal, feedback-loops
15.Focus on information value & risk
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As Architects we often spend countless hours working toward delivering great artifacts, including a future state, current state and roadmap to assist our customers in developing a vision and plan toward transformation or maturity. This work is often completed and finds its place on the CIO’s bookshelf or the Lead Architect’s desk with little action or even a second look. Why is this work not actively embraced by many organizations beyond the IT walls or even within the IT organization?
Don’t misunderstand my position, I believe all of the work completed during an iterative EA process that outputs the artifacts I mentioned above add value, although if the organization is not “culturally” ready to embrace the work and transform then the effort is for not.
Culture is defined in many ways by many scholars, although I find it easiest to define culture as interactions and relationships between members of an organization or unit within that organization. This assumes there is an organizational culture and sub cultures within that organization. With this said, it is important that we as architects focus on the overarching organizational culture to better understand whether our customers are ready for an EA engagement.
Our first priority is to ensure we are engaged with the highest level of sponsorship within the organization. For instance, developing physical architectures with the platform division does not constitute Enterprise Architecture, but rather a Technical Architecture and will only have an effect on that sub culture within the organization. EAs need to ensure they are seated alongside the CIO, CFO, COO or even the Chief Executive to ensure efforts toward cultural transformation can be enabled via strong sponsorship.
In the public sector this can be a difficult task as most executives are focused on business related practices and often see the CIO and vendors as “IT focused.” It is critical for our communication during initial contact to be business focused. Conversations about technology are not held until key items, like capability modeling, guiding principles and governance structures are embraced by the organization as a result of cultural change. Once these cultural elements are embraced and socialized technology decisions will be easily facilitated with little debate or power struggles. Remember, the “sponsor” understands how important organizational transformation is at this point in the evolution and will help sub groups understand the vision. Communication and vision are critical elements at this point in the journey toward transformation.
Once we have commitment from the sponsor it is critical for the sponsor to understand the partnership needed between the EA Team and Executive Team. The EA Team is not chartered with creating mission, vision, strategy etc. but rather with understanding the Executive Team’s goals and objectives for the organization and aligning the technology investments with these goals and objectives. Every investment decision made is a direct representation of how the organization’s culture is manifesting itself physically.
I caught up with Gil Long who has served IBM as a Business Development Executive, Distinguished Engineer and CIO Office Chief Enterprise Architecture leader. As the Worldwide Enterprise Architecture Community Leader, he specialized in architecture governance, strategic architecture design and infrastructure transition planning. He was responsible for IBM’s enterprise architecture strategy and planning service offerings, global enterprise architecture training programs, and functioned as a member of IBM’s Architect Certification Board.
Gil has had direct management responsibility for large IT organizations and staffing, and substantial ongoing budget accountability. His multi-industry experience includes international banking, securities, education, retail, healthcare, insurance, utilities, manufacturing, semi-conductor, airlines, telecommunications and government.
Gil is a competitive aerobatics and commercial pilot.
In many years of your experience across hundreds of customers, what is the fundamental thing that organizations miss about Enterprise Architecture?
Understanding the value of EA is often an issue. The value is not only about reducing IT cost, but investing in innovative ways to improve the business. In my opinion, many companies do not understand what EA is!
EA needs the buy-in from upper management, but most upper managements think it is merely a technical or standards issue, and miss the point that it covers all aspects of business and technical structure and management. It is very important to have someone at the sponsorship level who understands what EA is and what value it brings.
In your experience what has been one of the most remarkable transformations enabled by Enterprise Architecture?
Obviously, I am intimately familiar with IBM’s EA and how it has influenced multiple internal transformations. I shared with you the IBM Transformation Story. Great showcase!
I have seen many other transformations in the client world. One involved the consolidation of 90 companies (utilities) into a common footprint! Generally, the more complex the environment, the greater the benefit EA can deliver.
What do you think is one of the most underrated aspects of Enterprise Architecture?
The leadership role that an Enterprise Architect can provide to the organization.
For an aspiring Enterprise Architect, what are some key things she needs to start working on right now?
[-] Understand what EA is and what value it brings to the organization.
[-] Get EA training. You could start with understanding TOGAF, which is an internationally recognized standard for Enterprise Architecture.
[-] Get certified if you can, it could establish your credibility both within and outside your organization.
[-] Develop strong relationships with stakeholders that are impacted by EA. Its importance cannot be overstated. Involve them in the process.
[-] Understand your industry. Industries have their own context, business process models, histories, politics and challenges. Understanding your industry gives you an edge when working with partners across the company.
[-] Work on your communication skills. Always put yourself in the shoes of your audience. Communicate in a way that the listener will understand. Your message should be simple, concise and actionable, and answer the question, ‘What’s in it for me?’.
[-] An Enterprise Architect needs to stand up and speak, evangelize ideas, develop consensus, work across boundaries. Do not throw up your hands and quit, or be draconian and say if I don’t get what I want, the world will come to an end!
Do you think Enterprise Architecture has a brand issue?
Yes, the name itself implies it is a technical concept, rather than an overall business concept. The word “architecture” conjures an image of a guy with his head down, drawing a complex picture! The word “enterprise” can also be a bit vague. The enterprise represents the totality of the business; including business partners, customers and other stakeholders, and the infrastructure they use to accomplish their objectives.
However, a good Enterprise Architect will be able to explain EA to anyone in terms they can understand.
At the risk of drawing you into the “war of EA frameworks”, how important is the EA framework brand to you?
You have quite a collection of funny “ditties”! Which one is your favorite?
I have many favorites, but the “You are here!” picture always gets a laugh from architects 🙂
