Enterprise Architecture

EA Heuristic #4: Collect and analyze data with reusability in mind

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Metal Bottle Cap Flowers (credit: urban woods walker)
(this article is part of the series “12 Heuristics for Enterprise Architecting“)
EA exercises involve collecting a lot of data and distilling insights from them.  It seems wasteful if the fruits of these efforts are used just once and then thrown away.  Instead, when collecting data and doing analysis on them, it is useful to think about how the data and analysis can be re-used.

Specifically, as discussed in Heuristics #2: Guess, Validate, Iterate: Time-bound architectural efforts, the insights are likely to contain some inaccuracies, so expect gradual refinement of the data and analysis.  To do that, how the analysis is derived from the data should be clear.  In addition, involve as much as possible the people who are going to update it in the future.  The more familiar they are with the collected data and analysis, the more likely they will reuse it in the future.

During our EA exercise, we created a chart showing the key products offered by the organization, along with each product’s importance and satisfaction level.  We created a first draft of the chart, then we explained to the organization how we did it, and then they refined it.  We hope that they will reuse this chart, and we are more confident of it since they have already updated it once.  In addition, when we created the summary of our key findings, we tried as much as we can to resist the temptation of listing down gut feels and focus on findings that are backed up by data.

EA Heuristic #4: Collect and analyze data with reusability in mind

by

Metal Bottle Cap Flowers (credit: urban woods walker)
(this article is part of the series “12 Heuristics for Enterprise Architecting“)
EA exercises involve collecting a lot of data and distilling insights from them.  It seems wasteful if the fruits of these efforts are used just once and then thrown away.  Instead, when collecting data and doing analysis on them, it is useful to think about how the data and analysis can be re-used.

Specifically, as discussed in Heuristics #2: Guess, Validate, Iterate: Time-bound architectural efforts, the insights are likely to contain some inaccuracies, so expect gradual refinement of the data and analysis.  To do that, how the analysis is derived from the data should be clear.  In addition, involve as much as possible the people who are going to update it in the future.  The more familiar they are with the collected data and analysis, the more likely they will reuse it in the future.

During our EA exercise, we created a chart showing the key products offered by the organization, along with each product’s importance and satisfaction level.  We created a first draft of the chart, then we explained to the organization how we did it, and then they refined it.  We hope that they will reuse this chart, and we are more confident of it since they have already updated it once.  In addition, when we created the summary of our key findings, we tried as much as we can to resist the temptation of listing down gut feels and focus on findings that are backed up by data.

EA Heuristic #3: Talk to more blind men to know the elephant

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(this article is part of the series “12 Heuristics for Enterprise Architecting“)
Picture of an elephant in a gentleman outfit. Enterprises are like elephants, much bigger than this one, thus a lot harder for any person to get a correct whole picture of.
photo credit: Murilo Morais 
Enterprises are like often like elephants and the enterprises’ employees and stakeholders are like blind men in the classic story; they are each touching a different part of the enterprise and they will each describe the enterprise differently, sometimes in significantly different ways.  As such, though it might seem obvious, it is important to talk to multiple people, and if possible representatives of various stakeholder groups.  Moreover, what EA often reveals is the breakdown in information flow across the enterprise.

In our EA exercise, we got employees of the organization to suggest ideas.  In order to encourage more ideas to be contributed, we make it safe for idea contributors by not tagging names to ideas.  Later, when we evaluated the ideas, we observed that some ideas suggested by one employee was labeled as “we are already doing this” by another employee.  Clearly the initiative in question was seen as an area of improvement in the eyes of the first employee, but seen as completed in the eyes of the second.  This was a good example of different perspectives on the state of the enterprise.

EA Heuristic #3: Talk to more blind men to know the elephant

by

(this article is part of the series “12 Heuristics for Enterprise Architecting“)
Picture of an elephant in a gentleman outfit. Enterprises are like elephants, much bigger than this one, thus a lot harder for any person to get a correct whole picture of.
photo credit: Murilo Morais 
Enterprises are like often like elephants and the enterprises’ employees and stakeholders are like blind men in the classic story; they are each touching a different part of the enterprise and they will each describe the enterprise differently, sometimes in significantly different ways.  As such, though it might seem obvious, it is important to talk to multiple people, and if possible representatives of various stakeholder groups.  Moreover, what EA often reveals is the breakdown in information flow across the enterprise.

In our EA exercise, we got employees of the organization to suggest ideas.  In order to encourage more ideas to be contributed, we make it safe for idea contributors by not tagging names to ideas.  Later, when we evaluated the ideas, we observed that some ideas suggested by one employee was labeled as “we are already doing this” by another employee.  Clearly the initiative in question was seen as an area of improvement in the eyes of the first employee, but seen as completed in the eyes of the second.  This was a good example of different perspectives on the state of the enterprise.

Just Enough Detail

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The real art of enterprise-architecture, and perhaps its hardest challenge, is in presenting the right level of detail. Not too little, not too much, but just enough. Just Enough Detail. To which people will, of course, immediately ask, “Okay, but how much detail is ‘Just Enough Detail’?”. And I’ll have to admit that there isn’t […]

Modernizing Enterprise Architecture: Address The Neurosis of IT

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“TCP/IP and Ethernet will not be accepted as a valid network implementation as SNA and Token Ring are our preferred standards.” – circa 1993 by nameless corporate Information Systems expert.
I was shocked when I had heard this, and images …