Enterprise Architecture

EA Heuristics #1: Looking for gaps? Push from top, guide from bottom.

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A police helicopter. Police helicopter helps police gets a big picture of the city, so that the police knows what to focus on. The police still need to rely on people on the ground for details. A situation similar to the heuristic described in this article.
photo credit: metropolitan police
(this article is part of the series “12 Heuristics for Enterprise Architecting“)

When looking for gaps in the current stage architecture, a useful approach is start by “pushing from the top”—start with the enterprise’s strategic objectives, then use the objectives’ linkages with other views to assess if there are any gaps, and then gradually move down through views level by level.

It is important to start the search for gaps from the top, as gaps more closely related to enterprises’ strategic objectives would be uncovered first. This approach decreases the likelihood of missing important gaps or being distracted by less important ones.

While pushing from the top, it is useful to “guide from bottom”—use anecdotal evidence to focus the search for gaps. During our EA exercise, we gathered a number of pain points through conversations with the organization’s employees and reviewing customer satisfaction survey results. However, when we did the analysis by “pushing from the top”, we were puzzled as we could not find those pain points. We analyzed the issue further, focusing on areas where the anecdotal pain points should have shown up, and finally realized that it was because there were missing metrics, and this discovery helped us uncover a second issue—the metrics were not granular enough.  If not for the knowledge of the pain points from “the bottom”, our “push from the top” analysis would have yielded nothing.

EA Heuristics #1: Looking for gaps? Push from top, guide from bottom.

by
A police helicopter. Police helicopter helps police gets a big picture of the city, so that the police knows what to focus on. The police still need to rely on people on the ground for details. A situation similar to the heuristic described in this article.
photo credit: metropolitan police
(this article is part of the series “12 Heuristics for Enterprise Architecting“)

When looking for gaps in the current stage architecture, a useful approach is start by “pushing from the top”—start with the enterprise’s strategic objectives, then use the objectives’ linkages with other views to assess if there are any gaps, and then gradually move down through views level by level.

It is important to start the search for gaps from the top, as gaps more closely related to enterprises’ strategic objectives would be uncovered first. This approach decreases the likelihood of missing important gaps or being distracted by less important ones.

While pushing from the top, it is useful to “guide from bottom”—use anecdotal evidence to focus the search for gaps. During our EA exercise, we gathered a number of pain points through conversations with the organization’s employees and reviewing customer satisfaction survey results. However, when we did the analysis by “pushing from the top”, we were puzzled as we could not find those pain points. We analyzed the issue further, focusing on areas where the anecdotal pain points should have shown up, and finally realized that it was because there were missing metrics, and this discovery helped us uncover a second issue—the metrics were not granular enough.  If not for the knowledge of the pain points from “the bottom”, our “push from the top” analysis would have yielded nothing.

12 Heuristics for Enterprise Architecting

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Photo of a compass. The heuristics that I present in this articles will be like a compass for my future enterprise architecture exercises, guiding me in what to focus on.
photo credits: i k o

Lessons learnt as I reflect on a recent four-month Enterprise Architecting (EA) exercise.   In the exercise, a 4-person team helped an organization map out where the organization was at, where it wanted to be and how it could get there.

Each lesson is captured as a heuristic, a rule of thumb that I want to remember so that I can use it to guide me for future projects.  They are not truths, and will get refined with more experience and insight.  I definitely hope to hear your experiences that relate to these heuristics, regardless of whether they support or invalidate a heuristic.

What made this EA exercise interesting is that, though it is not my first EA exercise, it is the first one I took a lead role in.  Also, this exercise made use of a methodology new to me, from MIT course “Enterprise Architecting” taught by Professor Deborah Nightingale and Dr. Donna Rhodes. In addition, ideas from the book “Enterprise Architecture as Strategy” also crept into the EA exercise, as I was concurrently attending a class by the book’s co-author Dr. Jeanne Ross. 

12 Heuristics for Enterprise Architecting

by
Photo of a compass. The heuristics that I present in this articles will be like a compass for my future enterprise architecture exercises, guiding me in what to focus on.
photo credits: i k o

Lessons learnt as I reflect on a recent four-month Enterprise Architecting (EA) exercise.   In the exercise, a 4-person team helped an organization map out where the organization was at, where it wanted to be and how it could get there.

Each lesson is captured as a heuristic, a rule of thumb that I want to remember so that I can use it to guide me for future projects.  They are not truths, and will get refined with more experience and insight.  I definitely hope to hear your experiences that relate to these heuristics, regardless of whether they support or invalidate a heuristic.

What made this EA exercise interesting is that, though it is not my first EA exercise, it is the first one I took a lead role in.  Also, this exercise made use of a methodology new to me, from MIT course “Enterprise Architecting” taught by Professor Deborah Nightingale and Dr. Donna Rhodes. In addition, ideas from the book “Enterprise Architecture as Strategy” also crept into the EA exercise, as I was concurrently attending a class by the book’s co-author Dr. Jeanne Ross. 

Cannes Conference Day 1: Communication Key for Business Transformation, According to Open Group Speakers

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The Open Group Cannes Conference Day 1 recap, highlighting plenary sessions by Dr. Alex Osterwalder, well-known innovator; Eric Boulay, CEO of Arismore; Hervé Gouezel, Advisor to the CEO of BNP Paribas; and Len Fehskens, VP of skills and capabilities …

Enterprise Transformation and Open Group

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Enterprise-architecture is dead – long live enterprise-transformation! Or so it would seem, from the description of the current Open Group conference at Cannes. Yet is all as it seems? I’d have to admit that the conference-programme does worry me a bit. Despite the presence of a fair few people with a broader view than just IT – […]

The Technology Strategy

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Many organizations are to some extent dependent on using information technology to deliver products or services to its customers. This applies to organizations within the private as well within the public sector. There is some form of hierarchy among strategies that relates to the enterprise information technology strategy (IT strategy) and there might be some […]

Reinvention Week, Prussian Officers and Smart & Lazy talent

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Last Friday on Twitter, I was lamenting the compulsion of new people on existing projects to revisit and reinvent every prior decision and action, rather than focus their energy on execution. I tagged the tweets reinvention week. My opening salvos:

Wouldn’t it be cool if new people to a project focused on getting it done, rather than reinvention? #reinventionweek #EntArch

We need to value execution on par with creation. #entarch #reinventionweek

These sparked a conversation with Sally Bean and Neil Ward-Dutton on why this happens: ego, uncertainty, lack of communication and so on.

Certainly, there are instances when revisitation is required, and is the mission of the new person. However, in my experience, too frequently the need is driven by ego. Either, in placing a stamp on the project, or in moving the project to the technology, standards, patterns the new person is expert on, and therefore most likely to be seen as a star and/or become a key player.

In our twitter back and forth, Sally Bean offered: “that’s why we need to hire smart lazy people, not smart industrious ones.”

Sally was referring to Field Marshal Bernhard Graf von Moltke’s model on categorizing officers:

• Smart & Lazy: I make them my Commanders because they make the right thing happen but find the easiest way to accomplish the mission.

• Smart & Energetic: I make them my General Staff Officers because they make intelligent plans that make the right things happen.

• Dumb & Lazy: There are menial tasks that require an officer to perform that they can accomplish and they follow orders without causing much harm

• Dumb & Energetic: These are dangerous and must be eliminated. They cause thing to happen but the wrong things so cause trouble.

I hadn’t see this model before. It’s an interesting take on matching talent (or not) to positions. We always think we need “smart and energetic”. Yet, in a multitude of situations, “smart and lazy” is the better way to go.