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<p><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>What interests me is that in many cases success in our work is not about the content per se (see </span><a style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;” title=”From Business Design to business Change” href=”http://www.bizzdesign.com/blog/from-business-design-to-business-change-1-the-content-paradox/#Blog series: business design to business change”>post #1 </a><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>of this series). Let me start this blog by recommending a somewhat strange, but brilliant and award winning movie ‘</span><a style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;” title=”1999 American comedy-fantasy film written by Charlie Kaufman and directed by Spike Jonze” href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_John_Malkovich”>Being John Malkovich</a><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>’. It is – quite literally – about entering the head of John Malkovich. This is exactly what I try to keep in mind when meeting new clients. Seeing reality through John’s eyes. It became my associative reminder: “Be John Malkovich,  be </span><em style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>[Client’s Name]</em><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>! “.</span></p><p><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”> </span></p><div class=”captionImage left” style=”width: 214px;”><img class=”left” src=”http://www.bizzdesign.com/assets/BlogDocuments-2/Being-john-malkovich.png” alt=”Being John Malkovich” title=”There is not one reality” width=”214″ height=”317″/><p class=”caption”>Be aware of the subjective reality in business change</p></div><p> </p><p><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>Although of interest, I do not just mean diving into the requirements regarding my client’s business problem – this is all content. What I mean is taking it a step further. What drives my client? What are his/her fears or frustrations? What are his/her shortcomings? What is the meaning of this context for my design approach? I have experienced that having a somewhat deeper understanding of my client’s pain and gain (see below) pays off. It has improved my approach towards a business solution and has helped me gaining trust and acceptance. The Empathy Map below has, apart from my John-motto of course, helped me in changing my perspective.</span></p><h2>The Empathy Map</h2><p>The Empathy Map is a technique developed by <a title=”Go to the EXPLANE website” href=”http://www.xplane.com/”>XPLANE</a> and presented in the book <a title=”Book: business Model Generation” href=”http://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1280587028&amp;sr=1-1″>Business Model Generation</a>. It looks like this:</p><p></p><div class=”captionImage leftAlone” style=”width: 600px;”><img class=”leftAlone” src=”http://www.bizzdesign.com/assets/BlogDocuments-2/_resampled/resizedimage600456-empathy-map-for-business-design.png” width=”600″ height=”456″ alt=”” title=””/><p class=”caption”>Empathy map</p></div><p>The Empathy map is most often used to develop imaginary client profiles for customer segments. I used it for the first time in the field of <a title=”Business Model Management” href=”http://www.bizzdesign.com/consultancy/business-model-management/”>business model management</a>. I find it equally powerful for existing individual clients. It is a collaborative tool for teams (workshops) but I use it for myself on the back of a napkin as well. The following is what I do to get inside my client’s head. Please note I adjusted some of the standard questions in the technique to fit my purpose here: </p><p><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>1. Tape a big flip over sheet to the wall, in landscape orientation;</span><br/><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>2. Draw the head of the manager in the centre – with resembling characteristics for more empathy, and fun – and draw the template around it, with keywords. You can also download the </span><a style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;” title=”Download the empathy map poster in PDF” href=”http://ebookbrowse.com/empathy-map-poster-pdf-d341627585″>empathy map poster template</a><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”> </span><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>and print a poster;</span><br/><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>3. Enter the client’s head and answer the following questions one by one by placing sticky notes on the sheet (in this order).</span></p><div><span style=”font-size: xx-small;”><img class=”left” src=”http://www.bizzdesign.com/assets/BlogDocuments-2/_resampled/resizedimage600279-empathy-map-questions-for-business-design.png” alt=”Empathy map questions” title=”Ask these quentions about your client” width=”600″ height=”279″/></span></div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><span style=”font-size: xx-small;”><br/></span></div><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>4. Analyse the results above, and answer the following questions:</span></p><p><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”><img class=”left” src=”http://www.bizzdesign.com/assets/BlogDocuments-2/_resampled/resizedimage600172-empathy-map-final-questions-for-business-design.png” alt=”Empathy map questions” title=”Final quentions about your client” width=”600″ height=”172″/></span></p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”><br/></span></p><h2><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>The result</span></h2><p>Below I present a case I made anonymous. Let us call my client Kees – team manager, 62 years old, insurance company, 5000+ employees, big change ahead. The result could look like this:</p><p> </p><div class=”captionImage left” style=”width: 600px;”><img class=”left” src=”http://www.bizzdesign.com/assets/BlogDocuments-2/_resampled/resizedimage600463-Results-empathy-map-Alex-Hendriks2.png” alt=”Empathy map result” title=”This is what is inside your clients head!” width=”600″ height=”463″/><p class=”caption”>If you’re working on buniess change, you should know what is inside your clients head</p></div><p>By entering the head of Kees for about an hour, I changed my perspective and gained some valuable insights for consulting him in the design and change challenges in his project.</p><p>Please share your experiences and ideas on this with me at <a title=”E-mail Alex” href=”mailto:a.hendriks@bizzdesign.com”>a.hendriks@bizzdesign.com</a>, or leave a comment. </p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>

<p>In this 10th posting we will cover the topic of using <em>architecture principles</em> and <em>architecture models </em>in tandem. Both focus on different aspects of Enterprise Architecture work / documentation and complement each other as we will see shortly.</p><p> </p><div class=”captionImage left” style=”width: 600px;”><img class=”left” src=”http://www.bizzdesign.com/assets/BlogDocuments-2/_resampled/resizedimage600375-Roadmap-for-success-architecture-principles-and-models.png” alt=”Principles and Models Enterprise Architecture” title=”10th posting in the Roadmap for sucess series” width=”600″ height=”375″/><p class=”caption”>The 10th posting in the series Roadmap for success</p></div><p> </p><h2>EA manifestations</h2><p>There are many definitions of architecture around, all focusing on different aspects: ontological definition, process, framework, language and so on. In our opinion, the ANSI/IEC/IEEE 42010 standard does a good job of explaining what architecture really <em>is</em>. In order to <em>know</em> what the architecture (of a system) is, we need to answer two questions:</p><ul><li>What is its fundamental organization?</li><li>What are the principles guiding its design and evolution?</li></ul><p>These questions not only give insight in how to <em>document</em> architecture (models for fundamental organization, principles for principles guiding design and evolution), they also give insight in how the instruments of Enterprise Architecture can be used to add value to the organization: gain insight in the fundamental organization of the enterprise at a high(er) level of abstraction, and develop a road map to help steer the organization to where it wants to be.</p><p>In this posting we zoom in on the two manifestations of Enterprise Architecture: models and principles. There is of course a lot more to be considered in the context of an Enterprise Architecture practice (governance logs, design decisions, exceptions granted, strategies, road maps and so on), but those are outside the scope of this blog post.</p><h2>Models</h2><p>The first type of architecture documentation to be considered is the use of <em>models</em>. A wide range of models have been proposed and used successfully over the last few decades. Some more formal, other informal (PowerPoint still seems to be a popular modeling tool). A lot can be said about the merits of a formal or informal approach. The figure below lists a few:</p><p> </p><div class=”captionImage left” style=”width: 600px;”><img class=”left” src=”http://www.bizzdesign.com/assets/BlogDocuments-2/_resampled/resizedimage600577-Enterprise-architecture-formal-vs-informal.png” alt=”Enterprise architecture models” title=”Formal and informal enterprise architecture models” width=”600″ height=”577″/><p class=”caption”>Enterprise Architecture models: formal and informal models</p></div><p>In our experience, the combination of formal models with flexible visualization mechanisms tends to work best in practice. As such, <a title=”Open modeling language for architects to model and communicate Enterprise Architecture” href=”http://www.bizzdesign.com/consultancy/enterprise-architecture-management/archimate/#ArchiMate”>ArchiMate</a>® is a good candidate as the language was specifically designed to cater for various different stakeholders. Also, with good tool support it is also possible to generate tables, change the graphic shape of concepts and relations and so on: anything to improve the communication about the fundamental organization of a system with various stakeholders.</p><h2>Principles</h2><p>Some claim that architecture (of a system) <em>is</em> a set of principles. While we agree that the use of principles is key to a solid architecture approach, we feel that this may be one step too far.</p><p>Principles in the context of architecture work are <em>normative statements of direction</em>; they guide the design and evolution of a system. As such they tend to take the form of a ‘regulation’, an ‘abstract rule’ which may or may not be SMART. The typical template for principles includes such things as meta-data (who wrote it, when, what was the revision history and so on), a brief statement of the principle itself, a rationale or explanation, and a section that discusses its implications (for architecture designs).</p><p>Various templates have been proposed (e.g., TOGAF™), and many books have been written (we recommend the book by Proper and Greefhorst).</p><p>Regardless of form and template: principles guide the design of an architecture. To see why, consider the situation where two systems are designed that (functionally) solve the same problem, but adhering to a completely different set of principles! For example, a portal solution for an informational problem may adhere to the principle that all systems must be customer facing, whereas a call center solution for the same informational problem may adhere to the principle that customer-contact is always through human interaction.</p><h2>ArchiMate</h2><p>The ArchiMate® language has been around for a while now, and is widely used to model various aspects of (enterprise) architectures. Since its second edition – in which the language is better aligned with the TOGAF™ framework – it also includes a motivation extension which has the <em>principle</em> concept. This concept can be linked to any core concept using the <em>realization relation</em>, to indicate concepts in the architecture where this principle manifests itself. This <em>good practice</em> is highly recommended!</p><h2>Next posting</h2><p>If you’d like to know more, please contact the authors directly at <a title=”E-mail Bas van gils” href=”mailto:b.vangils@bizzdesign.com”>b.vangils@bizzdesign.com</a> / <a title=”E-mail Sven van Dijk” href=”mailto:s.vandijk@bizzdesign.com”>s.vandijk@bizzdesign.com</a>, or leave a comment. The next post in this series is about governing projects. It is scheduled to be posted between 8^th and 12^th of April. </p>

Footprints on fresh snow(photo credit: dru!)Walking on fresh snow is one of my favorite activities, as I enjoy leaving the first footprints in the soft, fluffy snow.  My impact on the snow is evident to those that come after me.  What impacts…

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by: Bill Cason – Troux CTO – June 12th, 2012
Part I: Overcome inexperience when initiating a program

I frequently see Enterprise Architecture (EA) practices make a common mistake when initiating a program. They think: We know what we are …

Continuing down the life architecture path (photo credit: .:Adry:.)My earlier post Architecture of my life generated a lot of interest, which was encouraging, but it also stressed me to follow up with updates as many readers asked for that.  …

This week I invited Dr. Brian Cameron to an internal Microsoft Architecture Summit for internal Microsoft IT Enterprise Architects and our Microsoft Services Enterprise Strategy and Architecture organizations. He was our featured keynote speaker about his efforts in the Enterprise…

Metrics guide our actions (photo credit: stefan)(this article is part of the series “12 Heuristics for Enterprise Architecting”)How can an organization recognize progress without appropriate metrics?  Metrics are helpful in assessing if the organi…

by: Bill Cason, CTO, Troux
IT organizations must speak the language of the business in order to play a more strategic role within the enterprise. Our experience has shown that IT can begin this journey by defining and understanding six p…

(this article is part of the series “12 Heuristics for Enterprise Architecting”)Stop parroting me! (photo credit: Ferran Pestaña) In some ways, the “as-is” phase of enterprise architecting exercises do not generate new content. It brings tog…

A pretty BMW car.  photo credit: marco_dmoz Physical Models: Powerful visual cues for enabling better communicationsBMW’s innovation centre in Munich is designed with deep considerations on how to encourage innovation and collaborations between …