EA Voices

Business models are helpful tools for setting out a strategy and steering an organization in the right direction. Furthermore, business models foster discussions on the way organizations want to deliver value to their customers. Building business mode…

This isn’t the sort of thing i’d normally blog about, its not work related, its about something important 🙂

But its been on my mind for a while so i thought i’d put it out there, primarily to get it off my mind.

As the Dad of a daughter I’ve been thinking a lot recently about things that will impact her life as she grows up and what I can do as a Dad to protect her and/or remove impediments to her happiness, the one that i keep returning to and thinking about is Sexism.

Why sexism? Well, recent stuff like:

• The ongoing Lord Rennard debacle
• The horrendous stuff that caroline criado-perez had to endure off the back of the campaign to get a woman’s face on the £10 note
• Spend 5 minutes reading https://twitter.com/EverydaySexism (which often seems to depart from sexism into sexual assault and abuse)

But its not just these big obvious events that have got me thinking, often its the little implicit things that get my goat recent examples are:

• (daughter dressed up in medical outfit) ‘Oh are you pretending to be a nurse?’ (Why not a doctor!?)
• Family member: ‘I was going to buy [daughter] a book about rockets and space but thought, that is a boys book, so bought one about princesses instead’ (btw my daughter is currently mad about space and wants to be an astronaut)

OK, those two examples might be pretty lame in the grand scheme of things, but I guess i’m just stating the obvious that there are both the explicit and implicit forms of sexism.

Just like any parent I guess, I think my daughter is the most funny, clever, caring and insightful little person I know and possesses a boundless and energetic imagination with boundless potential.

I feel very strongly that its really important that, as a parent, I remove any possible constraint or impediment to that imagination and potential. So I’ve been pondering:

What can I do as a Dad of a daughter, or what can we (other Dads of daughters), collectively as Dad’s of daughters do together to help fight against sexism (in its implicit and explicit forms) to help make the world of our daughter’s future a better place to be the funny, clever, caring, strong women that they will grow into? 

Let me be clear though, I’m not a saint, I’ve been sexist in that concious post-modern/ironic way similar to when you tell an un-pc joke, except its not a joke and ironic sexism is still sexism just with added dickishness.

I’m mindful that in writing this post I’m probably still being sexist in that more implicit way by unconsciously reinforcing existing sexual stereotypes and disappearing up my own arse through some form of recursive sexism/patronising because i’m writing a post pondering how men can help women as if only men can help the damsel in distress

but i’m not, honest!

I feel passionately about my daughter being uninhibited by either explicit or explicit sexism in doing whatever she want with her life. If I had a son I’d feel exactly the same.

In my head at the moment I’ve just got this vague idea about would some sort of movement or collective, consistent action be a useful addition to existing efforts?

‘Dads Against Sexism’?

What do you think? please let me know.

‘My framework/metamodel/ontology is better than your framework/metamodel/ontology’ 

‘Have we tailored our framework correctly?’

‘Is our reference architecture complete?’

‘That is not a capability that is a service!’

‘Is that a Service or a Capability, a Function or an Information System Service or an Actor’

‘Is this a logical application component or a logical technology component?’

‘I was going to model this as a logical application component but i want to relate it to an actor, so i have to wrap it up in an information system services then a business service.’

‘What would TOGAF do?’

‘Is this this Solution Concept diagram the right type of artifact? should it be a Business Footprint diagram?’

‘Are we progressing in line with our architecture maturity model?’

None of these questions matter!

Why?

because they don’t matter to your stakeholders

Why?

If you are really doing enterprise architecture and not detailed solutions/technology architecture (where accuracy of semantics is more important), then the stakeholders that matter, the ones whose decisions you provide support for simply don’t f-ing care!

EA is really just a technique to provide decision support, to help decision makers (oh by the way if you think you are one of them you are deluded) make informed decisions that affect the success of the Enterprise.

All we need to do as EAs to be successful is communicate clarity to your stakeholder about the problem space they are concerned about. To do this you don’t need to gnash your teeth or gaze at your navel, you don’t need a fancy tool and the right template connecting the right concepts in your chosen meta-model.

What you need is an understanding of the problem space, the status quo and what pragmatic steps may need to be taken to achieve the target.

To much EA debate, whether with colleagues or in the wider community is Meta-bollocks

Definiton: A conversation between Enterprise Architects that results in no value delivered to the organisation but an increase in air pressure and temperature due to the production of hot air.

When you engage in one of these meta-bollocks debates either with yourself or your colleagues, stop. Ask yourself, If my most important stakeholder was in the room at this moment, would she understand and would she think the discussion was an effective use of your time? if the answer is no, curtail the discussion and get on doing some Enterprise Architecture.

Times are tough: many businesses are struggling to stay afloat in the wild economic currents. Many organizations attempt to find a blue ocean of uncontested space, but lets face it: most of us are stuck in a red ocean with a lot of competition, growin…