Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
A complete Enterprise Architecture that effectively supports the business cannot be purchased as a fully realisable off-the-shelf commodity. This statement should of course be qualified by at least considering the possibility of acquiring a hypothetical ‘business-in-a-box’ with everything already defined … Continue reading →
There are two misleading ideas (espoused theories) about how architects and designers make decisions.According to classical decision theory (Herbert Simon), one or more designers develops a series of alternative options, working collaboratively or in c…
Gartner just released a report entitled, "EA Practitioners Have Significant Influence on $1.1 Trillion in Enterprise IT Spend” that strongly links to their Business Outcome Driven Enterprise Architecture. This is interesting article because it’s shows the latest thinking from real…
Cloud, SOA, Enterprise Mobility, Social Media/Enterprise/Business, The Internet of Things, Big Data (you name it) – each in its own way is part of an overall tendency. The general trend is for enterprises to become increasingly involved in increasingly broad ecosystems. … Continue reading →
In case you haven’t heard Microsoft is ending support for Windows XP and Office 2003 in April of 2014. What this means is that Microsoft will no longer patch security vulnerabilities discovered in XP or Office 2003, and therefore there will be security holes discovered that can be exploited by hackers which will never be […]
If you sell a problem too successfully, you will not enjoy what comes next.
Enterprise Architecture doesn’t usually decide specific action.
So be very careful about how you characterise the need for action.
A problem-focus generates conflict and disor…
If you sell a problem too successfully, you will not enjoy what comes next.
Enterprise Architecture doesn’t usually decide specific action.
So be very careful about how you characterise the need for action.
A problem-focus generates conflict and disorder.
A benefit-focus generates unity and collaboration.
It would be naive to expect that when running a business that decisions would not need to be made. Situations are constantly arising that will require a response. To be able to reliably respond, appropriately and with some degree of … Continue reading →
Every time I breathe the words Big Data to a group of business and technology executives I brace myself for a barrage of questions…. How is it different? What’s our business case? Where will we source the data scientists to drive deeper insights? How do we acquire the technology to process mountains of information at a rapid-fire rate? The silent question lurking underneath them all: What if we fail? I’m not discouraged by their doubt. […]
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Notwithstanding the earnest way some people use the phrase “enterprise-as-a-system”, I don’t see any great significance in regarding an enterprise or organization as a system.
Indeed, given the very broad way people commonly use the word “system”, it is difficult to think of anyway to regard an enterprise other than as some kind of system. A machine or complicated technological assembly is a system; a human activity or social unit is a system; an abstract legal or procedural process is a system. All of the chapters in Gareth Morgan’s book Images of Organization represent organizations as different kinds of system. And even if we don’t regard an enterprise as quite the same as an organization, what could an enterprise possibly be, from anyone’s perspective, other than some kind of system?
And many popular architecture frameworks claim to regard an enterprise as a system. For example
Elsewhere in TOGAF however, as well as in ArchiMate, we can find reference to systems OR organizations, which suggests that they do not regard the enterprise as a system.
Some people claim to regard the enterprise as a system, and then offer a layered schema with System Layer near the bottom. This represents a shift in the use of the word “system”.
However, when people use the phrase “enterprise-as-a-system”, they may well have a particular kind of system in mind. Here are some examples.
Enterprise as a sociotechnical system
Enterprise as a socio-cultural—techno-economic system
Enterprise as a human activity system
Enterprise as a self-organizing system
Enterprise as an open or closed system
Clearly it is the adjective that helps to make this phrase meaningful.
See also
Alan Hakimi, Addressing the Multi-Dimensionality Challenge on Thinking of The Enterprise as a System (Feb 2013)
Linked-In Discussion Enterprises *NOT AS* Systems (April 2013 onwards)
How should we respond to inherent-uncertainty in qualitative-requirements, for enterprise-architecture and the like? Yes, we can reduce every qualitative-requirement to some sort of metric, but is that always a wise thing to do? And if not, how can we tell whether…
All businesses capture and store information, in some form, about: What they are doing How they are doing it and Why This information may be structured but often is not. Information abounds that relates specifically to individual projects or activities … Continue reading →