Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
Architecture is a profession that tends toward a certain impulsive behaviour as it is all about governance and setting directions. Once you enter any field where the actors have a tendency for impulsive behaviour you will end up with addiction through the restraint behaviour. As a result we overestimate the ability to control our behaviour … Continue reading Overestimation on your and others to control ourself →
As I was too late to set up a really good Black Friday deal, I’ve decided to create a Cyber Monday deal (the books are about the world as it has changed thanks to ‘cyber’ after all, and besides the … Continue reading →
As I was too late to set up a really good Black Friday deal, I’ve decided to create a Cyber Monday deal (the books are about the world as it has changed thanks to ‘cyber’ after all). Using the Coupon Code … Continue reading →
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It’s all about Digital.Enterprise InvestmentInvesting in Change.CertificationGet training in Enterprise Investment.ToolsInvestment Culture Diagnosis. Goals Portfolio.ReadingsChris Potts has written three books (busin…
In road traffic, says my friend @antlerboy, the one with the most momentum has the most responsibility. Perhaps that’s true in other fields too?
Meanwhile, in a hierarchical organization, the one with the highest position has the highest authority. This is known as positional power. Unfortunately, responsibility and authority are not the same thing.
According to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum can be determined, and vice versa. This is one of the central principles of quantum mechanics.
An analogous problem in most organizations is that responsibility and authority are poorly aligned. In other words, the person who pulls the strings isn’t always the one who gets the blame when something goes wrong. And similarly, the person who does the work isn’t always the person who actually knows how to do it properly. Position versus momentum.
There is a useful technique for organizational analysis known as RAEW (responsibility, authority, expertise and work), which was described by Roger Crane in the 1980s and adopted in some versions of Information Systems Planning. Unlike better-known techniques for responsibility assignment such as RACI, which describe how responsibilities ought to be distributed in an ideal (linear, clockwork) organization, the RAEW technique allows us to analyse how (badly) responsibilities are distributed in a real (chaotic, quantum, snakepit) organization.
And maybe fix some of the problems?
Related Posts: Clockwork or Snakepit? (June 2010)
Wikipedia: Responsibility Assignment Matrix, Uncertainty Principle.
Open University: Handy’s four types of organisational cultures
The vast majority of business tools that I see in use, fail to give you position and movement. I find them useless for context or learning.— swardley (@swardley) April 8, 2016
Updated 8 April 2016
In road traffic, says my friend @antlerboy, the one with the most momentum has the most responsibility. Perhaps that’s true in other fields too?
Meanwhile, in a hierarchical organization, the one with the highest position has the highest authority. This is known as positional power. Unfortunately, responsibility and authority are not the same thing.
According to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum can be determined, and vice versa. This is one of the central principles of quantum mechanics.
An analogous problem in most organizations is that responsibility and authority are poorly aligned. In other words, the person who pulls the strings isn’t always the one who gets the blame when something goes wrong. And similarly, the person who does the work isn’t always the person who actually knows how to do it properly. Position versus momentum.
There is a useful technique for organizational analysis known as RAEW (responsibility, authority, expertise and work), which was described by Roger Crane in the 1980s and adopted in some versions of Information Systems Planning. Unlike better-known techniques for responsibility assignment such as RACI, which describe how responsibilities ought to be distributed in an ideal (linear, clockwork) organization, the RAEW technique allows us to analyse how (badly) responsibilities are distributed in a real (chaotic, quantum, snakepit) organization.
And maybe fix some of the problems?
Related Posts: Clockwork or Snakepit? (June 2010)
Wikipedia: Responsibility Assignment Matrix, Uncertainty Principle.
Open University: Handy’s four types of organisational cultures
The vast majority of business tools that I see in use, fail to give you position and movement. I find them useless for context or learning.— swardley (@swardley) April 8, 2016
Updated 8 April 2016
My apologies for being late, but I decided to add a Black Friday Deal for this year. Using the Coupon Code BFD2015, you will get a 15% discount on all electronic products of R&A. These include: Mastering ArchiMate Edition II PDF … Continue reading →
My apologies for being late, but I decided to add a Black Friday Deal for this year. Using the Coupon Code BFD2015, you will get a 15% discount on all electronic products of R&A. These include: Mastering ArchiMate Edition II … Continue reading →
IT is not really about investigating the emerging Digital technologies landscape, their adoption strategy and roadmapping.
Without standards there are no architects, at least there are only those that will create standards, as most architects like to tinker with existing or chose existing ones. Now in many areas there are a lot of standards around so there is enough to chose from, but in other ares they are either outdated or … Continue reading The dilemma of standards →
“Just type the tracking-number into the Google address-bar”, he said. “It’ll take you straight to the Fedex website, without all the hassle of going through the website itself.” Good advice. And good point, too: always make things easier for the…
The work for gap analysis is in full swing. The team found the approach “a lot of work, but doable”. One of the team members justly remarked that “getting and modelling the information is one thing, but maintaining it will be another”. This is surely true, and Brenda is happy that the team is maturing rapidly, already thinking about the next cycle and keeping the architectural information up to date and valid. For the time being she decided that the focus should be on the current work. In the team’s working space she reserved an area on the whiteboard for “things to address in the near future” to make sure they are not lost.