Do you like your Enterprise Architecture?

Have you ever considered the possibility that you might like your Enterprise Architecture. Do you go to work with a smile on your face every day? Could it be that it means that your happy with the way things are going. Or are you dissatisfied with the current situation? Maybe it’s just an itch that you can’t really scratch. Then what is the problem, what is it that stands in your way?

Have you asked your self the right questions?

• Do we really want the EA we’ve got?
• What illustrious vision is it that could change our EA from where it is to be the key differentiator?
• How can we move our EA vision from idea to reality?

Make a list of all the positive things

Have you ever made a list of all the positive things that the EA work and the architecture has brought with it? Try to be realistic and at the same time dare to care for the results implied.

• What is good with our EA today?
• What is positively bad with our EA today? (you know it’s bad but it’s good, like principles and the way people react to them).
• Make your selves and others see the value in our EA by asking people to express the value they perceive.
• Make a top ten list of all the things people disliked before we had our EA.

Change happens, dare to evolve

Every day change happens, the scope changes, the environment changes and time races on. You have to become part of the flow so set your goals high, but not higher than could be realistically reached.

• Make your selves and others see the value in our EA by asking people to express the value they would like to see.
• Re-prioritize your efforts to match those strengths and capabilities your really possess.
• Move out of your own box and spend some time working with the non-EA folks on non-EA issues in the enterprise.

Enough is when your proud of your results

You have to know what you know and you have to know what you don’t know and you have to know what you cannot possibly know. If you know all that, then its possible to be proud in success as well as in the face of apparent failure.

• Consider the pieces that you are really pleased with and communicate those to other people.
• Don’t try to do more than can be done.
• Remember that if the stakeholders are happy with the outcome then you have done a great job no matter what.

No one could blame The Great Master Lea for his use of the fat fingers technique, nor could any one consider his art to be of the most delicate sort. However his work still instilled some kind of peace in the mind of many. Earlier today his was a splendid morning at the foot of his mountain top. Much to his surprise more than one person attended the lecture on the whole of everything and nothing where one of the students in a moment of terror forgotten found the courage to address the Great Master with a question. This is what he had asked: “Oh great master Lea, How do we know when the architecture building blocks are of the right size?” The great master Lea looked at the student then turned his head towards the sky and said: “When each part in itself provide no value”

Ever wondered what it takes to be an enterprise architect? I’ve been working in the field for some time now. I don’t just do enterprise architectures, I train and mentor other people who are or aspire to be enterprise architects. From time to time I see this question arise on blogs, social networks and among peers and customers, it’s always the same – What is an Enterprise Architect, what skills do they need, what’s the field of expertise and so on… To get past this confusion and not to try to define it by myself I thought I’d use the market forces to define it for us all. I copied the job descriptions of 87 of the enterprise architecture jobs available at monster.com and pasted it into the fantastic tool  http://www.wordle.net/. The result you see below could perhaps be the mother of all enterprise architect job descriptions.

The Mother of all EA job descriptions - Display 3

There is three different images although they all contain the same text, they are just variations on the presentation formats available.

The Great Master Lea had spent most of the day on his mountain top educating acolytes on the importance of being human. Now, late in the evening he had moved into his tree hut and he reminisced over what one of the older and wiser acolytes had said. This is what he had said: “Oh great master Lea, I suggest that we implement Enterprise Architecture as a practice in our house!” The great master Lea had looked at the acolyte and then turned his head towards the sky and said: “Like trained monkeys you attempt to implement what should be a transformation guided by reward, attitude, behavior and culture.“

Sometimes great thinking in one field is easily translated into another field as an illustration of what is or could be. In this post I’ve transferred Paul’s [1] original text into the context of Enterprise Architecture and positioned it in a historical setting where Paul’s reference to war becomes a reference to the current economic crisis (2007-2009).

Enterprise architecture, on the other hand, is not at all as difficult and as perfect as propaganda wants us to believe. A subject such as business architecture, information systems architecture, technology architecture appears difficult only because it is taught badly, because the standard instructions are full of redundant material and because they put to little effort into it.

During the economic crisis, when the businesses of the world needed architects within a very short time, it was suddenly possible to reduce enterprise architecture instruction to half a year (the corresponding instruction manuals have disappeared long ago, however. Best practice may be simplified during the crisis. In good times the prestige of business and science demands greater complication.) And how often does it not happen that the proud and conceited judgement of an expert is put in its proper place by a layman!

Numerous innovators build “impossible” frameworks and methods. Laymen in discussion groups and other social media show again and again that so called “experts” does not know what he is talking about. Business people, especially architects, frequently come to different results so that it is up to the managers of the organization (or the users of a certain domain) to decide by vote or gut feeling about the design to be adopted.

How often is so called standard methods and frameworks improved, and turned into new directions by practitioners influences! it is up to us, it is up to the citizens of an open practitioners society to either accept the chauvinism of the current frameworks, methods and practitioners without contradiction or to overcome it by the counterforce of public action.

Let us free the practice of enterprise architecture from the strangling hold of an ideologically petrified past!

[1]: Paul Feyerabend (1975), Against Method, Outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge @ http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/feyerabe.htm

The part I’ve used as inspiration and pattern is the part that starts with “Modern science, on the other hand, is not at all as difficult and as perfect as scientific propaganda wants us to believe.” and ends with “just as our ancestors freed us from the strangling hold of the One True Religion!”

Thanks to http://twitter.com/tetradian for pointing out Paul’s original text.

I will understand the scope by identifying the contexts

I will understand the business model by defining the concepts

I will understand the system model by representing the logic

I will understand the technology by specifying the physics

I will understand the component by configuring the assemblies

I will understand the operations by the instantiation of the classes

The Great Master Lea had an awesome day on his sunny but slightly cold mountain top. He prepared himself to navigate the winding trails of hard labour and the master knew he would enjoy the hours to come. Crawling up the mountain side came what appeared to be a team of hockey players, but alas it was not so. Once again the Great Master had been approached by business people, this time though they had all been attending match when they realised that they had a need, an urge, a craving to ask the Great Master a question. This is what they asked: “Oh great master Lea, why is our expertly architected game strategy not actionable?” The great master Lea looked at the team then turned his head towards the sky and just as he was about to utter his words of wisdom a would be hockey manager appeared as an apparition before him. Trembling with anxiety the manager roared out an answer to the question: “THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE IT IS YOU GUYS WHO DOES NOT EXECUTE THE PLAY ACCORDINGLY TO STRATEGY!!!”.  The Great Master who was great in many ways beyond the field of Enterprise Architecture waved his hands and thus the apparition dispersed like a cloud on the computing heaven. Then he turned towards the business people looking like hockey players and said: “You have to move all of your architecture from fixed to dynamic behaviour.“

The Great Master Lea had a great day on his mountain top. His offspring had taken up stick fighting with small hollow spheres and the master liked it. Like the deaf old goat he is he did not hear when a senior consultant manager approached him from below. Trembling with anxiety the manager had come before him to ask a question. This is what he asked: “Oh great master Lea, How do I sell Enterprise Architecture?” The great master Lea looked at the manager then turned his head towards the sky and said: “Don’t focus on selling the method, framework, process or tool of EA, focus on selling a solution to the customers problem with the help of EA.”

The managers view without Enterprise Architecture

The managers view with a little Enterprise Architecture

The managers view with a little more Enterprise Architecture

The managers view with even more Enterprise Architecture

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