User-Centric Enterprise Architecture

Supercapitalism and Enterprise Architecture

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:00:00 +0000

As a nation are we overworked? Are we just showing up, doing what we're told, and making the same mistakes again and again?

Robert Reich, the former Labor Secretary and Professor at University of California at Berkeley, says that we are more than ever a nation of workaholics.

Reich’s book, Supercapitalism, talks about how we have to work harder to make ends meet for the following reasons:

Globalization—“our real incomes are under assault from technology and low-wage workers in other countries.”
Greater competition—“all barriers to entry have fallen, competition is more intense than ever, and if we don’t work hard, we may be in danger of losing clients, customers, or investors.”
Rapid pace of change—“today most people have no ability to predict what they’re going to be doing from year to year, and job descriptions are not worth the paper they’re written on because jobs are changing so fast.”

Reich says to temper our workaholic lifestyles, we need to “understand that the quality of work is much more important than the quantity.” Honestly, that doesn’t seem to answer the question, since quality (not just quantity) takes hard work and a lot of time too.

In terms of supercharged programs, I have seen enterprise architecture programs working "fast and furious," others that were steady, and still some that were just slow and sometimes to the point of "all stop" in terms of any productivity or forward momentum.

Unlike IT operations that have to keep the lights on, the servers humming, and phones working, EA tends to be considered all too often as pure “overhead” that can be cut at the slightest whim of budget hawks. This can be a huge strategic mistake for CIOs and organizational leaders who thus behave in a penny-wise and dollar foolish manner. Sure, operations keep the lights on, but EA ensures that IT investments are planned, strategically aligned, compliant, technically sound, and cost-effective.

A solid EA program takes us out of the day-to-day firefighting mode and operational morass, and puts the CIO and business leaders back in the strategic "driver's seat" for transforming and modernizating the organization.

In fact, enterprise architecture addresses the very concerns that Reich points to in our Supercapitalistic times: To address the big issues of globalization, competition, and the rapid pace of change, we need genuine planning and governance, not just knee jerk reactions and firefighting. Big, important, high impact problems generally don't get solved by themselves, but rather they need high-level attention, innovative thinking, and group problem solving, and general committment and resources to make headway. This means we can't just focus on the daily grind. We need to extricate ourselves and think beyond today. And that's exactly what real enterprise architecture is all about.

Recently, I heard some colleagues at a IT conference say that EA was all bluster and wasn't worth the work and investment. I strongly disagree. Perhaps, a poorly implemented architecture program may not be worth the paper it's plans are printed on. And unfortunately, there are too many of these faux enterprise architecture programs around and these give the rest a bad rap. However, a genuine user-centric enterprise architecture and IT governance program is invaluable in keeping the IT organization from running on a diet of daily chaos: not a good thing for the mission and business that IT supports.

Organizations can and will work smarter, rather than just harder, with strong enterprise architecture, sound IT governance, and sound business and IT processes. It the nature of planning ahead rather than just hoping for the best.

A Vision of User-centric Communication Design

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:37:00 +0000

[Authored by Andy Blumenthal and published in Architecture and Governance Magazine November 2009]

As technology has advanced in leaps and bounds over the last 30 years, so has the number of information devices—from phones to faxes, pagers to PDAs, desktops to Netbooks—and it goes on and on.

Some devices, despite having outlived their useful lives, have been slow to disappear from the scene completely. For example, fax machines are still in our offices and homes, although now often combined with other de- vices such as the “all-in-one” copier, printer, scanner, and fax. However, why with the ability to scan and e-mail with attachments, do we even need to fax at all anymore?

Similarly, at one time, pagers were all the rave to reach someone 911. Then cell phones and PDAs took over the scene. Nevertheless, paging never fully went away; instead, it was replaced by “press 1 to send this per- son a page.” However, why do we need to page them at all anymore, if we can just leave them a voice mail or instant message?

It seems as if legacy technology often just doesn’t want to die, and instead of sun-setting it, we just keep packaging it into the next device, like the phone that comes with e-mail, instant messaging, texting, and more. How many ways do we need to say hello, how are you, and what time will you be home for dinner?

When is technology enough and when is it too much?

Of course, we want and love choice—heck, we’re consumers to the core. Technology choice is like having the perfect outfit for every occasion; we like to have the “right” technology to reach out to others in a myriad of different ways for every occasion.

Should I send you an e-mail on Facebook or should I “poke” you or perhaps we should just chat? Or maybe I should just send you a Tweet or a “direct message” on Twitter? No, better yet, why don’t I send you a message on LinkedIn? Anyway, I could go on for about another three paragraphs at least on how I should/could contact you. Maybe I’ll hit you up on all of them at the same time and drive you a little nuts, or maybe I’ll vary the communications to appear oh so technically versatile and fashionable.

Yes, technology choice is a wonderful thing. But it comes at a price. First, all the communication mediums

start to become costly after a while. I can tell you from my cell phone bill that the cost of all these options— e-mail, texting, Internet, and so on—definitely starts to add up. And don’t forget all the devices that we have to schlep around on our belts (I have one cell phone on each side—it’s so cool, like a gunslinger from the Wild West), pockets, and bags—where did I leave that de- vice? Let’s not forget the energy consumption and eco- unfriendliness of all these gadgets and all the messy wires.

Additionally, from a time-is-precious perspective, consider the time sinkhole we have dug for ourselves by trying to maintain a presence on all of these devices and social networking sites. How many hours have we spent trying to keep up and check them all (I’m not sure I can fully remember all my e-mail accounts anymore)? And if you don’t have single sign-on, then all the more hassle— by the way, where did I hide my list of passwords?

Next out of the gate is unified communications. Let’s interoperate all those voice mail accounts, e-mail ac- counts, IM, presence, and social media communications. Not only will your phone numbers ring to one master, but also your phone will transcribe your voice mails— i.e., you can read your voice mail. Conversely, you can listen to your e-mail with text-to-speech capability. We can run voice-over-IP to cut the traditional phone bill and speed up communications, and we can share nonreal-time communications such as e-mail and voice mail with real-time communication systems like our phone.

So, we continue to integrate different communication mediums, but still are not coalescing around a basic device. I believe the “communicator” on Star-Trek was a single device to get to someone on the Enterprise or on the planet surface with just the tap of a finger. Perhaps, our reality will some day be simpler and more efficient, too. When we tire of playing with our oodles of technology “toys” and signing up for myriad user accounts, we will choose eloquence and simplicity over disjointed—or even unified—communications.

As the founder of User-centric Enterprise Architecture, my vision is to have one communicator (“1C”) device, period. 1C is an intelligent device. “Contact John,” okay—no phone number to dial and no e-mail to address. 1C knows who John is, how to reach him, the best way to contact him, and if he is available (“present”) at the moment or not. 1C can take a message, leave a message, or communicate in any way (voice, text, video, virtual) that an individual prefers and that is appropriate for each portion of a particular communication to ensure that the communication intended is the communication received. 1C is not limited to a one-on-one communications, but is open to conferencing—as needed. Mention the need for Cindy to be in on the communication and instantaneously, Cindy is on and then off again. 1C is ubiquitous in time and space—I can send you a communication to arrive now or next week, when you’re here or there, when you’re in country or out, in a car, on a flight, on a ship, or underwater—it doesn’t matter. Like telepathy, the communication reaches you effortlessly. And, of course, 1C translates languages, dialects, acronyms, or concepts, as needed—truly it’s a “universal communicator.”

The closest we’ve come so far is probably the Apple iPhone, but with some 50,000 apps and counting, it is again too focused on the application or technology to be used, rather than on the user and the need.

In the end, it’s not how many devices or how many accounts or how many mediums we have to communicate with, but it is the communication itself that must be the focus. The 1C of the future is an enabler for the communication—anytime, anywhere, the right information to the right people. The how shouldn’t be a concern for the user, only the what.

Decoding Decision-Making

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:09:00 +0000

Decision-making is something we have to do every day as individuals and as organizations, yet often we end up making some very bad decisions and thus some costly mistakes.

Improving the decision-making process is critical to keeping us safe, sound, and stably advancing toward the achievement of our goals.

All too often decisions are made based on gut, intuition, politics, and subjective management whim. This is almost as good as flipping a coin or rolling a pair of dice.

Disciplines such as enterprise architecture planning and governance attempt to improve on the decision-making process by establishing a strategic roadmap and then guiding the organization toward the target architecture through governance boards that vet and validate decisions based on return on investment, risk mitigation, alignment to strategic business goals, and compliance to technical standards and architecture.

In essence, decisions are taken out of the realm of the “I think” or “I feel” phenomenon and into the order of larger group analysis and toward true information-based decision-making.

While no decision process is perfect, the mere presence of an orderly process with “quality gates” and gatekeepers helps to mitigate reckless decisions.

“Make Better Decisions,” an article in Harvard Business Review (HBR), November 2009, states, “In recent years, decision makers in both the public and private sectors have made an astounding number of poor calls.”

This is attributed to two major drivers:

Individuals going it alone: “Decisions have generally been viewed as the prerogative of individuals-usually senior executives. The process employed, the information used, the logic relied on, have been left up to them, in something of a black box. Information goes in [quantity and quality vary], decisions come out—and who knows what happens in between.”

A non-structured decision-making processes: “Decision-making has rarely been the focus of systematic analysis inside the firm. Very few organizations have ‘reengineered’ the decision. Yet there are just as many opportunities to improve decision making as to improve other processes.”

The article’s author, Thomas Davenport, who has a forthcoming book on decision-making, proposes four steps (four I’s) organizations can take to improve this process:

Identification—What decision needs to be made and which are most important?

Inventory—What are the factors or attributes for making each decision?

Intervention—What is the process, roles, and systems for decision-making?

Institutionalization—How do we establish sound decision-making ongoingly through training, measurement, and process improvement?

He acknowledges that “better processes won’t guarantee better decisions, of course, but they can make them more likely.”

It is interesting that Davenport’s business management approach is so closely aligned with IT management best practices such as enterprise architecture and capital planning and investment control (CPIC). Is shows that the two disciplines are in sync and moving together toward optimized decision-making.

One other point I’d like to make is that even with the best processes and intentions, organizations may stumble when it comes to decision making because they fail into various decision traps based on things like: groupthink, silo-thinking and turf battles, analysis paralysis, autocratic leadership, cultures where employees fear making mistakes or where innovation is discouraged or even frowned upon, and various other dysfunctional impediments to sound decision-making.

Each of these areas could easily be a discourse in and of themselves. The point however is that getting to better decision-making is not a simple thing that can be achieved through articulating a new processes or standing up a new governance board alone.

We cannot delegate good decision-making or write a cursory business case and voila the decision is a good one. Rather optimizing decision-making processes is an ongoing endeavor and not a one-time event. It requires genuine commitment, participation, transparency, and plenty of information sharing and collaboration across the enterprise.

Business Process Reengineering and Enterprise Architecture

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:00:00 +0000

User-centric EA analyzes problem areas in the organization and uncovers gaps, redundancies, inefficiencies, and opportunities; EA uses this information to drive business process reengineering and improvement as well as to introduce new technologies to the enterprise.

According to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-130, Management of Federal Information Resources, business process reengineering needs to take place to achieve the benefits of new information technology: “Moreover, business process reengineering should accompany all attempts to facilitate a transaction through information technology. Often the full benefits will be realized only by restructuring the process to take advantage of the technology. Merely moving an existing paper based process to an electronic one is unlikely to reap the maximum benefits from the electronic system.”

In the book The 21^st Century Organization by Bennis and Mische the authors explain how organizations can reinvent themselves through reengineering.

What exactly is reengineering?

“Reengineering is reinventing the enterprise by challenging its existing doctrines, practices, and activities and then innovatively redeploying its capital and human resources into cross-functional processes. This reinvention is intended to optimize the organization’s competitive position, it value to shareholders, and its contribution to society.”

What are the essential elements of reengineering?

There are five:

“A bold vision
A systemic approach
A clear intent and mandate
A specific methodology
Effective and visible leadership”

What activities are involved in reengineering?

“Innovating
Listening to customers
Learning
Generating ideas
Designing new paradigms
Anticipating and eclipsing competitors
Contributing to the quality of the workplace and the community
Constructively challenging established management doctrines”

“Reengineering the enterprise is difficult. It means permanently transforming the entire orientation and direction of the organization. It means challenging and discarding traditional values, historical precedents, tried-and-true processes, and conventional wisdom and replacing them with entirely different concepts and practices. It means redirecting and retraining workers with those new concepts and practices...The very cultural fiber of the enterprise must be interrogated and redefined. Traditional work flows must be examined and redesigned. Technology must be redirected from supporting individual users and departments to enabling cross-functional processes.”

What are the goals of reengineering?

“Increasing productivity
Optimizing value to shareholders
Achieving quantum results
Consolidating functions
Eliminating unnecessary levels of work”

“Reengineering seeks to increase productivity by creating innovative and seamless processes…the paradigms of vertical ‘silo’ tasks and responsibilities is broken down and replaced with a cross-functional, flatter, networked structure. The classical, top-down approach to control is replaced with an approach that is organized around core processes, is characterized by empowerment, and is closer to the customer....Reengineering constructively challenges and analyzes the organization’s hierarchy and activities in terms of their value, purpose, and content. Organizational levels and activities that represent little value to shareholders or contribute little to competitiveness are either restructured or eliminated.”

What is the role of EA?

EA is the discipline that synthesizes key business and technology information across the organization to support better decision-making. EA develops and maintains the current and target architectures and transition plan for the organization. As OMB recommends, in setting enterprise targets, EA should focus first and foremost on business process reengineering and then on technology enablement. If the organization does not do process reengineering first, the organization risks not only failing to achieve the benefits of introducing new IT, but also causing actual harm to the organizations existing processes and results. For example, adding a new technology without reengineering process can add additional layers of staff and management to implement, maintain, and operate the technology instead of creating a net resource savings to the organization, from more efficient operations. Similarly, without doing reengineering before IT implementation, the enterprise may actually implement IT that conflicts with existing process and thus either require timely and costly system customization or end up adversely impacting process cycle time, delaying shipments, harming customer satisfaction, and creating bloated inventories, and so on.

Bennis and Mische predict that in the 21^st century “to be competitive, an organization will have to be technology enabled…the specific types of technology and vendors will be unimportant, as most organizations will have access to or actually have similar technologies. However, how the organization deploys its technological assets and resources to achieve differentiation will make the difference in whether it is competitive.”

Stairway to User-centric Heaven

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:55:00 +0000

This video was sent to me and I do not know the original source (except VW), but it's great.

It shows what happens when you take the most ordinary daily activity (in this case a simple flight of stairs) and make it user-centric.

Even more, people will walk "the extra mile" when something is appealing to them.

Notice how an unused staircase becomes the preferred method--down and even up--over the escalator when people have a user-centric reason to switch.

This is brilliant and the true essence of what it means to enterprise architect our organizations, products, services, policies, plans, and so forth in a way that people can really use.

Further, technology is not only bits and bytes, but any tool we use to get the job done.

Life truly can be healthy, meaningful, and fun when it's user-centric, visionary, and innovative.

“The Happiness Myth” and Enterprise Architecture

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Recently, I was reminded of an interesting article that appeared in The Wall Street Journal (20 Dec 2007) that what really matters in life is not happiness, but rather peace of mind.

Generally speaking, people “are consumed by the pursuit of happiness,” and this fact is codified in our very Declaration of Independence that states: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights, that are among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

However, absolute happiness is often in conflict with the "reality on the ground".

There are some of the inherent conflicts we deal with in enterprise architecture (sort of like the Murphy's Law of EA):

Here are some typical user wants (often associated with problematic architectures):

A baseline, target, and transition plan without their having to provide virtually any input or to collaborate whatsoever.
An architecture roadmap that they do not have to actually follow or execute on.
A platform for information sharing and access to information 24/7, but they also want to hoard “their information”, and keep it secure and private, on a need-to-know only basis, which they subjectively decide.
A structured IT governance process to ensure sound IT investments for the organization, but also they want leeway to conduct their own affairs, their way, in which they buy want they want, when they want, how they want, from whomever they want, with whatever founds they can scrounge up.
A requirements generation and management process that captures and aligns specific functional requirements all the way up to the organization’s strategic plan, mandates and legislation, but that they don't have to be bothered with identifying, articulating, or aligning.

The world of EA is filled with conflicting user demands and polarizing directions from user that want and expect to have it all. While certainly, EA wants and strives to meet all reasonable user requirements and to satisfy the user community and “make them happy,” at a point there comes the realization that you can’t (no matter how hard you try) make everyone happy all of the time.

People want it all, want it now, and often when you give them what they want, they realize that it wasn’t “really” what they had wanted anyway.

So the way ahead is to understand and take into account your user requirements, but more importantly to do the “right” thing for the organization based on best practices, common sense, and initiatives that will truly drive improved performance and mission results.

The WSJ states, “Dad told me: “life isn’t built around ‘fun.’ It’s built around peace of mind. Maybe Dad sensed the paradox of happiness: those most desperate for it run a high risk of being the last to find it. That’s because they make foolish decisions. They live disorderly lives, always chasing the high of the moment.”

In User-centric EA, we don’t “chase the high of the moment,” or look to satisfy each and every user whim, but rather we keep the course to developing sound IT planning and governance and to enhancing organizational decision-making capabilities for our end users. EA is a discipline that ultimately strives to ensure peace of mind for the enterprise through the provision of vital "insight" and "oversight" functions.

Measurement is Essential to Results

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Mission execution and performance results are the highest goals of enterprise architecture.

In the book Leadership by Rudolph Giuliani, he describes how performance measurement in his administration as mayor of NYC resulted in tremendous improvements, such as drastic decreases in crime. He states: “Every time we’d add a performance indicator, we’d see a similar pattern of improvement.”

How did Giuliani use performance measures? The centerpiece of the effort to reduce crime was a process called Compstat in which crime statistics were collected and analyzed daily, and then at meetings these stats were used to “hold each borough command’s feet to the fire.”

What improvements did Giuliani get from instituting performance measurements? Major felonies fell 12.3%, murder fell 17.9%, and robbery 15.5% from just 1993-1994. “New York’s [crime] rate reduction was three to six times the national average…far surpassed that of any other American city. And we not only brought down the crime rate, we kept it down.”

How important was performance measurement to Giuliani? Giuliani states, “even after eight years, I remain electrified by how effective those Compstat meetings could be. It became the crown jewel of my administration’s push for accountability—yet it had been resisted by many who did not want their performance to be measured.”

From an architecture perspective, performance measurement is critical—you cannot manage what you don’t measure!

Performance measurement is really at the heart of enterprise architecture—identifying where you are today (i.e. your baseline), setting your goals where you want to be in the future (i.e. your targets), and establishing a plan to get your organization from here to there through business process improvement, reengineering, and technology enablement.

In the end, genuine leadership means we direct people, process, and technology towards achieving measureable results. Fear of measurement just won't make the grade!

Conversational Computing and Enterprise Architecture

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:00:00 +0000

In MIT Technology Review, 19 September 2007, in an article entitled “Intelligent, Chatty Machines” by Kate Green, the author describes advances in computers’ ability to understand and respond to conversation. No, really.

Conversational computing works by using a “set of algorithms that convert strings of words into concepts and formulate a wordy response.”

The software product that enables this is called SILVIA and it works like this: “during a conversation, words are turned into conceptual data…SILVIA takes these concepts and mixes them with other conceptual data that's stored in short-term memory (information from the current discussion) or long-term memory (information that has been established through prior training sessions). Then SILVIA transforms the resulting concepts back into human language. Sometimes the software might trigger programs to run on a computer or perform another task required to interact with the outside world. For example, it could save a file, query a search engine, or send an e-mail.”

There has been much research done over the years in natural-language processing technology, but the results so far have not fully met expectations. Still, the time will come when we will be talking with our computers, just like on Star Trek, although I don’t know if we’ll be saying quite yet “Beam me up, Scotty.”

From an enterrpise architecture standpoint, the vision of conversational artificial intelligence is absolutely incredible. Imagine the potential! This would change the way we do everyday mission and business tasks. Everything would be affected from how we execute and support business functions and processes, and how we use, access, and share information. Just say the word and it’s done! Won't that be sweet?

I find it marvelous to imagine the day when we can fully engage with our technology on a more human level, such as through conversation. Then we can say goodbye to the keyboard and mouse, the way we did to the typewriter--which are just museum pieces now.

Conflict Management and Enterprise Architecture

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:00:00 +0000

What is conflict?

In the book Images of Organization by Gareth Morgan, the author states “Conflict arises whenever interests collide…whatever the reason, and whatever form it takes, its source rests in some perceived or real divergence of interests.”

Why does conflict occur?

Morgan continues: “People must collaborate in pursuit of a common task, yet are often pitted against each other in competition for limited resources, status, and career advancement.”

How does conflict manifest?

“The conflicting dimensions of organization are most clearly symbolized in the hierarchical organization chart, which is both a system of cooperation, in that it reflects a rational subdivision of tasks, and a career ladder up which people are motivated to climb. The fact is there are more jobs at the bottom than at the top means that competition for the top places is likely to be keen, and that in any career race there are likely to be far fewer winners than losers.”

How does User-centric EA help Manage Conflict?

Enterprise architecture is a tool for resolving organizational conflict. EA does this in a couple of major ways:

Information Transparency: EA makes business and technical information transparent in the organization. And as they say, “information is power”, so by providing information to everyone, EA becomes a ‘great equalizer’—making information equally available to those throughout the organization. Additionally, by people having information, they can better resolve conflict through informed decision-making.
Governance: EA provides for governance. According to Wikipedia, “governance develops and manages consistent, cohesive policies, processes and decision-rights for a given area of responsibility.” As such, governance provides a mechanism to resolve conflicts, in an orderly fashion. For example, an IT Investment Review Board and supporting EA Review Board enables a decision process for authorizing, allocating, and prioritizing new IT investments, an otherwise highly contentious area for many sponsors and stakeholders in the organization.

Conflict is inevitable; however, EA can provide both information and governance to help manage and resolve conflict.

Embracing Instability and Enterprise Architecture

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Traditional management espouses that executives are supposed to develop a vision, chart a course for the organization, and guide it to that future destination. Moreover, everyone in the enterprise is supposed to pull together and sing off the same sheet of music, to make the vision succeed and become reality. However, new approaches to organizational management acknowledge that in today’s environment of rapid change and the many unknowns that abound, executives need to be far more flexible and adaptable, open to learning and feedback, and allow for greater individualism and creativity to succeed.

In the book Managing the Unknowable by Ralph Stacey, the author states that “by definition, innovative strategic directions take an organization into uncharted waters. It follows that no one can know the future destination of an innovative organization. Rather, that organization’s managers must create, invent, and discover their destination as they go.”

In an environment of rapid change, the leader’s role is not to rigidly control where the organization is going, but rather to create conditions that foster creativity and learning. In other words, leaders do not firmly set the direction and demand a “cohesive team” to support it, but rather they create conditions that encourage and promote people to “question everything and generate new perspectives through contention and conflict.” The organization is moved from "building on their strengths and merely adapting to existing market conditions, [to insted] they develop new strengths and at least partly create their own environments.”

An organization just sticking to what they do best and incrementally improving on that was long considered a strategy for organizational success; however, it is now understood as a recipe for disaster. “It is becoming clearer why so many organizations die young…they ‘stick to their knitting’ and do better and better what they already do well. When some more imaginative competitors come along and change the rules of the game, such over-adapted companies…cannot respond fast enough. The former source of competitive success becomes the reason for failure and the companies, like animals, become extinct.”

Organizations must be innovative and creative to succeed. “The ‘new science’ for business people is this: Organizations are feedback systems generating such complex behavior that cause-and-effect links are broken. Therefore, no individual can intend the future of that system or control its journey to that future. Instead what happens to an organization is created by and emerges from the self-organizing interactions between its people. Top managers cannot control this, but through their interventions, they powerfully influence this.

With the rapidly changing economic, political, social, and technological conditions in the world, “the future is inherently unpredictable.” To manage effectively then is not to set rigid plans and targets, but rather to more flexibly read, analyze, and adapt to the changes as they occur or as they can be forecast with reasonable certainly. “A ‘shared vision’ of a future state must be impossible to formulate, unless we believe in mystic insight.” “No person, no book, can prescribe systems, rules, policies, or methods that dependably will lead to success in innovative organizations. All managers can do it establish the conditions that enable groups of people to learn in each new situation what approaches are effective in handling it.”

For enterprise architecture, there are interesting implications from this management approach. Enterprise architects are responsible for developing the current and target architecture and transition plan. However, with the rapid pace of change and innovation and the unpredictability of things, we learn that “hard and fast” plans will not succeed, but rather EA plans and targets must remain guidelines only that are modified by learning and feedback and is response to the end-user (i.e User-centric). Secondly, EA should not become a hindrance to organizational innovation, creativity, and new paradigms for organizational success. EA needs to set standards and targets and develop plans and administer governance, but this must be done simultaneously with maintaining flexibility and harnessing innovation into a realtime EA as we go along. It’s not a rigid EA we need, but as one of my EA colleagues calls it, it’s an “agile EA”.

Rational Decision Making and Enterprise Architecture

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:51:00 +0000

In the book Images of Organization by Gareth Morgan, the Nobel Prize winner Herbert Simon is cited as exploring the parallels between human and organization decision making, as follows:

“Organizations can never be completely rational, because their members have limited information processing abilities…people

usually have to act on the basis of incomplete information about possible courses of action and their consequences

are able to explore only a limited number of alternatives relating to any given decision, and

are unable to attach accurate values to outcome

...In contrast to the assumptions made in economics about the optimizing behavior of individuals, he concluded that individuals and organizations settle for a ‘bounded rationality’ of a good enough decision based on simple rules of thumb and limited search and information.”

While EA provides a way ahead for the organization, based on Herbert Simon explanation, we learn that there is really no 100% right answers. Organizations, like individuals, have limited ability to plan for the future, since they cannot adequately analyze potential outcomes of decisions in an uncertain environment with limited information.

Architects and the organizations they serve must recognize that the best laid plans are based on bounded rationality, and there is no "right" or "wrong" answers, just rational planning and due diligence.

The Window and the Mirror and Enterprise Architecture

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 23:00:00 +0000

I came across some interesting leadership lessons that can be helpful to enterprise architect leaders in the book Good to Great by Jim Collins.

At the most basic level, Collins says that a “level 5” executive or great leader is a “paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will." “Level 5 leaders channel their ego away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company…their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.”

Furthermore, level 5 great leaders differ from good leaders in terms of “the window and the mirror.”

Great leaders—“look out the window to attribute success to factors outside themselves, [and] when things go poorly, they look in the mirror and blame themselves.”
Good (non-great) leaders—“look in the mirror to take credit for success, but out the window to assign blame for disappointing results.”

Interestingly enough, many leaders attributed their company’s success to “good luck” and failures to “bad luck”. Collins writes: “Luck. What an odd factor to talk about. Yet, the good-to-great executives talked a lot about luck in our interviews. This doesn’t sound like Harvard or Yale MBAs talking does it?

Collins comments on this bizarre and repeated reference to luck and states: “We were at first puzzled by this emphasis on good luck. After all, we found no evidence that the good-to-great companies were blessed with more good luck than the comparison companies.”

What puzzles me is not only the lack of attribution for company success to global factors, general market conditions, competitive advantage, talented leadership, great architecture, astute planning, sound governance, great products/services, creative marketing, or amazing employees, but also that there is no mention or recognition in the study of good-to-great leaders in the benevolence from the Almighty G-d, and no apparent gratitude shown for their companies’ success. Instead, it's all about their personal brilliance or general good luck.

Where is G-d in the leaders' calculus for business success?

It seems that the same good-to-great leaders that “look out the window to attribute success to factors outside themselves,” also are looking down at superstitious or “Vegas-style” factors of luck, rather than looking out the window and up to the heavens from where, traditionally speaking, divine will emanates.

Perhaps, there should be a level 6 leader (after the level 5 great leader) that is “truly great” and this is the leader that not only has personal humility and professional will, but also belief in a power much higher than themselves that supersedes “good luck.”

Nanotechnology and Enterprise Architecture

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:00:00 +0000

“Nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale. In its original sense, 'nanotechnology' refers to the ability to construct items from the bottom up.” (Center for Responsible Nanotechnology)

Two examples of nanotechnology include the manufacturing of super strength polymers, and the design of computer chips at the molecular level (quantum computing). This is related to biotechnology, where technology is applied to living systems, such as recombinant DNA, biopharmaceuticals, or gene therapy.

How do we apply nanotechnology concepts to User-centric EA?

Integration vs. Decomposition: Traditional EA has looked at things from the top-down, where we decompose business functions into processes, information flows, and systems into services. But nanotechnology, from a process perspective, shows us that there is an alternate approach, where we integrate or build up from the bottom-up. This concept of integration can be used, for example, to connect activities into capabilities, and capabilities into competencies. These competencies are then the basis for building competitive advantage or carrying out mission execution.
Big is out, small is in: As we architect business processes, information sharing, and IT systems, we need to think “smaller”. Users are looking to shed the monolithic technology solutions of yesteryear for smaller, agile, and more mobile solutions today. For example, centralized cloud computing services replacing hundreds and thousands of redundant instances of individuals systems and infrastructure silos, smaller sized but larger capacity storage solutions, and ever more sleek personal digital assistants that pack in the functionality of cellphones, email, web browsing, cameras, ipods, and more.
Imagination and the Future State: As architects, we are concerned not only with the as-is, but also with the to-be state (many would say this is the primary reason for EA, and I would agree, although you can't establish a very effective transition plan without knowing where your coming from and going to). As we plan for the future state of things, we need to let our imagination soar. Moore’s Law, which is a view into the pace of technological change, is that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles every 24 months. With the rapid pace of technological change, it is difficult for architects to truly imagine what the true possibilities are 3-5 years out--but that can't stop of from trying based on analysis, trends, forecasts, emerging technologies, competitive assessments, and best practice research.

The field of information technology, like that of nanotechnology and biotechnology is not only evolving, but is moving so quickly as to seem almost revolutionary at times. So in enterprise architecture, we need to use lots of imagination in thinking about the future and target state. Additionally, we need to think not only in terms of traditional architecture decomposition (a top-down view), but also integration (a bottom-up view) of the organization, its processes, information shares, and technologies. And finally, we need to constantly remain nimble and agile in the globalized, competitive marketplace where change is a constant.

Creating Win-Win and Enterprise Architecture

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 10:00:00 +0000

We are all familiar with conflict management and day-to-day negotiations in our everyday leadership role in our organizations, and the key to successful negotiation is creating win-win situations.

In the national bestseller, Getting to Yes, by Fisher and Ury, the authors call out the importance of everyday negotiation and proposes a new type of negotiation called "principled negotiation".

“Everyone negotiates something every day…negotiation is a basic means of getting what you want from others. It is a back-and-forth communciation designed to reach an agreement when you and the other side have some interests that are shared and others that are opposed. More and more occasions require negotiation. Conflict is a growth industry…whether in business, government, or the family, people reach most decisions through negotiation.”

There are two standard ways to negotiate that involve trading off between getting what you want and getting along with people:

Soft—“the soft negotiator wants to avoid personal conflict and so makes concessions readily in order to reach agreement. He wants an amicable resolution yet he often ends up exploited and feeling bitter.”

Hard—“the hard negotiator sees any situation as a contest of wills in which the side that takes more extreme positions and holds out londer fares better. He want to win yet he often ends up producing an equally hard response which exhausts him and his resources and harms his relationship with the other side.”

The third way to negotiate, developed by the Harvard Negotiation Project, is Principled Negotiation.

Principled Negotiation—“neither hard nor soft, but rather both hard and soft…decide issues on their merits rather than through a haggling process…you look for mutual gains wherever possible, and that where your interests conflict, you should insist that the results be based on some fair standards independent of the will of either side.”

In principled negotiation, the method is based on the following:

People—participants are not friends and not adversaries, but rather problem solvers
Goal—the goal is not agreement or victory, but rather a “wise outcome reached efficiently and amicably”
Stance—your stance is “soft on the people, hard on the problem”
Pressure—you don’t yield or apply pressure, but rather “reason and be open to reasons”
Position—you don’t change your position easily or dig in, but rather you “focus on interests, not positions”
Solution—the optimal solution is win-win; you develop “options for mutual gain”

In User-centric EA, there are many situations that involve negotiation, and using principled negotiation to develop win-win solutions for the participants is critical for developing wise solutions and sustaining important personal relationships.

Building and maintaining the EA—first of all, just getting people to participate in the process of sharing information to build and maintain an EA involves negotiation. In fact, the most frequent question from those asked to participate is “what’s in it for me?” So enterprise architects must negotiate with stakeholders to share information and participate and take ownership in the EA initiative.
Sound IT governance—second, IT governance, involves negotiating with program sponsors on business and technical alignment and compliance issues. Program sponsors and project managers may perceive enterprise architects as gatekeepers and your review board and submission forms or checklists as a hindrance or obstacle rather than as a true value-add, so negotiation is critical with these program/project managers to enlist their support and participation in the review, recommendation, and decision process and follow-up on relevant findings and recommendations from the governance board.
Robust IT planning—third, developing an IT plan involves negotiation with business and technical partners to develop vision, mission, goals, objectives, initiatives, milestones, and measures. Everyone has a stake in the plan and negotiating the plan elements and building consensus is a delicate process.

In negotiating for these important EA deliverables, it’s critical to keep in mind and balance the people and the problem. Winning the points and alienating the people is not a successful long-term strategy. Similarly, keeping your associates as friends and conceding on the issues, will not get the job done. You must develop win-win solutions that solve the issues and which participants feel are objective, fair, and equitable. Therefore, using principled negotiation, being soft on people and hard on the problem is the way to go.

Realistic Optimism and Enterprise Architecture

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Optimism can be a key to success in your personal and professional life!

The Wall Street Journal reported in Nov. 2007 that optimism leads to action and that “if even half the time our actions work out well, our life is going to turn out for the better…if you are a pessimist, you are unlikely to even try,” says Dr. Phelps an NYU neuroscientist. Similarly, Dr. Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania observes that “optimists tend to do better in life than their talents alone may suggest.”

So while optimism is often “derided as a naïve, soft-soap disposition that distorts the realities of life,” Duke University researchers found that optimists actually lead more productive and by some measures, successful lives. For example, they found that optimists “worked longer hours every week, expected to retire later in life, were less likely to smoke and, when they divorced, were more likely to remarry. They also saved more, had more of their wealth in liquid assets, invested more in individual stocks, and paid credit-card debt bills more frequently.”

At the same time, overly optimistic people behaved in a counter-productive or destructive fashion. “They overestimated their own likely lifespan by 20 years or more…they squandered, they postponed bill paying. Instead of taking the long view, they barely looked past tomorrow.”

Overall though, “the influence of optimism on human behavior is so pervasive that it must have survival value, researchers speculate, and may give us the ability to act in the face of uncertain odds.”

Optimism coupled with a healthy dose of realism is the best way to develop and maintain the organization’s enterprise architecture plans and governance. Optimism leads the organization to “march on” and take prudent action. At the same time, realism keeps the enterprise from making stupid mistakes. An EA that is grounded in “realistic optimism” provides for better, sounder IT investments. Those investments proactively meet business requirements, but are not reliant on bleeding-edge technologies that are overly risky, potentially harmful to mission execution, and wasteful of valuable corporate resources.

Organizational Politics and Enterprise Architecture

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Organizations are intrinsically political systems, “in the sense that ways must be found to create order and direction among people with potentially diverse and conflicting interests.”

“All organizational activity is interest-based…an organization is simultaneously a system of competition and a system of collaboration.” “Because of the diversity of interests… [the organization] always has a latent tendency to move in diverse directions, and sometimes to fall apart.”

Organizational politics is founded in Aristotle’s idea “that diversity of interests gives rise to the ‘wheeling and dealing’, negotiation, and other processes of coalition building and mutual influence that shape so much of organizational life.”

“Organizational politics arise when people think differently and want to act differently. This diversity creates a tension that must be resolved through political means…there are many ways in which this can be done: aristocratically (‘We’ll do it this way’); bureaucratically (‘We’re supposed to do it this way”), technocratically (‘It’s best to do it this way’), or democratically (‘How shall we do it?’). In each case the choice between alternative paths of action usually hinges on the power relations between the actors involved.”

“Power is the medium through which conflicts of interest are ultimately resolved. Power influences who gets what, when, and how.” Organizational power is derived from formal authority, control of scarce resources, control of information, use of structure, policies, and rules, and so on.

(Adapted from Images of Organization by Gareth Morgan)

Recognizing the importance of organizational politics—individual, group, and special interests, as well as the resulting conflict, and resolution through the levers of power is critical in User-centric Enterprise Architecture.

EA works within a diverse organization, takes competing interests and organizational conflicts, and turns it into common objectives and goals and the striving towards their achievement.

Enterprise architects work across organizational boundaries to synthesize business and technology to create interoperability, standardization, efficiencies, enterprise and common solutions, and integration.

Through the target architecture and transition plan, EA seeks to transform the organization from its intrinsic conflicts into a force with unity of purpose and mind to achieve ever greater accomplishments.

Testing EA in Virtual Reality

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 01:00:00 +0000

In enterprise architecture, we develop IT targets and plans for the organization, but these are usually not tested in any meaningful or significant way, since they are “future tense”.

Wouldn’t it be incredible to be able to actually test EA hypotheses, targets, and plans in a virtual environment before actually setting off the organization in a specific direction that can have huge implications for its ability to conduct business and achieve results?

MIT Technology Review, in an article entitled “The Fleecing of the Avatars” (Jan/Feb 2008) addresses how virtual reality is being used to a greater extent to mimic and test reality.

One example of the booming virtual world is Second Life, run by Linden Labs. It has 10,000,000 subscribers and “about 50,000 are online at any one time.” In this virtual world, subscribers playing roles as avatars “gather to role-play reenactments of obscure digital Star Trek cartoon episodes, build and buy digital homes and furniture, and hang out on digital beaches.”

However, more and more virtual worlds, like Second Life, are being used by real world mainstream businesses. For example, many companies are developing a presence in the virtual world, such as Dell with a sales office in Second Life, Reebok a store, and IBM maintains business centers in this virtual world. Further, “the World Bank presented a report in Second Life about business development.”

“But big companies like Sun, Reebok, and IBM don’t really do business in virtual worlds; they ‘tunnel’ into them. [In other words,] To close a deal, you need to step out of the ‘sim’ and into the traditional Sun or Reebok or IBM website.”

The development of company’s virtual presence online and their connection back to the real world is potentially a precursor to planning disciplines like EA testing out hypotheses of targets and plans in virtual reality and then actually implementing these back in the real organization.

Others are actually planning to use virtual worlds to test and conduct research. So there is precedent for other disciplines such as EA. For example, Cornell’s Robert Bloomfield, an experimental economist, “conducts lab research—allowing 20 students to make simulated stock trades using real money…and seeing how regulatory changes affect their behavior. He envisions a day when he can do larger studies by setting up parallel virtual worlds. ‘I could create two virtual worlds, one with legal structure, one with another, and compare them…I might lower the capital-gains tax in one and see how business responds. There are things I can’t do with 20 people in a classroom but I can do with 2,000 or 20,000 people in a virtual world.”

Could enterprise architecture do something similar in a virtual world? For example, could we test how business processes need to change when new technology is introduced or how information sharing improves with better architectures for discovering and exchanging data? How about testing people’s reactions and behavior to new systems in a broader virtual world instead of with a more limited number of customers in user acceptance testing? Another possibility is testing the effectiveness of new IT security in a virtual world of gamers and hackers?

Modeling and simulation (M&S) can improve enterprise architecture by testing plans before deploying them. We need to to hire and train people with knowledge, skills, and experience in the M&S discipline and with tools that support this. Then we can test hypothetical return on investment for new IT investments before we open our organizational wallets.

Leading Through Planning

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:00:00 +0000

Recently, I was reminded of two pointers in developing an effective IT strategic plan:

Strategic planning is about leadership and setting direction—There is an interesting saying with respect to this that the manager ensures that you do things right, and the leader ensures that you do the right things. The strategic plan, including the vision, mission, and value statements are about leadership establishing and communicating what the ‘right thing’ is. An effective metaphor for this is that the manager ensures that you climb the ladder, but the leader ensures that the ladder is up against the “right” wall.
Strategic planning goals, objectives, and initiatives have to be aligned and actionable —that means that you need to set the strategic plan elements at an appropriate level of detail and in cascading fashion. One way to do this is to navigate up and down between goal, objectives, and initiatives in the following way: To navigate to a higher elements of the plan hierarchy, ask why. Why do we do XYZ? To navigate to lower levels of detail and specificity, ask how. How do or will we do XYZ.

Together, these two guidelines help to develop an IT strategic plan that is both effective in terms of goal setting and organizational focus as well as at the appropriate levels of detail and alignment to be truly actionable.

Is Free Worth the Price?

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 00:17:00 +0000

In the computer world, free is often the architecture and economic model of choice or is it?

We have various operating systems like Linux, Chrome, Android and more now costing nothing. Information is free on the Internet. Online news at no cost to the reader is causing shock waves in the print news world. There are thousands of free downloads available online for applications, games, music, and more.

What type of business model is free—where is the revenue generation and profit margin?

Yes, we know you can use giveaways to cross sell other things which is what Google does so well making a boat load of money (billions) from its free search engine by selling ads. Others are trying to copy this model but less successfully.

Also, sometimes, companies give product away (or undercharge) in order to undermine their competitive challengers, steal market share, and perhaps even put their rivals out of business.

For example, some have accused Google of providing Google Apps suite for free as a competitive challenge to Microsoft dominant and highly profitable Office Suite in order to shake one of Microsoft’s key product lines and get them off-balance to deflect the other market fighting going on in Search between Google and Microsoft’s new Bing “decision engine.”

So companies have reasons for providing something for free and usually it is not pure altruism, per se.

But from the consumers perspective, free is not always really free and is not worth the trouble.

Fast Company has an interesting article (October 2009) called “The High Cost of Free.”

“The strategy of giving everything away often creates as many hassles as it solves.”

Linux is a free operating system, yet “netbooks running Windows outsell their Linux counterparts by a margin of nine to one.”

“Why? Because free costs too much weighted down with hassles that you’ll happily pay a little to do without.”

For example, when you need technical support, what are the chances you’ll get the answers and help you need on a no-cost product?

That why “customers willingly pay for nominally free products, because they understand that only when money changes hands does the seller become reliably responsive to the buyer.”

And honestly, think about how often--even when you do pay--that trying to get good customer service is more an anomaly than the rule. So what can you really reasonably expect for nothing?

“Some companies have been at the vanguard of making a paying business of “free.” IBM, HP and other tech giants generate significant revenue selling consulting services and support for Linux and other free software to business.”

Also, when you decide to go with free products, you may not be getting everything you bargained for either in the base product or in terms of all the “bells and whistles” compared with what a paid-for-product offers. It’s reminiscent of the popular adages that “you get what you pay for” and “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

Sure, occasionally there is a great deal out there—like when we find a treasure at a garage or estate sale or even something that someone else discarded perhaps because they don’t recognize it’s true value—and we need to be on the lookout for those rare finds. But I think we’d all be hard pressed to say that this is the rule rather than the exception. If it were the rule, it would probably throw a huge wrench in the notion of market equilibrium.

And just like everyone savors a bargain, people are of course seriously enticed by the notion of anything that is free. But do you think a healthy dose of skepticism is appropriate at something that is free? Again, another old saying comes to mine, “if it’s too good to be true, it probably is.”

Remember, whoever is providing the “free” product or service, still needs to pay their mortgage and feed their family too, so you may want to ask yourself, how you or someone else is paying the price of “free,” and see if it is really worth it before proceeding.

From the organization’s perspective, we need to look beyond the immediate price tag (free or otherwise discounted) and determine the medium- to long-term costs that include operations and maintenance, upgrades, service support, interoperability with other products and platforms, and even long-term market competition for the products we buy.

So let’s keep our eyes open for a great deal or paradigm shift, but let’s also make sure we are protecting the vital concerns of our users for functionality, reliability, interoperability, and support.

Are Organizational Values Valuable?

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 01:14:00 +0000

Many organizations have a value statement that identifies what traits are most important to them.

Organizational values are similar to an enterprise architecture in that the organizational values identify a type of target state for organization members to strive for and adhere to.

The purpose of value statements is to guide people’s behaviors, decisions, and interactions.

For example, one police department that I looked up has value statements around the traits of integrity, pride, service, and fairness. A city that I found had value statements for passion for community, integrity in work, and results through collaboration. A non-profit organization had values of leadership, integrity, excellence, and impact.

As you read the value statements they give you a sense of the organization in terms of who they are, or actually more like what they believe in.

But do they really—i.e. are organizational value statements something that people in the organization are aware of, understand, can locate, recite, or summarize, and moreover, are the values actually used to guide behavior?

Or are these value statements written by leadership, human resources, or some strategic planning function in the organization as an ivory tower effort, and then published in the organization’s glossy annual plan and/or on their website, but never really communicated with or adopted by the people in the rank and file?

The question is not posed in order to be cynical, but to genuinely ask: are organizational value statements “true values” or are they more marketing and branding glitz?

With few exceptions, I would challenge most to identify whether their organization even has a value statement, let alone what it is. Moreover, the last time, they thought of and considered the organizational values in making a decision or taking an action.

Then why do organizations have value statements?

Perhaps, organizations intuitively or through management best practices know that they need to have values, because they are genuinely important. Just like as individuals we have personal values (be they religious or otherwise) that “tell” us who we as human being are and guide our behaviors, so too as organizations, we need to identify the values that will be our “moral compass” and define our organizational identity.

The problem though comes when organizational values are developed as a “project”—a time bound task or “to do” for someone or some committee who researched it, developed it, and got approval on it; but not managed as a “program”—an ongoing endeavor and commitment to create awareness, educate, and even enforce the values through performance rewards and recognition.

Moreover, culture and peer pressure are vey powerful forces that drive employee behavior, whether they consciously are aware of it or not. So many values are indeed employed in day-to-day interactions, but they may not be explicit and they may not be the same values that are actually in the organization’s value statement. That is because the informal network and implicit values may actually be more prominent and powerful in driving people’s behaviors that the formal and documented one in the organization.

The key is for leaders to genuinely commit to the values and their use across the organization. The leaders need to provide for the values to be widely communicated (on wall hangings, pocket cards, employee reference guides, Intranet and so on) and they need to be referred to in periodic communications (speeches, announcements, broadcasts, meetings, etc.). They need to be living, breathing values that touch people daily (and obviate the implicit and unsanctioned ones).

Further, leaders need not only talk about the values, but also they need to exemplify them. In other words, leaders need to practice what they preach and lead by example using the values to drive decisions and actions in a way that is transparent to all.

What I learned when I developed user-centric enterprise architecture is that any ivory-tower exercises or development of organizational shelfware is by definition a failure, and therefore we need to treat all of our strategic planning and management functions as a real-world effort.

If we could do that with both EA and organizational values, it would be great to integrate them and use them to drive an explicit target state for both the performance and the business perspectives, as well as a human capital perspective of the architecture.

Minimalism (short title intentional)

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:37:00 +0000

They question of the day—is less really more?

I don’t know a lot about art (except that I appreciate it when it’s good). But I remember often hearing subtle advice about leaving plenty of “white space”—i.e. don’t clutter up the work, because less is more.

Recently, I heard some manager at work say: “I don’t care what it looks like…just give me content, content, content.” Again, to me the theme was the same—as they say, keep it simple stupid (a.k.a. KISS).

It reminded me of what one of my high school teachers used to say about class assignments: Just give me the “meat and potatoes”.

Then, I read an interesting article in Wired (September 2009) about Craig Newmark and his company, Craigslist, which is the epitome of minimalism, when it comes to design, features, and functions.

“Besides offering nearly all of its features for free, it scorns advertising, refuses investments, ignores design, and does not innovate.”

Craigslist looks like no other website that I’ve ever seen on the Internet. It has no graphics. No pictures (unless it’s associated with a listing). Little real text. It’s basically just layers upon layers of links, until you get to a particular listing. The site seems to disregard all the accepted standards of website design, navigation, and functionality.

“Craigslist is one of the strangest monopolies in history, where customers are locked in by fees set at zero and where the ambiance of neglect is not a way to extract more profit but the expression of a world view.”

And what is Craig Newark’s world view?

Minimalism and simplicity.

And in the crazy world we live in today of hyper consumerism, accumulation of wealth, ever-increasing productivity, acceleration of communications, boosting of processing power, aggregation of data, and doing more with less—the simple and minimalistic approach of Craigslist is an oasis in a desert of often meaningless greed and gluttony.

Newmark says: “People are good and trustworthy and generally just concerned with getting through the day.”

Therefore, “All you have to do to serve them well is build a minimal infrastructure allowing them to get together and work things out for themselves. Any additional features are almost superfluous and could even be damaging.”

So how is Craigslist doing with such a simple approach—is it being overrun by the more aggressive web builders and entrepreneurs of our time?

Au contraire. “Craigslist get more traffic then either eBay or Amazon.com. eBay has more than 16,000 employees. Amazon has more than 20,000. Craigslist has 30.”

Moreover, according to their factsheet, Craigslist has more than 20 billion page views per month. And more than 50 million people use it in the U.S. alone.

Estimates are that Craigslist generates more than a $100 million in revenue and is worth billions.

While I can't say that I am a big user myself, these are some pretty amazing stats for a site that is bare bones and maybe more than a little awkward.

The philosophy of Newmark is: why add the “bells and whistles” if the user doesn’t want or need it?

In a sense, Craig Newmark is one of the most user-centric enterprise architects of our time. He genuinely seeks to understand his customer needs and to serve them in a way that meets them in an almost primal fashion.

Newmark has architected Craigslist in a uniquely user-centric way, undeterred that it runs counter to almost all conventional website wisdom.

DHS OIG Report on My User-centric EA Implementation at the Coast Guard

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:53:00 +0000

Just learned of new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) Report documenting the significant progress of Enterprise Architecture and IT Governance program at the U.S. Coast Guard, which I led up to and during the majority of the audit.

I am pleased at the recognized progress and at the terrific work that my team accomplished there--I am very proud of all of them!

Of course, there is more work to be done, but the right EA infrastructure has been put in place to accomplish the goals and objectives set out.

Here is the link to the report: http://sites.google.com/site/thetotalcio/Home/links/EAOIGReport-July2009.pdf?attredirects=0

"The Coast Guard has made progress in developing its enterprise architecture by defining its enterprise architecture framework [User-centric EA] in alignment with both federal and DHS architectures. In addition, its enterprise architecture is aligned with the Coast Guard's IT strategy. These achievements have been possible because of executive support for the enterprise architecture effort."

Vision is not a Business Only Matter

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:33:00 +0000

At an enterprise architecture conference a number of weeks ago, the audience was asked how many of you see yourself as technology people—about half raised their hands. And then the audience was asked how many see yourselves more as business people—and about half raised their hands. And of course, there were a handful of people that raised their hands as being “other.”

Then the dialogue with the audience of architects proceeded to regardless of whether you consider yourselves more business-oriented or more technology-oriented, either way, enterprise architects must get the vision from the business people in the organization, so the architects can then help the business people to develop the architecture. It was clear that many people felt that we had to wait for the business to know that their vision was and what they wanted, before we could help them fulfill their requirements. Well, this is not how I see it.

From my experience, many business (and technology) people do not have a “definitive vision” or know concretely what they want, especially when it comes to how technology can shape the business. Yes, of course, they do know they have certain gaps or that they want to improve things. But no, they don’t always know or can envision what the answer looks like. They just know that things either aren’t working “right” or competitor so and so is rolling out something new or upgrading system ABC or “there has just got to be a better way" to something.

If we plan to wait for the business to give us a definitive “this is what I want,” I think in many cases, we’ll be waiting a very long time.

The role of the CIO, CTO, as well as enterprise architects and other IT leaders is to work with the business people, to collaboratively figure out what’s wrong, what can be improved, and then provide solutions on how to get there.

Vision is not a business only matter—it is a broad leadership and planning function. IT leaders should not absolve themselves of visioning, strategy, and planning and rely only on the business for this. To the contrary, IT leaders must be an integral part of forging the business vision and must come up with an enabling “technology vision” for the organization. These days, business is more and more reliant on technology for its success, and a business vision without thought and input from the technology perspective would be superficial at best and dead of center at worst.

Moreover, visioning is not an art or a science, but it is both and not everyone is good at it. That is why open communication and collaboration is critical for developing and shaping the vision for where the organization must go.

Early on in my career, in working with my business counterparts, I asked “What are you looking to do and how can I help you?” And my business partner responded, opening my eyes, and said, “You tell me—what do you think we need to do. You lead us and we will follow.”

Wow! That was powerful.

“You tell me.”

“What do you think we need to do.”

“You lead us and we will follow.”

The lesson is simple. We should not and cannot wait for the business. We, together with our operational counterparts, are “the business”. Technology is not some utility anymore, but rather it is one of the major underpinnings of our information society; it is the driving force behind our innovation, the core of our competitive advantage, and our future.

What China’s Bullet Trains Can Teach Us About Governance

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:47:00 +0000

One of the foundations of this great country is that we believe in respecting the rights of the individual. This belief is founded on the Judeo-Christian doctrine that every life is valuable and the loss of even one life is like the loss of an entire world.

The rights of the individuals are enshrined in the Bill of Rights that establishes what we consider our fundamental human rights, such as freedom of speech, press, religion, due process, eminent domain, and many others.

The flip side of the protection of individual rights—which is sacred to us—is that it may occasionally come at some “expense” to the collective. This can occur when those individuals who may be adversely affected by a decision, hinder overall societal progress. For example, one could argue that society benefits from the building of highways, clean energy nuclear plants, even prison facilities. Yet, we frequently hear the refrain of “not in my backyard” when these projects are under consideration.

In my neighborhood, where a new train line is proposed, there are signs up and down the street, of people adversely affected, opposing it—whether in the end it is good, bad or indifferent for the community as a whole.

So on one hand we have the rights and valid concerns of the individual, yet on the other hand, we have the progress of the collective. Sure, there are ways to compensate those individuals who are adversely affected by group decisions, but the sheer process of debate—however valuable and justified, indeed—may slow the overall speed of progress down.

Why is this an especially critical issue now?

In a high speed networked world with vast global competition—nation versus nation, corporation versus corporation—speed to market can make a great deal of difference. For example, the speed of the U.S. in the arms and space race with Soviet Union left just one global superpower standing. Similarly, many companies and in fact whole industries have been shut down because they have been overtaken, leapfrogged by the competition. So speed and innovation does matter.

For example, in the field of information technology, where Moore’s Law dictates a new generation of technology every two years of so, the balance of speed to modernization with a foundation of sound IT governance is critical to how we must do business.

Fortune Magazine has an article called “China’s Amazing New Bullet Train (it leaves America in the Dust!)”

China’s new ultra-modern rail system will be almost 16,000 miles of new track running train at up to 220 miles per hours by 2020. China is investing their economic stimulus package of $585 billion strategically with $50 billion going this year alone to the rail system. This compares with the U.S. allocating only $8 billion for high-speed trains over the next three years. Note: that the high speed Amtrak Acela train between Boston and Washington, DC goes a whopping average speed of 79 mph.

One of the reasons that China’s free market is credited with amazing economic progress—for example, GDP growth this year projected at 8.3% (in the global recession)—is their ability to retain some elements of what the military calls a “command and control” structure. This enables decisions to get made and executed more quickly than what others may consider endless rounds of discourse. The down side of course is that without adequate and proper discussion and debate, poor decisions can get made and executed, and individuals’ human rights can get overlooked and in fact sidelined. (Remember the shoddy school construction that resulted in almost 7000 classrooms getting destroyed and many children dying in the Earthquake in China in May 2008?)

So the question is how do we protect the individual and at the same time keep pace—and where possible, maintain or advance our societal strategic competitive advantage?

It seems that there is a cost to moving too slowly in terms of our ability to compete in a timely fashion. Yet, there is also a cost to moving too quickly and making poorly vetted decisions that do not take into account all the facts or all the people affected. Either extreme can hurt us.

What is important is that we govern with true openness, provide justice for all affected, and maintain a process that helps—and does not hinder—timely decisions action.

We cannot afford to make poor decisions—these are expensive—nor do we have the luxury of getting caught up in “analysis paralysis.”

Of course, there are many ways to approach this. One way is to continue to refine our governance processes so that they are just to the individual and agile for our society by continuing to simplify and streamline the decision process, while ensuring that everyone is heard and accounted for. Recently we have seen the use of new information sharing and collaboration technologies, like those provided through social media—wikis, blogs, social networks and more—that can help us to do exchange ideas and work together faster than ever before. Embracing these new technologies can help us to pick up the pace of the vetting process while at the same time enabling more people than ever to participate.

Perhaps social media is one of the only things faster than China’s new bullet trains in helping us to progress how we do business in the 21st century.

Enterprise Architecture Design

noreply@blogger.com (Andy Blumenthal) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 23:30:00 +0000

User-centric Enterprise Architecture provides information to decision-makers using design thinking, so as to make the information easy to understand and apply to planning and investment decisions.
Some examples of how we do this:
Simplifying complex information by speaking the language of the business (and not all techie).
Unifying disparate information to give a holistic view that breaks the traditional vertical (or functional) views and instead looks horizontally across the organization to foster enterprise solutions where we build once and reuse multiple times.
Visualizing information to condense lots of information and tell a story—as the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Segmenting end-users and tailoring EA information products to the different user groups which we do with profiles geared to executive decision makers, models for mid-level managers, and inventories for the analysts.
Interestingly enough, in the summer issue of MIT Sloan Management Review, there is an article called “How to Become a Better Manager…By thinking Like a Designer.”
Here are some design pointers from the experts that you can use to aid your enterprise architectures (they are written to parallel the principles from User-centric EA, as I have previously described above):
Embrace simplicity—“people often confuse simplicity…with simplistic….it takes courage to be simple…and the simplest solution is often the best.”
Look for patterns in the data—“good problem solvers become proficient at identifying patterns.” Further, designers seek “harmony to bring together hierarchy, balance, contrast, and clear space in a meaningful way.”
Apply visual thinking—often managers…rely heavily on data and information to tell the story and miss the opportunity to create context and meaning,” instead managers need to “think of themselves as designers, visual thinkers or storytellers.”
Presenting clearly to specific end-users—“good design is about seeing and communicating clearly.” Moreover, it’s about “seeing things from the clients point of view…designers learn pretty quickly that is not about Me, it’s about You.”

MIT Sloan states “we have come to realize over the past few years that design-focused organizations do better financially than their less design-conscious competitors…design is crafting communications to answer audience needs in the most effective way.”

This is a fundamental lesson: organizations that apply the User-centric Enterprise Architecture design approach will see superior results than legacy EA development efforts that built “artifacts” made up primarily of esoteric eye charts that users could not readily understand and apply.