Demystifying Enterprise Architecture - Part 2

Exploiting EA as a Primary Enterprise Unification Mechanism
For many, this is what EA was always supposed to be. When handed the EA tools and methodologies currently recommended by industry, though, this objective seemed somehow to pass out of reach. So how exactly could an EA fulfill this role?  Every enterprise is composed of a series of lifecycles – development lifecycles, integration lifecycles, operational lifecycles and these are all contained within the larger organism of the lifespan of the enterprise itself. The enterprise is alive in a very tangible way, but it is hard for us to visualize how it came to be, how it has grown and how it will continue to thrive. Where is the map, the key to how and why it developed the way it did? All living organisms are built upon a code, one that captures its evolutionary history – we need enterprise DNA.

DNA captures the system of systems as well as all of the constituent components; it captures the rules and road-maps for component and holistic transformation. DNA is universal and wholly interoperable, the code is flexible enough to support infinite variation. DNA is data, it is rules and it can be visualized and mapped. DNA represents the single most successful system control mechanism that we know of in the universe, yet even with our extensive understanding of it we have largely failed to apply the secret to its success. DNA works because it is simple, and because it is simple it can manage infinite complexity without intervention. This is our meta model for enterprise architecture, which is essentially an extension of reality, a virtual organism. 

If we begin with this premise and then determine that we need to apply it to an organization we are already taking a fundamentally different path than most follow. Our perspective for what the EA means, how long it will last, our level of commitment to it, all these change once a decision has been made to capture, maintain and consciously craft the living genetic framework of all aspects of the organization. DNA is not something that goes away once an organism matures – it stays for the entire lifespan across all changes, all transformations and passes knowledge forward to future generations within its genetic heritage. When this is done properly, the organism is oblivious to the mechanism facilitating it. Enterprise architecture is almost always attempted across painful fits and spurts – rarely if ever does it become a permanent part of the larger lifecycles that spawned it. And when the EA efforts are tossed aside, knowledge is lost, opportunities for continuity missed and the roadmap vanishes beneath the shifting sands.

Enterprise Architecture includes both Frameworks and Patterns

Once you take the philosophical leap as to what the true nature of EA ought to encompass a number of other realizations start to become apparent, including:

• Narrowly defined or highly specialized EA frameworks while interesting in their own right are ultimately doomed to fail. They are not flexible enough to encompass an enterprise, a lifecycle or combinations thereof.
• Enterprise Architecture cannot be viewed separately from either the systems or processes it is meant to represent – just as DNA is part of an organism, the architecture is embedded into the organization. An EA project that is undertaken as external snapshot cannot hope to achieve a true understanding of what the organization or project is all about and it will ultimately provide disappointing results.
• The language of architecture must at all times be accessible to all participants in the enterprise who have a vested interested in its health. Once the visualizations, notations, frameworks or terminology become the province of ‘architecture experts,’ the value of the architecture has been lost and the EA will gradually or rapidly whither away.
• Architecture is also a communication medium through which understanding can be conveyed and assimilated. It becomes the basis for all other collaboration, the reference point for where each conversation begins and the parameters of the discussion.

In order to leverage EA as the primary unifying force in your enterprise, you must first discard your previous assumptions of what architecture is and how it is currently practiced and focus upon how to make it relevant to the purpose it was intended for. It is a map, a guide if you will and shouldn’t have to be deciphered to follow. It is also not something to be handed off to others isolated within or outside of your entity, it must be endorsed and embraced from the top. The form which it takes is largely dependent on the needs of the organization, although for an EA to be leveraged for enterprise unification it ought to share certain characteristics, such as:

• The EA must have a clearly defined semantic model, using common, easily identifiable terms and conforming with industry standard terminology where possible.
• The EA must have ‘hooks’ into all of the core processes utilized across the enterprise.
• The EA must have the ability to be subdivided without losing its ‘DNA’ integrity.
• The EA must be universally available to anyone who wishes to either reference it or work with it; this implies that it must be updateable using a flexible ‘social publishing’ paradigm and be entirely web-based.
• The EA must encompass the enterprise lifespan allowing for unlimited lifecycles within – this is the only way to build true organizational traceability. 
• EA management must support some level of automation – for EA-based unification to function properly, it can’t be a continuous manual process.

In many ways, the philosophical commitment is the most important step in any EA effort; it is also the first one which must be addressed. After an agreement has been reached as to how EA should be used then there needs to be an examination of its practical implementation. The first and most obvious practical application of EA is as the design framework for your enterprise.

Copyright 2012  - Technovation Talks, Semantech Inc.