Subliminal Messages and Enterprise Architecture

Subliminal message—“a signal or message embedded in another object, designed to pass below the normal limits of perception. These messages are indiscernible by the conscious mind, but allegedly affect the subconscious or deeper mind. Subliminal techniques have occasionally been used in advertising and propaganda; the purpose, effectiveness and frequency of such techniques is debated.” (Wikipedia)

50 years ago, a market researcher named James Vicary “announced that he had invented a way to make people buy things whether they wanted them or not” through subliminal advertising.

“He had tested the process at a New Jersey movie theater, where he had flashed the words ‘eat popcorn’ or ‘Coca-Cola’ on the screen every five seconds as the films played. The words came and went so fast—in three-thousandths of a second—that the audience didn’t know they’d seen them. Yet, sales of popcorn and Coke increased significantly.”

People who were afraid of the impact of subliminal messages or being brainwashed called them ‘merchandising hypnosis’ and ‘remote control of national thought’.

“In 1962, Mr. Vicary, in an interview, admitted that he had fabricated the results of the popcorn test to drum up business for his market-research firm. Subliminal ads were tossed into the invention junkyard.”

(Wall Street Journal, 5 November 2007)

Do subliminal messages work to change behavior?

“Subconscious stimulus by single words is well established to be modestly effective in changing human behavior or emotions. However there is no strong evidence that messages in advertising can or have been used effectively.” (Wikipedia)

Whether or not, people can be made to purchases or consume things through subliminal advertising is unclear. However, subconscious words and cues do have an effect on human behavior. An example of the effectiveness of subliminal cues are reactions to non-verbal communications, such as facial expressions or body language.

Similarly, with unconscious communications, "research has shown that our conscious attention can attend to 5-9 items simultaneously. All other information is processed by the unconscious mind.” (Wikipedia)

So clearly, the subconscious mind receives, processes, and reacts to verbal and non-verbal stimuli.

In User-centric EA, it is critical to communicate effectively, so that users not only hear the messages (i.e. the target architecture, transition plan, strategic plan and so on), but that they listen to them and ultimately act on them. To effectively communicate, then, means using the spectrum of verbal and non-verbal communication.

While the notion of hypnotizing our stakeholders into being “willing” participants in the development of the EA, and in complying with it, is certainly appealing in a sort of warped, comical way, it is certainly not a serious option (oh shucks!). So while EA practitioners can not go out and put subliminal EA messages into the corporate TV broadcasts or insert encrypted EA messages in the company newsletter, EA should use a broad array of marketing and communication materials and outreach efforts to reach leaders, subject matter experts, and stakeholders to unite the enterprise and move the organization forward toward business and technology evolution to meet mission execution.

In the end, good communication with stakeholders is one of the most critical success factors of an EA program.

Subliminal Messages and Enterprise Architecture

The Milgram Experiment and Enterprise Architecture

Milgram experiment—“a seminal series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.” (Adapted from Wikipedia)

The experiment:
In the experiment, participants were told they were engaged in a study of memory and learning and were paid $4.50 an hour. Participants, as “teachers,” were put in charge of a “generator [that] has 30 switches in 15 volt increments, each is labeled with a voltage ranging from 15 up to 450 volts. Each switch also has a rating, ranging from ‘slight shock’ to ‘danger: severe shock.’ The final two switches are labeled ‘XXX.’ The ‘teacher’ automatically is supposed to increase the shock each time the ‘learner’ misses a word in the list. Although the ‘teacher’ thought that he/she was administering shocks to the ‘learner’, the ‘learner’ is actually a student or an actor who is never actually harmed…At times, the worried ‘teachers’ questioned the experimenter, asking who was responsible for any harmful effects resulting from shocking the learner at such a high level. Upon receiving the answer that the experimenter assumed full responsibility, teachers seemed to accept the response and continue shocking…Ultimately 65% of all of the ‘teachers’ punished the ‘learners’ to the maximum 450 volts. No subject stopped before reaching 300 volts!....Milgram's obedience experiment was replicated by other researchers. The experiments spanned a 25-year period from 1961 to 1985 and have been repeated in Australia, South Africa and in several European countries. In one study conducted in Germany, over 85% of the subjects administered a lethal electric shock to the learner.” (http://www.new-life.net/milgram.htm)

The studies’ conclusion:
“Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not.” (The Perils of Obedience by Stanley Milgram)

The study was seen as validating how the Nazi’s “followed” their leaders’ orders to commit unbelievable atrocities against humanity.

What can User-centric EA learn from these shocking studies (no pun intended)?

1. Leaders have a tremendous responsibility to lead—the Milgram studies demonstrated that people actually follow leaders, even to commit acts against their personal conscience. Therefore, leaders have an imperative to lead with wisdom and rectitude. Leaders need to be held to a higher-level of integrity and accountability to match the authority that they yield. Leaders should serve as examples for others. Enterprise architects, as organization leaders and change agents, need to lead not only with conviction, but with integrity to really do their best on behalf of the organization and stakeholders they serve.
2. Target architecture needs to be “righteous”—enterprise architects need to ensure that the targets they establish for the organization lead not only to the organization climbing the proverbial ladder of success, but also that the ladder is up against the “right” wall. Why? Because, once the target and plan is established, and the troops rally behind it, they will move out. So, enterprise architects need to be confident that the targets they establish with leadership and subject matter experts are going to take the organization where it really needs to go. That’s an awesome responsibility!

The Milgram Experiment and Enterprise Architecture

Locking Down the Desktop – Enhances Security or Hurts Productivity?

The Wall Street Journal, 22 October 2007 reports on a debate between the CIO of Highmark Inc. (a business education corporation) and the CIO of Google on whether employees’ use of unauthorized technologies at work compromises security or enhances productivity.

Why does locking down the desktop enhance corporate security?

The essential question is “how much leeway should office workers have to try out new technologies on company computers? For many employers, the answer is clear: none at all. Corporate IT departments already have their hands full with viruses, hackers, spyware, and data breaches, without having to worry about employees making those problems worse by adding unauthorized software or devices. Security experts warn that a company’s insiders are responsible for most security headaches, intentionally or inadvertently.”

• Tom Tabor, the CIO of Highmark states: “we recognize that employees just want to be productive…while this may be advantageous, it is also a management issue as far as maintainability, support, and potentially cost.”

Why does unlocking the desktop enhance worker productivity?

“Most employees who work regularly with computers can think of dozens of ways that unauthorized technologies makes it easier to do their jobs, whether it’s Web-based email programs, for sending large files or flash memory drives for taking work files home. And it isn’t just individuals; whole departments are turning to online software providers to handle business needs without the approval, or often the knowledge, of the IT department.”

• Douglas Merrill, the CIO of Google states: “We must give up trying to control everything, and instead focus on the few places that are the most critical.”

How do these CIOs deal with demands for new IT?

• Tabor: “We have a formalized technology-acquisition process that allows employees to submit technologies for review by the IT organization. Through this process, employees have a say in what technologies are considered.”
• Merrill: “At Google, most employees who run Windows are set as power users, not administrators. This allows employees to install some things and change some machine settings, but not everything—basically, we try to protect our employees from themselves. [However,] If they want administrator access, they just have to ask for it…”

In user-centric EA, we follow a similar method to Mr. Tabor’s technology-acquisition process by having an Investment Review Board supported by an Enterprise Architecture Board, where business sponsors can submit decision requests for new IT projects, products, or standards and get these evaluated, authorized, prioritized, and funded. The key is to have a structured process that adds value to the IT investment decision-making without stifling innovation and productivity.

As for locking down the desktop, as a user, I can’t say that I love the restrictions, but as an enterprise architect and IT and business professional, I definitely see the security value to the organization, as well as the benefits to standardizing technologies, developing enterprise solutions, and building a maintainable, cost effective infrastructure.

Locking Down the Desktop – Enhances Security or Hurts Productivity?

The Gung Ho Organization and Enterprise Architecture

User-centric EA helps lead to a "gung ho" successful enterprise.

In the book Gung Ho by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles, the authors offer 3 tips for motivating people. They include:

• Work has to be understood as important
• It has to lead to a well understood and shared goal
• Values have to guide plans, decisions, and actions

User centric EA is a proponent that an organization cannot be successful in spite its people, but rather it has to be successful through its people. And so, the adversarial relationship that management often sets up with employees, unions, shareholder activists etc. is not beneficial to meeting the mission needs that it's trying to achieve.

In user centric EA, the best way for any organization to achieve its goals is to motivate, inspire, and develop a shared vision with all the organizational actors. Part of developing that unity of mission and vision is to create a strong organizational culture, identity, and values.

The Gung Ho Organization and Enterprise Architecture

Semantic Web and Enterprise Architecture

MIT Technology Review, 29 October 2007 in an article entitled, “The Semantic Web Goes Mainstream,” reports that a new free web-based tool called Twine (by Radar Networks) will change the way people organize information.

Semantic Web—“a concept, long discussed in research circles, that can be described as a sort of smart network of information in which data is tagged, sorted, and searchable.”

Clay Shirky, professor in the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University says. “At its most basic, the Semantic Web is a campaign to tag information with extra metadata that makes it easier to search. At the upper limit, he says, it is about waiting for machines to become devastatingly intelligent.”

Twine—“Twine is a website where people can dump information that's important to them, from strings of e-mails to YouTube videos. Or, if a user prefers, Twine can automatically collect all the web pages she visited, e-mails she sent and received, and so on. Once Twine has some information, it starts to analyze it and automatically sort it into categories that include the people involved, concepts discussed, and places, organizations, and companies. This way, when a user is searching for something, she can have quick access to related information about it. Twine also uses elements of social networking so that a user has access to information collected by others in her network. All this creates a sort of ‘collective intelligence,’ says Nova Spivack, CEO and founder of Radar Networks.”

“Twine is also using extremely advanced machine learning and natural-language processing algorithms that give it capabilities beyond anything that relies on manual tagging. The tool uses a combination of natural-language algorithms to automatically extract key concepts from collections of text, essentially automatically tagging them.”

A recent article in the Economist described the Semantic Web as follows:

“The semantic web is so called because it aspires to make the web readable by machines as well as humans, by adding special tags, technically known as metadata, to its pages. Whereas the web today provides links between documents which humans read and extract meaning from, the semantic web aims to provide computers with the means to extract useful information from data accessible on the internet, be it on web pages, in calendars or inside spreadsheets.”

So whereas a tool like Google sifts through web pages based on search criteria and serves it up to humans to recognize what they are looking for, the Semantic Web actually connects related information and adds metadata that a computer can understand. It’s like relational databases on steroids! And, with the intelligence built in to make meaning from the related information.

Like a human brain, the Semantic Web connects people, places, and events seamlessly into a unified and actionable ganglion of intelligence.

For User-centric EA, the Semantic Web could be a critical evolution in how enterprise architects analyze architecture information and come up with findings and recommendations for senior management. Using the Semantic Web, business and technology information (such as performance results, business function and activities, information requirements, applications systems, technologies, security, and human capital) would all be related, made machine readable, and automatically provide intelligence to decision-makers in terms of gaps, redundancies, inefficiencies, and opportunities—pinpointed without human intervention. Now that’s business intelligence for the CIO and other leaders, when and where they need it.

Semantic Web and Enterprise Architecture

Six Sigma and Enterprise Architecture

Six Sigma is a set of practices originally developed by Motorola to systematically improve processes by eliminating defects. A defect is defined as nonconformity of a product or service to its specifications.

While the particulars of the methodology were originally formulated by Bill Smith at Motorola in 1986, Six Sigma was heavily inspired by six preceding decades of quality improvement methodologies such as quality control, TQM, and Zero Defects. Like its predecessors, Six Sigma asserts the following:

• Continuous efforts to reduce variation in process outputs is key to business success
• Manufacturing and business processes can be measured, analyzed, improved and controlled
• Succeeding at achieving sustained quality improvement requires commitment from the entire organization, particularly from top-level management

The term "Six Sigma" refers to the ability of highly capable processes to produce output within specification. In particular, processes that operate with six sigma quality produce at defect levels below 3.4 defects per (one) million opportunities (DPMO). Six Sigma's implicit goal is to improve all processes to that level of quality or better.

Six Sigma is a registered service mark and trademark of Motorola, Inc. Motorola has reported over US$17 billion in savings from Six Sigma as of 2006. (Wikipedia).

Is Enterprise Architecture another offshoot of Six Sigma, Total Quality Management, Kaizen, and so on or is it different?

First what are the similarities between EA and Six Sigma?

1. Business process improvement—both seek to improve business processes to enhance efficiency and effectiveness and improve enterprise “quality”.
2. Performance measurement— both believe in measuring and managing results of operations and in driving toward improved performance and mission execution.
3. Alignment to strategy—both seek to align outputs to strategic goals

What are the differences between EA and Six Sigma?

1. Technology versus design Focus—EA focuses on technology enhancing business performance; Six Sigma emphasizes design for defect-free performance (or zero defects).
2. Use of Information for improved decision-making versus process optimization—EA captures business and technical information to improve IT planning, governance, and decision-making (such as new IT investments); while Six Sigma captures and measures information on performance to optimize business processes.
3. Information- versus industrial-based economy—EA aligns technology solutions with the information requirements of the business and its foundation is in the information economy; while Six Sigma’s defect-free processes are based on an industrial, engineering, and product-based economy.
4. Information-centric versus process centric initiative—EA is an information-centric initiative that addresses information requirements, information technology solutions, information security, information access, information archival, information privacy, information sharing, and so on; Six Sigma is a process-centric initiative that addresses process inputs, outputs, controls, and mechanisms and works through process definition, measurement, analysis, improvement, and control (DMAIC).

So EA and Six Sigma share some important facets such as business process improvement, performance measurement, and alignment to strategy; however, EA is an information-centric initiative geared toward the information age, as such it takes Six Sigma into the 21^st century.

Six Sigma and Enterprise Architecture

Myers-Briggs and Enterprise Architecture

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality questionnaire designed to identify certain psychological differences according to the typological theories of Carl Gustav Jung as published in his 1921 book Psychological Types (English edition, 1923).The original developers of the indicator were Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers. (Wikipedia)

The MBTI indicates 16 personality types among people. MBTI helps explain why different types of people are interested in different things, are good at different things, excel in cetain types of jobs, and find it difficult to understand and get along with others.

In MBTI, there are 4 performances or pairs of opposing tendencies that people are ranked on:

1. Introversion or Extroversion—whether the person directs and receives energy from inside themselves or from the outside world.
2. Sensing or iNtuition—whether the person performs information gathering through their 5 senses or through their 6^th sense, intuition.
3. Thinking or Feeling—whether the person conducts decision-making through logical analysis or through a value-oriened, subjective basis.
4. Judging or Perceiving—whether the person lifestyle is driven to come to closure and act on decisions or remain open and adapt to new information.

In the book, The Character of Organizations by William Bridges, the author extends the use of MBTI from individuals to organizations.

“Everyone knows that organizations differ in their size, structure, and purpose, but they also differ in character…the personality of the individual organization.” Knowing an organization’s character “enables us to understand why organizations act as they do and why they are so very hard to change in any fundamental way.”

Applying the Myers-Briggs 4 pairs of preferences to organizations looks like this:

1. Introversion or Extroversion—“Is the organization primarily outwardly oriented toward markets, competition, and regulations or is it inwardly oriented toward its own technology, its leaders’ dreams, or its own culture.”
2. Sensing or iNtuition—“Is the organization primarily focused on the present, the details, and the actuality of situations or on the future, the big picture, and the possibilities inherent.”
3. Thinking or Feeling—“Decision making happens on the basis of principles like consistency, competence, and efficiency or through a personal process that depends on values like individuality, the common good, or creativity.”
4. Judging or Perceiving—“Prefer to reach firm decision, define things clearly, and get closure on issues or always seeking more input, preferring to leave things loose, or opting to keep their choices open.”

Where does an organization’s character come from?

1. Its founder
2. Influence of business (especially a particular industry)
3. Employee groups
4. Subsequent leaders (especially it’s current leader)
5. Its history and traditions

“An organization’s character is certainly going to change over the years. And with all the variables at work, you can see that the changes are going to be somewhat unpredictable…the important point is that at any given time, an organization will have a particular character, which will to a large extent shape its destiny.”

From a User-centric EA perspective, the character of the organization can have a citical impact on the work of its EA practioners. Here are some examples:

• The target architecture—the EA practioner needs to tailor the target architecture to the character of the organization. For example, an introverted organization may be more intent on developing proprietary technology solutions or customizing software to its own ends than an extroverted organization which may be more inclined to out of the box, commercial-off-the-shelf software solutions.
• IT governance—the EA practioner may need to handle IT governance differently if the organization is a judging or perceiving one. For example, if the organization is more judging, the IT Investment Review Board and EA Review Board may be able to come to decisions on new IT investments and their alignment with the organization's EA more quickly than a perceiving organization, which may be reluctant to make firm decisions on new IT investments or may require additional information and details or require exhaustive analysis of alternatives.
• Change management—the EA practioner may need to handle various levels of resistance to change and manage it accordingly based on whether an organization is more sensing or intuitive. For example, if the organization is more sensing, focused on the present and the details of it, then the enterprise may not be as receptive to change as an organization that is more perceiving, big picture, strategic, and future-oriented.

Just as an understanding of your own and others personality helps guide self-development, life decisions, and social interactions, so too knowing an organization’s character can provide the EA practioner critical information to help develop a realistic architecture for the enterprise, provide useful IT governance for investment management decisions, and influence interactions for effectively managing organizational change.

Myers-Briggs and Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise Architecture – Art or Science?

George Paras, Editor of Architecture and Governance Magazine states that EA is an art and a science, and I agree with him.

EA needs to improve in both areas, as follows:

• Science—EA needs to advance as a science, so like in the capability maturity model (CMMi), there is a defined, repeatable, and measurable process, in this case for developing and maintaining the architecture. To accomplish this, EA as a discipline would benefit from having a standardized framework, methodology, governance, tools, and processes, including an agreed upon EA lexicon, principles, major information products, configuration management standards, tools, performance measures, communication plans, visualization techniques, and so on.
• Art—From an art perspective, enterprise architects need to be bold, innovative, persuasive, rational, structured, determined, and articulate as organizational change agents. EA needs to be able to guide and influence decision-making in the organization, so that EA will not just be done for compliance-sake—with a legislative or policy mandates—but also be an actual driver for organization change, process improvement, and new and innovative technology solutions to meet the business needs and challenges of the future.

Even with EA maturing as an art and science, what’s missing to drive enterprise architecture home?

1. Commitment to use—“The missing element, though, is that even with the most consistent and repeatable EA creation and maintenance processes and the highest quality EA deliverables, there is never a guarantee that the enterprise will actually USE the deliverables to effect change.”
2. Unambiguous Management Support—“In fact, of the EA programs that struggle, the inability to express EA content is rarely the problem by itself. More often it is because nobody cares, leaders don’t unambiguously support EA, or the proposed change is perceived as too radical, too expensive, or just not necessary.”
3. Inadequacy of EA performance—“EA teams, in general, haven’t learned to lead through influence, build stakeholder support, innovate, assess organizational strengths/weaknesses, talk in business language, sell business value, and interpret political agendas…the “art-like” elements of EA are as much a part of what it means to be an enterprise architect as design skills and cannot be packaged into a predictable hard science-like methodology.”

(George Paras, Architecture & Governance Magazine, Vol. 3, Issue 3)

For EA to make a real difference in the organization, leaders have got to not only institute EA as a program, but also actually support the IT plans and governance all the way through to implementation.

Enterprise Architecture – Art or Science?

The Hawthorne Effect and Enterprise Architecture

“The Hawthorne effect—refers to a phenomenon which is thought to occur when people observed during a research study temporarily change their behavior or performance (this can also be referred to as demand characteristics). Others have broadened this definition to mean that people’s behavior and performance change following any new or increased attention. The term gets its name from a factory called the Hawthorne Works, where a series of experiments on factory workers were carried out between 1924 and 1932. There were many types of experiments conducted on the employees, but the purpose of the original ones was to study the effect of lighting on workers’ productivity. Researchers found that productivity almost always increased after a change in illumination, no matter what the level of illumination was. They experimented on other types of changes in the working environment…again, no matter the change in conditions, the women nearly always produced more.” (Adapted from Wikipedia)

If the Hawthorne effect is correct, then User-centric EA may be a performance enhancer for the users and employees, simply by EA making information in the organization transparent and focusing on the users and their requirements. So aside from EA benefiting the organization through better decision-making as a result of information transparency, and enhancing productivity through improved business processes and targeted technology solutions, the Hawthorne effect indicates possible improved organizational performance simply as a result of management paying attention to the users and their needs.

So, the theory is that by simply by shining a light in the dark recesses of the enterprise, users will recognize the additional attention and respond to it with enhanced performance. What a nice additional win for User-centric EA!

The Hawthorne Effect and Enterprise Architecture

Irrational Negotiators and Enterprise Architecture

In Working Knowledge for Business Leaders by Harvard Business School, in the article “Dealing with the ‘Irrational’ Negotiator” by Malhotra and Bazerman (3 October 2007), the authors identify three reasons why people may appear irrational in negotiations, but actually be quite rational.

1. Uninformed—“Often, when the other side appears irrational, they are in fact uninformed. If you can help educate or inform them—about their true interests, the consequences of their actions, the strength of your BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement), and so on—there is a strong likelihood they will make better decisions.”
2. Hidden Constraints—“In negotiation, a wide variety of possible constraints exist. The other side may be constrained by advice from her lawyers, by the fear of setting a dangerous precedent, by promises she has made to other parties, by time pressure, and so on.”
3. Hidden Interests—“More generally, people will sometimes reject your offer because they think it is unfair, because they don't like you, or for other reasons that have nothing to do with the obvious merits of your proposal. These people are not irrational; they are simply fulfilling needs and interests that you may not fully appreciate.”

Malhotra and Bazerman make the case that “your options greatly increase when you recognize that the other party is not irrational, but simply uninformed, constrained, or focused on interests that you did not anticipate. And as you know, the more options you have, the more effectively you will negotiate.”

In User-centric EA, architects have to cooperate, collaborate, and negotiate with leadership, subject matter experts, end-users, and stakeholders in building and maintaining a meaningful and viable architecture for the organization. By recognizing and understanding people’s point of views (i.e. “where they are coming from”), including their level of understanding (or lack), their constraints (for example, resources, time, or even interest), and their personal interests (or “hidden agendas”), we can work better with others to advance the enterprise architecture for the benefit of the organization.

Irrational Negotiators and Enterprise Architecture

Contingency Theory and Enterprise Architecture

User-centric EA seeks to develop an organization both through integration and differentiation.

In Lawrence and Lorsch's groundbreaking work "Organization and Environment," the authors explore the implications of integration and differentiation in the enterprise.

• Integration is the "state of collaboration that exists among departments that are required to achieve unity of effort."
• Differentiation is when different departments have different structures and orientations (such as short-term versus long-term outlooks or relationship versus task foci).

Both integration and differentiation can be useful in different environments. For example, in stable environments an integrated organization tends to function best, while in an uncertain or turbulent environment, an organization that is differentiated internally has greater prospects for success. A key finding of Lawrence and Lorsch’s research was that the most successful organizations simultaneously achieved high levels of both.

Contingency theory states that there is not one best way for an organization in terms of structure or leadership style. Rather, according to contingency theory, it is best to vary the organizational structure and management style depending on the environment in which the enterprise operates.

EA should plan for organizations in various environments. No one plan can be successful in every type of environment. Therefore, EA should use contingency theory to develop options or alternate paths for an organization to take depending on the landscape it finds itself in. Refining the degree of differentiation and integration of departments in the enterprise is one way to navigate in different operational environments. Centralizing or decentralizing decision making, situational leadership, and altering task versus people orientation are just some of the other factors that can be varied to adjust to changing environments. The key is to keep the options open, to be nimble and agile with planning, so that the enterprise is not hamstrung by ill-conceived plans that were developed for a future state that may not exist.

Contingency Theory and Enterprise Architecture

Apple’s OS Leopard and Enterprise Architecture

The Wall Street Journal, 25 October 207 reports that Apple’s new operating system (OS), Leopard, is “faster, easier than [Microsoft’s] Vista.”

Overall “the Mac is on a roll…Macintosh computers has surged in popularity in the past few years, with sales growing much faster than the overall PC market, especially in the U.S. By some measures, Mac laptops are now approaching a 20% share of U.S. non-corporate sales.”

Reasons for Mac’s recent success:

1. Security problems inherent in Windows platform
2. Spillover from success of Apples iPod music players
3. Macs can now run Windows (with third party software Fusion, can run OS X and Windows simultaneously)
4. Apple’s hot retail stores
5. Mac versatile, easy to use OS X (now called Leopard, previous version called Tiger)

Advantages of OS X versus Microsoft Vista

1. Apple has upgraded far more rapidly (~ every 18 months) versus Microsoft (5+ years)
2. Faster than Vista
3. Easier to use than Vista
4. Preinstalled on all new Macs
5. Sold in 1 full featured upgrade version for $129 versus Microsoft 4 upgrade versions for between $100-$249 (from basic to ultimate)
6. Automatic backup of entire computer (called Time Machine)
7. Free software to run Windows on a Mac (called Boot Camp)
8. Few to none of the compatibility problems with printers that Vista has

Apple continues to be the technological leader, ahead of Microsoft, in terms of functionality, user-friendliness, speed, and the cool factor. From a User-centric EA perspective, Apple is the game to beat, even though Microsoft remains the 800 pound gorilla. As an EA practitioner, I am trained to look 3-5 years ahead and it is hard to not see Apple continuing to make major inroads against Microsoft.

Apple’s OS Leopard and Enterprise Architecture

The Architect of Destruction: Adolf Hitler

While I know that Hitler was a despicable human being (if he even was a human being) and that I’m pushing the limits on the discussion on enterprise architecture by looking back in history at the vile acts that were perpetrated through the lens of enterprise architecture—nevertheless I find it compelling to look at what happened through this lens. I also know that this is a very cursory exploration of this topic, but nevertheless I want to at least introduce it. Hitler used the finest German engineering and business process acumen, coupled with the latest technological advances of his time, to drive his malevolent ends.

Thus Hitler (“may his name and memory be erased”) was an enterprise architect, although maybe not in the modern sense of the way we think of one working for a Fortune 500 company or in the U.S. federal government (fulfilling the mandates of the Clinger-Cohen Act).

Hitler presided over Germany (1933-1945) and architected the German war machine and the obliteration of 1/3 of the world’s Jews (over 6 million men, women, and children!) and well as millions of other innocent victims whom he considered sub-human or just in the way of his plan for world domination.

In his book Mein Kampf, Hitler writes:

• “In a few days I myself knew that I should some day become an architect. To be sure, it was an incredibly hard road; for the studies I had neglected….the fulfillment of my artistic dream seemed physically impossible.”

While Hitler did not end up becoming an architect-architect, he did become a type of enterprise architect, in the sense that he developed a baseline for Germany (what they were, defeated and shamed after WWI), developed a target for Nazi totalitarianism, world domination, and the obliteration of the Jewish people, and he set out on a transition plan for achieving his objectives. Not only this, but he and his henchmen were masters of business process engineering, using the latest technologies of the time to kill and conquer.

• BASELINE: Germany was defeated and degraded after WWI. “The Treaty of Versailles deprived Germany of various territories, demilitarized the Rhineland and imposed other economically damaging sanctions. The culpability of Germany was used as a basis to impose reparations on Germany. Germany in turn perceived the treaty and especially the paragraph on the German guilt as a humiliation.”
• TARGET: Hitler documented his detailed plans for Germany’s conquest of the world and the extermination of the Jews in Mein Kampf. “The book was an autobiography and an exposition of his ideology. It was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926…in Mein Kampf, Hitler announces his hatred toward what he believed to be the twin evils of the world: Communism and Judaism. The new territory that Germany needed to obtain would properly nurture the ‘historic destiny’ of the German people.”
• TRANSITION PLAN:

1. Hitler architected the rise of Germany. “Hitler oversaw one of the greatest expansions of industrial production and civil improvement Germany had ever seen. The unemployment rate was cut substantially, mostly through arms production. Hitler also oversaw one of the largest infrastructure-improvement campaigns in German history, with the construction of dozens of dams, autobahns (highways), railroads, and other civil works. Hitler's government sponsored architecture on an immense scale.”
2. The extermination of Jews was a planned and systematic process. “The massacres that led to the coining of the word "genocide" (or "Final Solution of the Jewish Question") were planned and ordered. Moreover, Hitler had pored over the first blueprints of gas chambers. Hitler was recorded saying to his associates, ‘we shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews.’ Extermination camps were the apex of Nazi engineering. Extermination camps were one type of facility that Nazi Germany built during World War II for the systematic killing of millions of people. The majority of prisoners brought to extermination camps were not expected to survive more than 24 hours beyond arrival.”

(Adapted from Wikipedia)

So we see that while enterprise architecture can be a tool for good (like improving organizational performance and mission execution), it can also be used for evil in the hands of a malevolent psychopath like Adolf Hitler.

The Architect of Destruction: Adolf Hitler

Cloud Computing and Enterprise Architecture

The Wall Street Journal, 8 October 2007 reported that IBM and Google “are starting a program on college campuses to promote computer programming techniques for clusters of processors knows as ‘clouds.’’

In this case, the cloud computers will be accessible from the following universities: University of Washington (in Seattle), Carnegie Mellon, MIT, University of California (at Berkeley), and University of Maryland.

Cloud computing “allows computers in remote data centers to run parallel, increasing their processing power…it allows companies and universities to share resources and not have to expand their own costly data centers.”

Some of the potential issues with cloud computing include:

• Security
• Reliability
• Ease of use

Google and IBM are perfect partners for this venture, because Google is already as master at cloud computing as the basis for its search technology, and IBM is a master at running data centers.

Other technology giants such such as Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, and Hewlett-Packard are also developing approaches to cloud computing.

Forrester research says “this is the next generation of computer architecture.”

Cloud Computing and Enterprise Architecture

Feng Shui and Enterprise Architecture

Feng Shui, which literally means earth and water, is typically a way of “arranging living quarters with optimal comfort for mind and body.” It is the adaptation of “homes to harmonize with the currents of ch’i” (life force or energy).

However, feng shui does not only apply to home arrangement. More broadly, “the aim of feng shui is to change and harmonize the environment—cosmic, currents known as ch’i—to improve fortunes.” “The Chinese saw a magical link between man and the landscape: Nature reacts to any change and that reaction rebounds in man. They saw the world and themselves as part of a sacred metabolic system.”

Feng shui has a basis in Taoism. “The Taoists glorified nature. Love of nature permeated their view of life. Things would not be correct until man could mirror within, the harmony of nature without.” “Tao united everything, exemplifying the need of nature and man to bring all opposing forces [yin and yang] into a fluctuating harmony.”

“Ch’i is the most important component of feng shui.” “Ch’i must flow smoothly and near a person to improve his ch’i. It must be balanced. If the current is too strong or too weak, it can have negative effects.” “Feng shui practitioners try to direct a smooth, good current of ch’i to a person and divert of convert harmful ch’i.” (Adapted from Feng Shui by Sarah Rossbach)

In User-centric EA, we seek to create information products that are useful (relevant—current, accurate, and complete) and useable (easy to understand and readily accessible) to the end users to enhance decision-making. One way to make EA products more usable is by applying the teachings of feng shui in terms of harmony, flow, and balance.

User-centric EA seeks to harmonize information products to make them balanced, flowing, and positive or harmonious to a person’s ch’i. In other words, if EA information products focus not only on content, but also on the format, then the information products can be easier to understand, more potent in reaching end users, and more influential to decision-making.

“Feng shui brings good fortune to the home.” I believe it can also bring good fortune to the enterprise that effectively uses it to communicate vital information to end users for business and technology decision-making.

Feng Shui and Enterprise Architecture

Lecture by John Zachman on Enterprise Architecture

John Zachman Lectures on Enterprise Architecture:

Lecture by John Zachman on Enterprise Architecture

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) - Defined

What is Service Oriented Architecture?

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) - Defined

With Age Comes Wisdom and Enterprise Architecture

The Wall Street Journal, 11 October 2007 reports that “in boardrooms these days, it is rare—perhaps too rare—for old-timers voices to be heard.” A main reason for this is that board members are frequently required to retire at age 70 or 72.

Are we to value or decry our seniors?

• Experience—some people are starting to questions forced retirement, since it is the older people that have more experience and expertise.Perhaps, we are wasting a most valuable resource by not tapping these older directors for longer.The same could be said for leaders, in general.Why put good leaders out to pasture, simply because of age?If leaders are healthy, have all their faculties and want to continue working, why not let their “wisdom, common sense, and institutional memory” continue to lead the way?
• Drawbacks—of course, we don’t want the elderly napping in the boardroom. Nor do we want “founder and their heirs” to main absolute control over companies and stifle healthy change and innovation.
• A balanced approach—probably, the best approach is to judge each individual case on its own merits, so that healthy, competent seniors can continue to be a source of wisdom to their organizations.

From a User-centric EA approach, it is important to recognize the valuable contribution that senior people in the organization can bring to the strategic issues that we face daily.

• Preventing mistakes—those who have served for 20, 30 or more years have a wealth of experience and institutional knowledge to keep the organization from making unnecessary mistakes.
• Sustaining creativity—seniority should not stifle healthy change, creativity, and innovation; also, just because something failed in the past, doesn’t mean it is a doomed approach forever.

With age comes wisdom, no question. But the organization needs to balance the valuable contribution of its seniors with the creativity, enthusiasm, and new ideas of new generations.

With Age Comes Wisdom and Enterprise Architecture

CIO and Enterprise Architecture

The Chief Information Officer (CIO) is the executive in charge of information technology in an organization. All information systems design, development, operations & maintenance, datacenter and support operations fall under CIO jurisdiction. Increasingly, CIOs are involved in creating business and e-business opportunities through information technology. Collaborating with other executives, CIOs are often working at the core of business development within the organization. (adapted from PCMAG.COM)

From this definition, we see two important roles for the CIO.

1. Operations—the CIO is responsible for the IT operations of the organization (systems, datacenter, and so on).
2. Strategy—the CIO plays a critical role in strategy and architecture (business and e-business opportunities).

In short, we can summarize the role of the CIO as follows:

CIO = Strategy + Operations

While the CIO has traditionally managed IT operations, we can see the CIO’s role and responsibility expanding more and more into strategy and architecture. Here are some other examples of this:

• “Typically, a CIO is involved with analyzing and reworking existing business processes, with identifying and developing the capability to use new tools, with reshaping the enterprise's physical infrastructure and network access, and with identifying and exploiting the enterprise's knowledge resources. Many CIOs head the enterprise's efforts to integrate the Internet and the World Wide Web into both its long-term strategy and its immediate business plans.” (TechTarget.Com)

• “The Chief Information Officer of an executive agency shall be responsible for…developing, maintaining, and facilitating the implementation of a sound and integrated information technology architecture for the executive agency”. (Clinger-Cohen Act).

More and more, we see the CIO focusing on architecture and the overall policy and planning of IT, while the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) handles day-to-day IT operations.

CIO and Enterprise Architecture

User Concerns (Finally) Answered and Enterprise Architecture

There are a number of prominent issues or concerns that many users seem to voice or have about EA (and I have seen these as common across most organizations).

Here are the concerns:

1. What’s in it for me (WIIFM)—everyone wants to know the answers to these questions: What do I get out of this? Why collaborate? Why cooperate? Why share information (“information is power” and information is currency”)? Why is EA on my turf?
2. Perceived obstacle—EA provides for IT governance, but why do we need that? Doesn’t it stifle innovation? Isn’t it better to be ‘free’ to implement what you like, when you like? Why all this bureaucracy?
3. The knowledge gambit—EA is not technical, what do you know about IT? EA is not operations, what does EA know about the business of the organization?
4. Unhealthy competition—why is EA competing for management attention, influence, resources, and so on?

It is the job of the chief enterprise architect to address these concerns.

1. EA is about trust and collaboration; we’re not working for ourselves and against each other, we’re working for the good of the organization. By sharing information, you will also get information from others that will enhance your understanding of the enterprise and enable you to do your job better. If everyone shares, then everyone (and the enterprise, as a whole) benefits!
2. Governance, when designed right, is a help for users—and not a hindrance or obstacle to progress or innovation. The governance process is owned by the executive decision makers in the organization, usually the Investment Review Board, made up of senior decision-makers from across the organization (both business and IT). The IRB authorizes, prioritizes, and funds new IT investments. EA facilitates the investment review process by providing valuable input to the decision makers in terms of technical review and architecture assessments of new IT projects, products, and standards. EA helps make projects a success by providing business and technical input, and best practice guidance. By bringing subject matter experts together to review and vet ideas before they actually get implemented, we get a better end-product. Innovation is valued and encouraged by EA and moreover, information sharing through EA helps drive innovation and collaboration in the organization.
3. EA synthesizes business and technology and therefore, is a bridge between the business and technical experts in the organization. While EA is not the ‘subject matter expert’ in either area, EA is an honest broker and functions as a competent facilitator translating business and information requirements to IT and conferring on technology solutions, plans and governance with the business.
4. There is no competition between EA strategy and operations. The organization needs operations and strategy to not only coexist, but also to complement each other. Strategy and operations are co-dependent. One without the other would not only be suboptimal, but would actually not make sense. You need a strategy and you need to execute—period.

User Concerns (Finally) Answered and Enterprise Architecture

Terascale Computing and Enterprise Architecture

In MIT Technology Review, 26 September 2007, in an article entitled “The Future of Computing, According to Intel” by Kate Green, the author describes terascale computing— computational power beyond a teraflop (a trillion calculations per second).

“One very important benefit is to create the computing ability that's going to power unbelievable applications, both in terms of visual representations, such as this idea of traditional virtual reality, and also in terms of inference. The ability for devices to understand the world around them and what their human owners care about.”

How do computer learn inference?

“In order to figure out what you're doing, the computing system needs to be reading data from sensor feeds, doing analysis, and computing all the time. This takes multiple processors running complex algorithms simultaneously. The machine-learning algorithms being used for inference are based on rich statistical analysis of how different sensor readings are correlated.”

What’s an example of how inference can be used in today’s consumer technologies?

For example, sensors in your phone could determine whether you should be interrupted for a phone call. “The intelligent system could be using sensors, analyzing speech, finding your mood, and determining your physical environment. Then it could decide [whether you need to take a call].”

What is machine learning?

As a broad subfield of artificial intelligence, machine learning is concerned with the design and development of algorithms and techniques that allow computers to "learn." At a general level, there are two types of learning: inductive and deductive. Inductive machine learning methods extract rules and patterns out of massive data sets. The major focus of machine learning research is to extract information from data automatically, by computational and statistical methods. (Wikipedia)

Where’s all this computational power taking us?

Seems like we’re moving ever closer to the reality of what was portrayed as HAL 9000, the supercomputer from 2001: A Space Odyssey—HAL was“the pinnacle in artificial machine intelligence, with a remarkable, error-free performance record…designed to communicate and interact like a human, and even mimic (or reproduce) human emotions.” (Wikipedia) An amazing vision for a 1968 science fiction film, no?

From a User-centric EA perspective, terascale computing, machine learning, and computer inference represent tremendous new technical capabilities for our organizations. They are a leap in computing power and end-user application that have the capability to significantly alter our organizations business activities and processes and enable better, faster, and cheaper mission execution.

Terascale Computing and Enterprise Architecture

Linux and Enterprise Architecture

The Wall Street Journal, 17 October 2007 reports that Linux is “barely scrapping a single percentage point of the market share” for desktop users.

What is Linux? “Linux is the free operating system whole development is overseen by Mr. [Linus] Torvalds.” Linux is open source and is used at Google other major companies.

However, adoption by users to replace Windows at the desktop has been slow and neglible. Even Mr. Torvalds’ father and sister resist using his Linux creation!

People are continuing to pay hundreds of dollars for Microsoft Windows, instead of the free alternative, for a few reasons:

1. Bundled with the PC—“For most consumers, Windows is ‘free,’ coming as it does [bundled] with their new PCs.”
2. Philosophical heartburn, not!—“Typical consumer user has none of the philosophical objections to Windows of some members of the open-source community.”
3. Net utility—“Windows works well enough that the difficulty involved in switching operating systems outweighs any sling and arrows of using it.”

Linux now comes bundled with other software like web browsers, word processors, and so on in a product called Ubuntu, into an “easy-to-install package.” However, one Ubunto’s main backers implies that it’s really not all that easy to install, as the backer states, “anyone can use it as a primary operating system, as long as they have a technically savvy friend to help with rough patches.”

Mr. Tovalds states “I’m a technical guy, so I tend to believe in the ‘if you build it, they will come’ motto.” However, from a User-centric EA perspective, we believe that business drives technology, and not technology for technology sake. So while Linux is a great option, it’s got to be a product that is truly business-driven. And to be a business-driven product, Linux must become a real alternative to the consumer so that is easy to install, user-friendly, secure, full featured, and responsive to future marketplace changes. Linux should not be selected for end-users or the enterprise based on philosophical discourses or subjective biases, but rather based on net utility.

Linux and Enterprise Architecture

The Atomic Bomb and Enterprise Architecture

J. Robert Oppenheimer (April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist, best known for his role as the director of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort to develop the first nuclear weapons, at the secret Los Alamo laboratory in New Mexico. Known as "the father of the atomic bomb," Oppenheimer was shocked by the weapon's killing power after it was used to destroy the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki…After the war, Oppenheimer was a chief advisor to the newly created United States Atomic Energy Commission and used that position to lobby for international control of atomic energy and to avert the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union.” (Wikipedia)

Oppenheimer believed that technology and science had their own imperatives, and that whatever could be discovered or done would be discovered and done. "It is a profound and necessary truth," he told a Canadian audience in 1962, "that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them." Because he believed that some country would build a nuclear bomb, he preferred that it be the United States, whose politics were imperfect but preferable to those of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union…Oppenheimer was a fatalist about the evolution of technology and science…He looked to humanity's most progressive institutions to restrain the malignant use of technology. Oppenheimer was asked to build a nuclear bomb, and he hoped reason would dictate that it be used twice, in a just war, and then never again. (MIT Technology Review, “Oppenheimer's Ghost”, November/December 2007)

From a humanistic perspective—I am intrigued by the polarity of Oppenheimer’s acknowledgement that in building the atomic bomb and supporting its use against Japan in WWII that he had blood on his hands, but at the same time believing that its use in WWII was justified to prevent further loss of life as well as it existence being a deterrent for future conflicts.

From a User-centric EA perspective—I am interested in Oppenheimer’s fatalistic belief in the evolution of technology. Are technology advances predetermined and inevitable as Oppenheimer believed or is there an element of human control?

Of course, organizations determine through their IT governance (i.e. investment review boards and enterprise architecture strategy), what IT projects to invest in. However, looking beyond distinct individuals or organizations, it seems that nothing will truly impede global technological progress, if there is any gain to be had economically, politically, socially, or otherwise. Net utility (cost-benefit analysis) determines whether innovation is funded and pursued.

EA and IT governance can broker IT investments, but just like the building of the atomic bomb, if it can be done and it benefits someone, it will be done by someone, somewhere!

The Atomic Bomb and Enterprise Architecture

Circumventing the CIO—What’s the Harm?

One of the most difficult challenges we face as enterprise architects is when end-users don’t ask permission, but instead ask forgiveness.

The typical scenario is that a division or unit or group of end-users decides to go out and purchase some new IT widget, gadget, or system without going through the CIO shop. (I know this shouldn’t happen if the CIO controls the IT funding, but even then someone always finds some money squirreled away and decides to use it for something they weren’t supposed to or in some cases even bypasses the money channels altogether, getting a freebie from a eager vendor looking to build or test some new capabilities to sell later to other customers).

Well, where’s the harm?

Oh my G-d, where should I start…

Innovation from the field and operators is great, but bypassing the CIO shop circumvents the structured processes and good governance that is in place to ensure projects succeed. Without these mechanisms, IT project can be at tremendous risk:

1. Business Case—Without a business case, the justification for the IT project was never made, return on investment not calculated, alternatives not considered, and the best course ahead not properly laid.
2. Investment Review Board—Without IRB vetting, the senior-level sponsorship has not been solidified, the project has not been authorized, and its priority has not been set with respect to other, maybe more critical, projects that the enterprise needs; further, the project may not have adequate life cycle funding; additionally, the project is likely not being ongoingly monitored and managed by leadership and enterprise subject matter experts for cost, schedule, and performance.
3. Enterprise Architecture Review—Without an EA technical review, the IT project may align with the target architecture and transition plan, may not be interoperable with other systems, may not meet enterprise technical standards, may overload or be incompatible with existing infrastructure, may be duplicative of other investments, may not be the best or most cost-effective technical solution, may not meet various legal, regulatory, and other compliance requirements.
4. System Development Life Cycle—Without following a defined, repeatable, and measureable SDLC process, the project risks failure by not having adequate and documented planning and requirements, design, development, testing, implementation, training, operation and maintenance, and disposition.
5. Project Management Plan—Without a project management plan, projects are at risks for being mismanaged, having cost-overruns, schedule delays, and quality problems.
6. IT Security Plan—Without an IT security plan, the project is at risk in terms of the confidentiality, integrity, availability, and privacy of the information.

No question, from an end-users perspective, there are quite a few hurdles to go through in implementing a new IT project. An if we’re honest with ourselves, the process can be onerous. Therefore, the CIO and his staff needs to work to streamline the processes, integrate them, provide the users with job aids and excellent customer support. Additionally, there should be a quick pass process for getting those “emergency” (must have now) projects through quickly (although not any less comprehensively).

The key is to balance the needs of the enterprise (ensuring mission execution and sound stewardship of enterprise resources), end-users (supporting innovation and operators ability to do their jobs successfully and safely), and customers or citizens (bringing new products or services to market quickly, reliably, and at high quality levels). To do this we have to balance the necessary processes and governance to ensure IT projects’ success with the imperative to foster innovation and deliver quality and speedily to market.

So as an enterprise architect, what do you do when a end-user asks forgiveness, instead of permission?

Circumventing the CIO—What’s the Harm?

Leadership Development and Enterprise Architecture

Fortune Magazine, 1 October 2007, reports on the world’s best companies are finding out that “no matter what business they’re in, their real business is building leaders.”

“’People are our greatest asset’, CEOs always say that. They almost never mean it. Most companies maintain their office copiers better than they build the capabilities of their people.” But now companies are finding in this high liquidity market, that they are less dependent on financial capital, and more on human capital, and so they are getting serious about leadership development!

Fortune provides a number of good ideas for organizations to help develop their future leaders:

1. Invest in leadership—“you don’t build leaders on the cheap.” You’ve got to invest not only money, but also the time of the organization’s executives to help develop leaders.
2. Identify leaders early—“begin to evaluate leadership capability on day one of employment.” Moreover, begin their leadership development early.
3. Assign leadership positions strategically—assign promising leaders to work on things they need work on, rather than those things they are already good at: challenge them!
4. Give lots of honest feedback—Provide feedback on a continuing basis and make it candid!
5. Inspire leaders to perform—motivate performance through sense of mission; passion for one’s job in an organization is contagious.

In a world economy built on human capital, organizations must develop their leaders and mean it!

While many incorrectly think of enterprise architecture as simply a technology-based endeavor, EA is really a broad-based blueprint for the organization.

In User-centric EA, we look to build the capabilities of the organization to meet mission requirements: this includes everything from technology solutions, to more efficient business processes, to information sharing, to human capital development.

Previously, I have called for a human capital reference model (and persepctive) to be added to the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA):

• Peter Principle and Enterprise Architecture
• Human Capital is Missing Perspective
  

The pressing need for more and better leadership (and management) development is yet another reason to finally get this done by really focusing attention on the organization’s human capital needs through its inclusion in the FEA.

Leadership Development and Enterprise Architecture

IT Strategic Plan and Enterprise Architecture

User-centric Enterprise Architecture supports the development of a meaningful IT strategic plan for the organization. Based on my experience in strategic planning, there are a number of core goals that should be represented in the IT Strategic Plan. These are as follows:

1. Information —delivering the right information to the right people at the right time; providing for information management, including information sharing, information assurance, privacy, accessibility, and records management.
2. Technology — developing and maintaining a sound, secure, reliable, cost-effective IT infrastructure that enables mission execution.
3. Process — supplying world-class service to customers, by providing defined, repeatable, and measurable processes for systems development life cycle, configuration management, change control, and problem resolution; also, facilitating business process improvement and reengineering.
4. People — ensuring the education, training, certification, and personal and professional development of IT staff.
5. Governance — managing IT though structured governance processes including capital planning and investment control, enterprise architecture, IT planning, and portfolio management.
6. Stewardship — administering resources including IT assets, finance, and human capital for the design, development, maintenance, and operation of IT solutions.

Together, these six goals provide the foundation for a sound IT strategic plan.

As a visual representation, I see these goals in the following way: First there is a Venn diagram in the center composed of People, Process, and Technology. This diagram is surrounded by a circle made up of sound Governance. Emerging from this circle and Venn diagram is Information (and IT capability) provided to the organization to optimize business processes and enable mission execution. And underlying all this is a foundation of responsible Stewardship of IT resources.

IT Strategic Plan and Enterprise Architecture

IT Projects - Get It Right or Fix It Later?

The Wall Street Journal 25 September 2007 reports on a new model being called the “wave of the future”, where IT projects are rolled out “on schedule…even if all the kinks haven’t been worked out” and then fix it later, as problems arise.

The idea of this model is that by rolling out and fixing problems on the fly, you avoid extensive schedule delays and cost-overruns common with IT projects.

Arizona University followed this model in rolling out their enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and it was hailed as “highly successful” by a VP at Oracle, even though “there were payroll mistakes that left some [3000!] workers unpaid, underpaid, or overpaid.”

“Oracle hailed it as a model for both universities and corporations to follow.” The strategy is to “implement, adapt, grow.”

This model of fix it later is being used by “Internet companies like Google Inc. These companies label the software they release ‘beta,’ meaning that it is good enough to use, but it isn’t finished. Sometimes they keep it that way for years, using feedback from users to create ever more-refined versions.”

In the fix it later model, you “admit from the start that there will be mistakes; then work through the glitches [after rollout] with users’ help. This is the opposite of the traditional model that says companies “take their time and don’t start using a new computer system until they are convinced almost everything works right.”

Which approach is better?

From a User-centric Enterprise Architecture point of view, we have to balance two competing drivers.

• One is the importance of meeting user needs and mission requirements, and this means that we don’t delay important IT rollouts unnecessarily, incurring schedule delays, cost overruns, and unmet requirements—This sides with the Fix It Later model.
• On the other hand, we don’t compromise the mission by taking unnecessary risks and rolling out IT systems that are not tested ready and reliable—This sides with the Get It Right model.

Perhaps, the best IT model is a hybrid that I would call—“Get It Right, On Schedule and Within Budget!”

IT Projects - Get It Right or Fix It Later?

The Art of War and Enterprise Architecture

Sun Tsu (544 BC – 496 BC) is the author of The Art of War (an immensely influential ancient Chinese book on military strategy).

The following are three lessons from The Art of War for Enterprise Architecture:

1) Strategy is Critical

“Tzu-lu [a disciple of Confucius] said, supposing you had command of the Three Hosts, whom would you take to help you? The master [Sun Tsu] said, the man who was ready to beard a tiger or rush a river without caring whether he lived or died—that sort of man, I should not take. I should certainly take someone who approached difficulties with due caution and who preferred to succeed by strategy.” (The Art of War)

Sun Tsu recognizes the importance of strategy and the danger of rash actions. Similarly, User-centric EA identifies the needs of the organization and its users and develops an appropriate plan for the enterprise to execute. The well thought out EA plan guides the organization in lieu of rash and flailing actions of individuals.

2) Agility is Tactic #1

“Just a water adapts itself to the conformation of the ground, so in war one must be flexible…this is not in any sense a passive concept, for if the enemy is given enough rope he will frequently hang himself. Under certain conditions, one yields a city, sacrifices a portion of his force, or give up ground in order to gain a more valuable objective.”

User-centric EA must always be flexible and adapt to the needs of its users and the enterprise. It’s easy to get caught up in ivory-tower architecture efforts, rigid EA plans, and governance structures that hinder rather than help progress. But if we remember that the “more valuable objective” is the mission execution of the organization, then we put these needs first and foremost and adjust the architecture to it.

For example, in Hurricane Katrina, when action on the ground was needed to be taken immediately to save lives, governance was loosened to allow the enterprise to adapt quickly.

3) Unification is strength

“He whose ranks are united in purpose will be victorious…the appropriate season is not as important as the advantages of the ground; these are not as important as harmonious human relations.”

In User-centric EA, the enterprise is unified (and focused) in meeting user requirements, executing on mission, and moving the organization forward in a structured, orderly way. By everyone following the same script (the target and transition plan), organizational progress is faster, deeper (the change is up and down the organizational ranks), and more meaningful (since everyone is on board).

The Art of War and Enterprise Architecture