November 19, 2007

Internet Advertising and Enterprise Architecture

Does anyone really pay attention to pop-up or banner ads on the internet?

Fortune Magazine, 26 November 2007 reports that “blinking banners across the top of the screen and the like—are irritants most users train themselves to ignore.”

Yet, money has been mass-exiting print and TV advertising and pouring into online advertising, which is now a $21.4 billion business and is expected to double within the next 4 years!

Search ads like those that appear on Google are some of the most effective (click through rates are over 5%) and account for 40% of online advertising. However, the other 60% of online ads have only 0.2% click through rates; that’s 1 out of every 5000, which is not very effective for sure.

Now Facebook, the social networking site, is trying something new. With your permission, every time you purchase something, this “news” is shared with all your friends (for example, with a feed from the sponsor). This leverages the long held belief that word of mouth advertising is the best endorsement for a vendor’s products or services——and “nothing influences a person more than a recommendation from a trusted friend.”

However, aggressive ads on social networking sites could backfire and be perceived as “spamming your friends” or privacy could become a concern (especially, as the article states, purchasers hastily click though the checkout process and accidentally share private purchases with their world of online connections).

I don’t know about you, but I just about completely tune out online ads. Nor would I want to share my personal purchases with my online social network — way too materialistic and air-headed. In the Valley, I believe they say, “like, who cares.”

From a User-centric EA perspective, I find it difficult to understand the wasteful spending of advertising dollars, in its current form, to the 60% that involve pop-ups and banners online that are nothing but a nuisance to the very people that vendors are trying to reach and influence. This is use of technology that is not aligned to performance results and not effective to driving mission execution. This is technology for technology sake. Another technology bubble of sorts.


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iPod Versus Zune and Enterprise Architecture

Zune has been playing catch up with iPod in the music player business, but from an User-centric enterprise architecture standpoint, they’ve got it all wrong!

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), 14 November 2007 reports that Microsoft has retooled the Zune so that it “marks a vast improvement; however, it’s still no iPod.”

Where is Microsoft going wrong?
  1. An inferior product—“last year when Microsoft Corp. introduced its Zune music player to take on Apple’s iPod juggernaut, the software giant struck out. While the Zune had a good user interface, it was bigger and boxier, with clumsier controls, weaker battery life, and more complex software. Its companion online music store has a much smaller catalogue, a more complicated purchase process, and no videos for sale. And the Zune’s most innovative feature, built-in Wi-Fi networking, was nearly useless.” So much for competing on product quality!
  2. Underestimating the competition—Microsoft is “back with a second improved round of Zune’s…Apple hasn’t been standing still…the 80-gigabyte Classic, which costs the same as 80-gigabyte Zune, is slimmer than the Zune and has a flashy new interface, if a smaller screen. And the eight-gigabyte nano, which costs the same as the eight-gigabyte Zunem now plays videos and is much smaller—yet it has a larger screen. In addition, Apple has spiffed up its iTunes software…and Apple still trounces Microsoft in the selection of media it sells…more than six million songs, about double what the Zune marketplace offers, and dwarfs Microsoft’s selection of Podcasts and music videos as well.”

The WSJ concludes, “Microsoft has greatly improved the Zune hardware and software this time. But it seems to be competing with Apple’s last efforts, not its newest ones.”

In spite of these explanations, I think we’re missing something else here. If you compare the Microsoft desktop software to Apple’s, Microsoft also has a worse product, yet is the hands-down market leader. So why is Microsoft struggling with Zune?

Maybe functionality is part of the equation, but not the whole thing. It’s interesting to me that neither the article nor advertisements I see for Zune address anything about the interoperability of the product with Apple’s iTunes. Interoperability is not only a major enterprise architecture issue, but from a consumer standpoint, do you really expect people to dump their investment in their iTunes music library when they buy a Zune?

Looking at Yahoo Answers online, I see consumers share this concern:

“Can you use the iTunes’ software with the Microsoft Zune? I am torn between which to buy, if you can use itunes with the Zune then that’s the one I’ll get, but if you can’t then I’m getting an iPod, help me decide please.”

“Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

No you cannot. iTunes only works with the iPod, Zune is a completly different player made by Microsoft, it has its own music program and marketplace called the Zune Marketplace. The Zune Software can automatically copy songs that have not been purchased from iTunes (because ones that are have copy protection on them) and put them in the Zune Program.”

Until Microsoft acts as the architects par excellence that they are, and work out the all-important EA interoperability issues of its product, and communicates this with its customers, the Zune will continue to be second-rate, functionality notwithstanding.
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November 18, 2007

Business Intelligence from Enterprise Architecture

There is an interesting article by Bill Cason in Architecture and Governance Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 1 that emphasizes the importance of business intelligence to not only “the business,” but also to the IT of the organization.

What is business intelligence?

“Business intelligence (BI) is a business management term that dates to 1958. It refers to applications and technologies that are used to gather, provide access to, and analyze data and information about company operations. Business intelligence systems can help companies have a more comprehensive knowledge of the factors affecting their business, such as metrics on sales, production, and internal operations, and they can help companies to make better business decisions.” (Wikipedia)

“The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.” (Arie de Geus)

“The renowned Dutch business strategist got it right…repeatable success depends largely on the ability to adjust course quicker than your competition can adjust theirs. A prerequisite to that course correction is, of course, an understanding of exactly which adjustments need to be made. In the business world, the means to that end is ‘business intelligence’ or ‘BI’ for short.” (Architecture and Governance Magazine)

BI provides an organization not only access to pertinent data, but also analytics that transforms the data into actionable information.

User-centric EA is the foundation for capturing data for developing business intelligence for IT. EA captures massive amounts of data scattered in silos across the organization. The data is unified in the EA—brought together from dispersed geographies, numerous systems (manual and automated), previously stored in varied formats, and managed by disparate individuals. EA harmonizes the data, analyzes and categorizes it, and serves up the information to end user. EA provides business intelligence—EA information can be harvested by BI software to provide valuable analytics; EA synthesizes business and IT information to support decision-making.

Business intelligence from EA is used for “cost optimization, asset maximization, lifecycle management, service delivery, impact analysis, gap analysis, as-is/to-be transformations, etc.” EA enables the CIO to lead by example when it comes to developing and using business intelligence, optimizing the management of IT in support of mission execution.

EA brings information to the table for enhancing decision-making. As W. Edwards Deming said, “In G-d we trust, all others bring data.”


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November 17, 2007

Telepresence and Enterprise Architecture

Telepresence is replacing video-teleconferencing, big time.

“Telepresence refers to a set of technologies which allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance that they were present, or to have an effect, at a location other than their true location.

Telepresence requires that the senses of the user, or users, are provided with such stimuli as to give the feeling of being in that other location. Additionally, the user(s) may be given the ability to affect the remote location. In this case, the user's position, movements, actions, voice, etc. may be sensed, transmitted and duplicated in the remote location to bring about this effect. Therefore information may be travelling in both directions between the user and the remote location.” (Wikipedia)

Fortune Magazine, 12 November 2007 reports that CISCO’s TelePresence product is modeled after Star Trek’s vision of being able to beam people from one place to another (HP has a competing product called Halo).

With TelePresence, “high-def, life-sized, internet-based communications systems,” it’s just like being there. TelePresence is the convergence of video, voice, and data—called, Unified Communications—over the internet, enabling seamless virtual mobility of people from one place to another.

TelePresence works as follows:

  • Displays—“participants appear life size on 65-inch 1080p plasma displays. When additional sites connect, the screens shifts to show the group that is speaking”
  • Cameras—“each two person portion of the room is covered by its own designated high-speed camera.”
  • Audio—“microphones and speakers are set so that sound seems to come from whichever participants in a room are talking.”
  • Data—“projectors mounted beneath the tables can display information from a computer or any other compatible device.”

CISCO believes that “the internet will become the delivery medium of all communications—and eventually everything from security systems and entertainment to health care and education.”

Already 50 large companies have bought the pricey TelePresence system (“List price $299,000 for three 65-inch plasma screens in a special conference room and $71,000 for a single-screen set-up) since launch last winter. P&G is rolling out 40 TelePresence room worldwide over the next nine months and CISCO has rolled out 120 across the company (“paid for by ordering every department to cut its travel budget 20%).

Telepresence allows for reduced travel times and expenditures and increased worker productivity. User-centric EA should consider these benefits to the organization in incorporating it into its target architecture.


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November 16, 2007

A Square Envelope and Enterprise Architecture

Would you believe me if I told you that the U.S. Post Office has trouble handling square envelopes? Well, it’s true, and moreover, the post office will actually “charge you a 17-cent surcharge for squareness.” This is called “shape-based postage.” (Wall Street Journal, 15 November 2007)

Why the surcharge? Because the post office sorting machines, “built for oblongs, can’t find the address on a square envelope. [Hence,] people have to do it.” In fact, “at a Manhattan post office…a window clerk…took one look at a square envelope and said ‘nonmachinable. I would not use that shape, period.’”

This is crazy isn’t it; we can put men on the moon, but we can’t send a square envelope easily through the mail system of the United States of America! (FYI, squares are not a problem for the mail system in the United Kingdom.)

I knew that being “square” in the seventies was a bad thing, and maybe even an insult, but what’s up with square now and how does this jive with users needs?

Well in the article, an owner from a graphics company states: “Squares…are the most current and most exciting product in paper communications.” Incredible, that the post office can’t meet their customers’ needs.

Even if squares are still a relatively small percentage of the overall mail (and according to the article they are), that may be because the post office can’t handle the shape versus the overall popularity of it with customers. As another sales rep states: “The post office cracked down…people had bad experiences with square cards. [And] if you put a stigma on something long enough, retailers aren’t going to deal with it anymore.”

So when the post office can’t handle the user needs, the card makers have innovated: “the shop has devised an oblong envelope with a middle pocket that squares slip neatly into.”

This is sounding almost like the post office is making us put a square peg in a round hole.

Just for the record, we shouldn’t blame the good men and women of the U.S. Post Office for the problems with the sorting machines. However, I believe this is clearly a job for User-centric Enterprise Architecture to align post office technology solutions for handling square envelopes with the business requirements for them. Clearly, it’s time for square equality.


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November 15, 2007

"Inefficient Government" and Enterprise Architecture

The Wall Street Journal, 10-11 November 2007 reports on an interview with Mitt Romney, Former Massachusetts Governor and U.S. Presidential Candidate 2008:

  • Government is inefficient—“government is almost by necessity inefficient, inflexible, duplicative, wasteful, expensive, and burdensome,”
  • Government structure is wrong—regarding the organization chart of the executive branch, “there’s no corporation in America that would have a CEO, no COO, just a CEO with 30 direct reports, so I would probably have super-cabinet secretaries, or at least some structure that McKinsey would put in place.”
  • Government needs more consultants—“I’m not kidding, I probably would bring in McKinsey…I would consult with the best and the brightest minds, whether it’s McKinsey, Bain, BCG, or Jack Welch.”
  • Government is inaction—“My wife says that watching Washington is like watching to guys in a canoe on a fast-moving river headed to a waterfall and they’re not paddling, they’re just arguing. As they get closer to the waterfall, they’ll finally start to paddle.

Whether or not you completely agree with Mitt Romney or similar commentary and criticisms from other political candidates, pundits, or office holders, there certainly appears to be plenty of work for User-centric EA to tackle.

EA can help government and the private sector to improve efficiency and effectiveness through business process improvement, organizational restructuring, performance measurement, information sharing, and advancing technology solutions for the most difficult business challenges we face.

Also, I’m not sure I agree that we need more consultants or that we already don’t have the “best and brightest” in the millions of government employees and contractors that we already have. It sure seems like we have every consulting company under the sun here in Washington, D.C.—and they all charge a pretty penny :)

True, government is large, but the problems we face are also large—terrorism, world-wide human rights, energy dependence, global warming, global economic competition (from low-wage countries), budget deficits, bankrupted social programs (like social security and Medicare), crisis in healthcare, and so on. It’s easy to criticize, but difficult to come up with constructive solutions. Isn’t that what politics is all about?


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November 14, 2007

Polarization of User Demands and Enterprise Architecture

What happens when users want conflicting things from their EA programs?

Recently, as part of a discussion following an EA briefing, I received a number of interesting comments from some users.

While multiple users talked about the EA capturing some terrific EA information that is being used for IT governance and planning, the users wanted the focus of future EA to go in different directions:

  • IT Governance—on one side of the table, one user wanted to see more IT governance and standards and less IT planning (target architecture), “since target architecture should be set by the technical subject matter experts and EA was more of a policy and management function
  • IT planning—across the table, another user wanted to see more IT planning (target architecture) and less IT governance, since “target architecture is the ‘real’ architecture, and the rest was just management.”

This sparked a lot of discussion throughout the room. Someone else asked, “Well, if you could only do one of these things well, which would you choose?” And another asked, “What is your vision for the ultimate direction of the EA program?”

To me, I believe firmly that ultimate answer to these questions is that you really need both IT planning and governance to have a viable EA program.

  • IT planning without governance—is developing and maintaining the baseline, target, and transition plan without using these to influence and drive actual decision-making. The IT plans are shelfware!
  • IT governance without planning—is trying to leverage EA information to support capital planning and investment control (CPIC) and to enhance overall organization-wide decision-making without having the necessary information to support sound decisions.

So at the end of the day, with limited resources, “which would I do?” and “what is my vision?”

You have got to do both IT planning and governance. IT planning is the process and IT governance is the implementation. One without the other would be utterly meaningless.

So with limited resources, we manage expectations and progress in a phased implementation in both areas—continually building and refining the EA information base so it is increasingly relevant (IT planning), and simultaneously, creating effective governance processes to manage IT investments in new projects, products and standards (IT governance). In this way, EA practitioners make the information useful and usable.


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Diffusion of Innovation Theory and Enterprise Architecture

According to Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) Theory, adopters of any new innovation or idea can be categorized based on the bell curve, as follows:
  • Innovators (2.5%) — most likely to conceive and develop new methodologies and technologies; the most daring and especially prone to taking risks
  • Early Adopters (13.5%) — a person who embraces new technology before most other people do.
  • Early majority (34%)
  • Late majority (34%)
  • Laggards (Luddites) (16%) — slow or reluctant to embrace new technology; actively fear or loathe new technology, especially those they believe threaten existing jobs.

Each adopter's willingness and ability to adopt an innovation would depend on their awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption. People could fall into different categories for different innovations -- a farmer might be an early adopter of hybrid corn, but a late majority adopter of VCRs.

When graphed, the rate of adoption formed what came to typify the DOI model, an “s shaped curve.” (S curve) The graph essentially shows a cumulative percentage of adopters over time – slow at the start, more rapid as adoption increases, then leveling off until only a small percentage of laggards have not adopted. (Rogers Diffusion Of Innovations 1983)

From a User-centric EA perspective, each of these user roles is important and needs to be considered in providing useful and useable information products and governance services to them.

On one hand, for the innovators and early adopters, User-centric EA encourages innovation and creativity, but also works to mitigate risk though business and technical alignment and architectural assessment related to sound capital planning & investment control.

On the other hand, for the laggards, User-centric EA set targets for technology adoption and phases in new technology and process according to a transition plan. While EA cannot “make” people less hateful of new technology, it can create a more controlled environment for change management in the enterprise, one which reduces the fear factor. Additionally, by EA demonstrating the benefits to the organization and the individuals therein of new technologies aligned to the mission and strategy of the organization, perhaps those who fear the technology will come around to embrace it.
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November 13, 2007

UPS is Enterprise Architecture Fait Accompli

Fortune Magazine, 12 November 2007, has an amazing article about UPS ( a company which last year had $47.5 billion in revenue and 100,000 driving jobs)—they are a flawless example of the integration of people, process, technology, training, and a keen customer focus; a shining example of what enterprise architecture hopes to instill in the organization!

  1. People—“UPS drivers make an average of $75,000 a year, plus an average of $20,000 in health-care benefits and pension, well above the norm for comparable positions at other freight companies.”
  2. ProcessUPS relies on “human engineering” and has “’340 methods’, a detailed manual of rules and routines” that is taught to UPS’s legions of driver candidates. Moreover, detailed metrics are kept on trainees and throughout their professional career at UPS, so that “a supervisor meeting a new driver for the first time will know every single possible thing there is to know about him.”
  3. TechnologyUPS has the delivery information acquisition device (DIAD), their electronic clipboard, “which is GPS-enabled, plans drivers’ routes, records all their deliverables, and is said to rival the iPhone in capability.”
  4. TrainingUPS has opened a new full-service training center, a $34 million, 11,500 square-foot facility, called Integrad. “The facility and curriculum have been shaped over here years by more than 170 people, including UPS executives professors, and design students at Virginia Tech, a team at MIT, forecasters at the Institute for the Future, and animators at an Indian company called Brainvisa.” The facility even has a “slip-and-fall simulator” to safely prepare trainees bodies to be alert to falls, and a UPS “package car” with see-through sides, sensors to measures that forces on trainees joints, and videocameras to record their movements as they lift and lower packages.”
  5. Customer—“What’s new about the company now is that our teaching style matches your learning style. But we’re still taking care of the customer.” UPS is “the world’s largest package–delivery company…delivering an average of over 15 million packages a day.”

“While customers may be at the heart of UPSs business, it’s drivers who are at the heart of UPS itself…watch closely and those deliveries [are] an exhibition of routines so precise they never vary, limbs so trained they need no direction, and words so long remembered, they are like one’s own thoughts.”

UPS has mastered all of the following enterprise architecture aspects or perspectives:

  • BUSINESS—the precision of honed business processes (“340 methods”)
  • PERFORMANCE—the measurement of every critical management aspect, especially as it relates to their all important drivers and their deliveries.
  • INFORMATION—UPS is an information-driven company that captures information, analyzes information, and uses it to train and refine their personnel and operations.
  • SERVICES—business services such as delivery and training are best practice and tailored to meet customer and employee needs.
  • TECHNOLOGY—the UPS electronic clipboard enables the information capture and provision that is needed to continuously meet mission requirements.
While, I don’t love their brown uniforms (that is supposed to hide dirt), to me the successful integration and implementation by UPS of these core architecture factors makes it a case study for EA!
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November 12, 2007

National Medal of Technology and Enterprise Architecture

There are a number of awards that encourage advancement in either business, technology, or the general sciences, and these advance the goals of enterprise architecture—which looks to analyze problem areas and uncover gaps, redundancies, inefficiencies, and opportunities and use this for business process reengineering and improvement or to develop technology solutions to advance the enterprise.

An award for technology has been given to individuals from many prestigious companies and universities. For example, in 2006 the National Medal of Technology was awarded to innovators from Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, MIT, John Hopkins University, and Purdue University.

National Medal of Technology—“The National Medal of Technology is the highest honor awarded by the President of the United States to America’s leading innovators. Established by an act of Congress in 1980, the Medal of Technology was first awarded in 1985. The Medal is given annually to individuals, teams, and/or companies/divisions for their outstanding contributions to the Nation’s economic, environmental and social well-being through the development and commercialization of technology products, processes and concepts; technological innovation; and development of the Nation’s technological manpower.

The purpose of the National Medal of Technology is to recognize those who have made lasting contributions to America's competitiveness, standard of living, and quality of life through technological innovation, and to recognize those who have made substantial contributions to strengthening the Nation’s technological workforce. By highlighting the national importance of technological innovation, the Medal also seeks to inspire future generations of Americans to prepare for and pursue technical careers to keep America at the forefront of global technology and economic leadership.” (www.technology.gov/medal)

Aside from awards for technology innovation, there have been awards for improving the business of government. For example, under Vice President Al Gore and the sponsorship of the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, there was the Hammer Award.

Hammer Awards— The Hammer Award is presented to teams of federal employees who have made significant contributions in support of reinventing government principles. The Award is the Vice President's answer to yesterday's government and its $400 hammer. Fittingly, the award consists of a $6.00 hammer, a ribbon, and a note from Vice President Gore, all in an aluminum frame. More than 1,200 Hammer Awards have been presented to teams comprised of federal employees, state and local employees, and citizens who are working to build a better government.

(http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/library/awards/hammer)

Other awards such as the National Medal of Science offer recognition to more general advancements in any of the fields of science.

National Medal of Science— The National Medal of Science was established by the 86th Congress in 1959 as a Presidential Award to be given to individuals "deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to knowledge in the physical, biological, mathematical, or engineering sciences." In 1980 Congress expanded this recognition to include the social and behavioral sciences. (www.nsf.gov)

From a User-centric EA perspective, these awards are perfectly aligned with driving enhanced organizational performance whether from the perspective of the business functions and processes, technology innovation, and scientific areas that could progress information sharing, IT security, performance execution, and organizational change. The awards offer recognition at the highest level of government and inspire, promote, and reward major contributions to technology, business, and general scientific advancement, which advances society and help to make us more competitive in the global marketplace.


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November 11, 2007

Teamwork and Enterprise Architecture

User-centric EA helps people in the enterprise work together as a team, rather than in individual or functional silos.

EA helps foster teamwork by:

  • Information Transparency: creating repositories of information that everyone can use and share
  • Bridging Disparate Parts of the Enterprise: aligning business and information technology and thereby bridging the gap between operations and support in the organization
  • Showing People Where They Fit: Modeling business processes, information requirements, and technology solutions, so all users and entities in the organization understand where and how they fit.
  • Consolidating and Coordinating a Common Way Ahead: developing consolidated strategies, enterprise plans and solutions versus individual or stove-piped ones.

How does teamwork help an enterprise succeed?

Well for one, teams are where most innovations takes place and innovation and creativity are key for an organization to survive and thrive.

The Wall Street Journal in conjunction with MIT Sloan School of Management on 15 September 2007 reports that “most companies assume that innovation comes from an individual genius or small, sequestered teams. Yet…most innovations are created through networks—groups of people working in concert. To lay the groundwork, organizations must make it easy for employees to talk to their peers, share ideas, and collaborate. Among other strategies, companies should make an effort to break down the walls between company departments and rapidly test and refine ideas.”

Also, teams are where ideas are shared and vetted. You get a better end-product by valuing individual and cultural diversity and hearing opposing points of view.

EA benefits from and contributes to teamwork and innovation by bringing together, documenting and making transparent information, planning, and governance across the enterprise. This aids people in sharing ideas, projects, products, and standards, and in capitalizing on sound innovations by developing these into new IT investments and possibly enterprise solutions. EA, teamwork, and innovation go hand-in-hand.


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November 10, 2007

Workaholics and Enterprise Architecture

How do you know when you are a “toxic” workaholic?

Fortune Magazine, 12 November 2007, identifies 4 “bad signs” of workaholism from psychologist, executive coach, and author Debra Condren:

  1. Marital conflict—“you and your spouse fight about your hours”; this goes beyond the occasional late nighter or weekend stint, when “the expectation is that when work abates, family will once again get top billing.”
  2. Child neglect—“your kids stop inviting you to their birthday parties. Eventually family members [especially the kids] learn not to count on [you].”
  3. Staff rebellion—“your employees sneak out of work. Toxic bosses make everyone around them feel bad about having a life.”
  4. In sickness and in health—“you work when ill. The worst cases think they are the only ones who can get things done.”

I’d add to this list that if you are feeling bad (i.e. overly stressed or burdened and not good about what your doing and how your living your life), your conscience is trying to tell you something.

I read a book recently that said no one at the end of their lives wished they had spent more time in the office, but often they do look back with tremendous regret at not having spent more time with family, friends, and at worship.

All this doesn’t mean to take away from having a full, meaningful professional life and being a productive human being. No one should have to miss out on the opportunity to challenge oneself and “give back” something to society—gratis is nice, but then again there’s the mortgage :)

The key is to be able to balance your personal and professional life. If you can’t do that then eventually it ALL falls apart anyway. So every person has to take control of their lives and live them to their fullest and that means taking care of what’s really important, including yourself and your loved ones!

I had a terrific boss in Enterprise Architecture who used to say, this is “best effort” i.e. don’t “kill yourself” over the assignment, just do your best. And that’s really “IT”, just do YOUR best. You don’t have to be superhuman or try to meet the often unrealistic demands or succumb to the ill-wishing of others. At work, just do your honest best, look out for the interests of the enterprise take care of your people, and the rest will follow.


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November 9, 2007

Microsoft Crashes and Enterprise Architecture

The Wall Street Journal, 31 October 2007 states that “the error-reporting service built into the Windows operating system is a massive global network for speaking truth to power.” When a Windows program crashes, you get the pop-up offering to “tell Microsoft about this problem.”

On busy days, “50 gigabytes of data from these error reports stream into Microsoft… [where] two dozen programmers are charged with monitoring them.”

Microsoft won’t tell you which of their programs crash the most, although Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer seem likely bets, while at the other extreme, Word and Excel “seem like Gibraltar.”

A Microsoft article, “Crash Protect Your PC Now!” (article id 835565) states:

“You’ve probably been there. You’re happily working away in Windows when suddenly everything freezes for no apparent reason. Maybe you’ve pressed [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Delete] and managed to end the troublesome task and get on with things, but even if your machine hasn’t locked solid you’ve still lost at best a few minutes’ work, and at worst an entire document. We hate to tell you this, but the problem isn’t necessarily one with your PC either – many crashes are caused by poor use of your computer’s resources, or too many program installations that took place while you left half-a-dozen other programs running in the background.”

Some reasons Microsoft gives for the system crashes:

  • Faulty hardware (sort of figures Microsoft would say that and say it first)
  • BIOS updates— “hardware problems can be solved by BIOS updates. This is because of the specification that all hardware is built to is open to some interpretation.”
  • Driver updates— “if you’re being plagued by crashes and you haven’t updated your drivers for a while, this could well be the solution – 40 per cent of crashes are caused by poor drivers. Of course, if your machine is fine at the moment, updating the drivers may actually introduce problems, or fix one problem and introduce another.”
  • Software problems— “the other reason your machine will crash, and this is definitely the most likely cause, is due to software…. There are two main reasons that software can crash - either it can’t gain access to a resource that it needs (such as memory), or it contains a bug… One of the main reasons a program crashes is because it can’t obtain enough memory from the OS to complete an operation….Another reason programs are prone to tripping up on the memory front is that the memory becomes fragmented the longer you leave your machine on.

What does Microsoft tell you to do?

Prepare! “Prepare yourself for crashes by saving regularly and often, and to keep the amount of programs running to a minimum.”

What does User-centric EA tell us to do?

I love Microsoft, but maybe it’s time to consider having the IT Investment Review Board let Microsoft know what they think about all the system crashes by voting with the organization’s wallet and spending project dollars on alternatives that offer application stability and reliability. 50 gigabytes of streaming data reports on a busy day is just about 50 gigabytes too much!


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November 8, 2007

Five Stages of Grief and Enterprise Architecture

“The Kübler-Ross model describes, in five discrete stages, the process by which people deal with grief and tragedy. Terminally ill patients are said to experience these stages. The model was introduced by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book "On Death and Dying". The stages have become well-known as the "Five Stages of Grief.

The stages are:

  1. Denial: The initial stage: ‘It can't be happening.’
  2. Anger: ‘Why ME? It's not fair!’ (either referring to God, oneself, or anybody perceived, rightly or wrongly, as "responsible")
  3. Bargaining: ‘Just let me live to see my child(ren) graduate.’
  4. Depression: ‘I'm so sad, why bother with anything?’
  5. Acceptance: ‘It's going to be OK.’

Kübler-Ross originally applied these stages to any form of catastrophic personal loss (job, income, freedom). This also includes the death of a loved one and divorce. Kübler-Ross also claimed these steps do not necessarily come in order, nor are they all experienced by all patients, though she stated a person will always experience at least two.” (Wikipedia)

The fives stages of grief have been applied by others to organizational change. For example, Deone Zell in the article, "Organizational Change as a Process of Death, Dying, and Rebirth" (The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol. 39, No.1, 73-96, 2003) makes the case that the change process closely resembled that of death and dying idenified by Kubler-Ross.

Further, the Army’s Enterprise Solution Competency Center (ESCC) has applied the stages to grief to the Army’s core business missions going through an Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) or Continuous Business Process Improvement (CBPI) initiative to understand human response to change management. Additionally, they provide helpful suggestions for how to respond to these. (http://www.army.mil/escc/cm/model1.htm)

What we see is that the human response to change is closely aligned to how people respond when something bad happens—i.e. people associate change with something bad happening to them. Therefore, to manage change, we need to understand the human responses as developed by Kubler-Ross, as well as the suggested ways to overcome those, such as presented by the Army ESCC.

User-centric EA is a planning and governance endeavor which by definition involves change and the management of change. Thus, EA practitioners need to understand human response to change and how to effectively deal with it.

Some important examples from Army ESCC of how to respond:

  1. Denial: “emphasize that change will happen.” and “allow time for change to sink in.”
  2. Anger: “distinguish between feelings and inappropriate behavior” and “redirect the blame from the change agent to the real reason necessitating the change (goals of the organization/business case)”
  3. Bargaining: “focus on how the individual or their area will benefit from the change.”
  4. Depression: “provide a series of specific next steps and follow-up frequently” and “reinforce positive actions the individual takes.”
  5. Acceptance: “use the individual as a coach or mentor for others” and “provide recognition for their efforts.”

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November 7, 2007

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.


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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!

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November 6, 2007

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.
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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.

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November 5, 2007

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.

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November 4, 2007

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 21st century.


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November 3, 2007

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 6th 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.


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November 2, 2007

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.


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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!


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November 1, 2007

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.

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