Apple and Enterprise Architecture

In Fortune Magazine, 17 March 2008, Apple was rated in Fortune the #1 most admired companies in America and in the world and it won the highest mark for innovation too.

“In an industry that changes every nanosecond, the 32-yer old company has time and again innovated its way out of the doldrums. Rivals always seem to be playing catch-up.”

And Apple certainly knows innovation and mass appeal. “Invention is the creation of something new. [But] innovation is the creation of something new that makes money; it finds a pathway to the consumer.” Apple is great at creating consumer hits--just think iPod, iPhone, and MacBook.

“The iPod is to music what Kleenex is to tissue or Xerox is to copiers.”

“Almost everything Apple makes transcends gender, geography, and race.”

“In the last five years, “sales tripled to $24 billion and profits surged to $3.5 billion.”

What is Apple’s enterprise architecture (business and IT strategy)?

• Thinking big—with Apple, the sky’s the limit or there really isn’t any limit at all; “every endeavor is a moon shot. Sometimes the company misses, but the successes are huge.”
• Excellence—Apple has become “a symbol of innovation” and there is a huge “degree of perfectionism. Apple hires people that are never satisfied.”
• Passion—“Emotive is a big word here. The passion is what provides the push to overcome design and engineering obstacles, to bring projects in on time.”
• Focus—Apple is anti-diversification. They believe that when companies make too many products, they get “mired in the mediocre. Apple’s approach is to put every resource it has behind just a few products and make them exceedingly well.”
• Consumer orientation—“We figure out what people want…we do no market research. We just want to make great products” for the masses. At Apple, they look at everyday consumer products and ask themselves what’s awful about them and how can they make them better.
• Democratize technology—“Apple’s approach has always been to democratize technology in the belief that if you make something ‘really great’ then everybody will want to use it.”
• Technology synthesis—“Apple’s the only company that has everything under one roof…not only do we control the hardware, but we control the operating system.” Apple does hardware and software and operating systems and “can tweed it all together and make it work seamlessly.”
• Design genius—As a company, Apple is the master of consumer electronics design. “This is not just engineering and science. This is art too.” At Apple, they understand that function is enhanced by form, and that the consumer wants a good-looking gadget.

One of the biggest lessons for me from Apple is to never give up. For years, Apple trailed the computer market with the Mac holding only a 4% to 5% market share. But they kept innovating, developing and designing the best working and looking products. Now they’ve captured 70% market share with the iPod and are targeting sales this year of 10 million iPhones. Apple is a super company with business and technology planning that others can only look at in sheer awe with their mouths hanging open.

Apple and Enterprise Architecture

Eliot Spitzer and Enterprise Architecture

While Eliot Spitzer didn’t get caught in bed with his mistress, he did get caught with his pants down.

How did Spitzer get caught and ultimately lose the powerful NY governorship?

Good solid enterprise architecture did Eliot Spitzer in.

In this case, the enterprise is the global financial system and the architecture is the business rules and technology that routinely check for suspicious activity.

One of the ways to catch bad guys—whether Eliot Spitzer, mob bosses, or even Al Quaeda fugitives—is by following the money trail, processing gazillions of transactions through sophisticated technology that filters out the anomalies and flags suspicious activity.

MIT Technology Review, 19 March 2008 reports that “anti-money-laundering software scrutinizes customers’ every move no matter how small.”

“All major banks, and even most small ones, are running so-called anti-money-laundering software, which combs through as many as 50 million transactions a day looking for anything out of the ordinary.”

The software from one vendor, for example, contains more than 70 flags for identifying suspicious activity.

“In Spitzer’s case, the three separate $5,000 wire-transfer payments…would likely have triggered one of the most obvious of these [flags].”

“Banks are constantly on the lookout for activity that seems to be an effort to break up large, clearly suspicious transactions into smaller ones that might fly under the radar, a practice called structuring.”

The Bank Secrecy Act requires a “report of cash payments over $10,000 received in a trade or business, if your business receives more than $10,000 in cash from one buyer as a result of a single transaction or two or more related transactions.” (www.irs.gov) Spitzer’s multiple $5,000 wire-transfer was a fairly blatant act that set off the trip wire for suspicious activity.

The technology also “groups customers and accounts into related ‘profiles’; or ‘peer groups’ in order to establish more-general behavioral baselines…each category is analyzed to determine patterns of ordinary behavior…and transactions stretching back as far a year, are then scrutinized for evidence of deviation from the norm.”

So for example, an elementary school teacher in Wyoming that deposits $25,000 would be flagged possibly as a deviation from the norm of what an ordinary teacher in Wyoming would be doing. If he deposit is in cash, well that’s even more of a no-brainer since it would be reportable as a cash transaction over $10,000.

“Every bank has a group of people who personally scrutinize transactions that have been flagged…if the human reviewers can’t explain the activity they will produce an official suspicious activity report [SAR].” This goes to the IRS and Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN)…most SARS are ultimately reviewed by regional teams of investigators, drawn from the IRS, the FBI, the DEA, and the U.S. Attorney’s office.”

The number of SARs in 2006 reached “567,080…and 2007 was on track to set a new record.”

The target architecture for financial anomaly detection will continue to get us better and better results as it will to incorporate “analyzing customers’ social networks, tapping into the vast databases of information held by companies such as LexisNexis and ChoicePoint.”

From an enterprise architecture standpoint, you can see the sophistication of the business rules and the technology working in tandem in order to achieve the impressive results of tracking suspicious money activity. This is a great example of clearly identifying the mission requirements, using that to drive technology solutions, and effectively planning and governing the solutions, so that people cannot hide suspicious financial transaction, like needles in the haystack of the information glut out there.

Eliot Spitzer and Enterprise Architecture

Bioterror Sensors and Enterprise Architecture

Since the events of 9/11, America has been widely and deeply broadening its homeland security capabilities. One area that this has been occurring in is in the ability to detect an attack and respond quickly to save lives.

MIT Technology Review, 18 March 2008, reports on a new sensor system that can “detect six potential airborne bioterror agents” within three minutes.

The “new detector uses living cells that light up in the presence of airborne bioterror agents such as anthrax and smallpox” as well as botulinum, ricin and two other bacteria.

“The company selling the sensor, Innovative Biosensors of Rockville, MD, is marketing it for use in airports and other buildings, including laboratories where research on dangerous pathogens is performed.”

“The company has a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense for building security in the Washington, DC area.” And one would imagine that similar precautions are being taken in other major metropolitan areas in the country.

This is serious business and Innovative Biosensors is taking no chances. “The system can run 16 tests simultaneously, one in each chamber of the disc…when at least two chambers are devoted to each pathogen, there are no false positives.”

Certainly, we will continue to mature our homeland defenses. To do this, all agencies involved in homeland security must grow and develop their enterprise architectures. As with the new sensor system, protecting this country cannot be done by human factors alone, but will require ever greater technological sophistication to monitor the “bad guys” and prevent, protect, respond to, and recover from any threats.

Our adversaries will not resist using technology to harm us—whether through improvised explosive devises or attacks on our networks—and we will need every technological advantage we can get to defeat them.

One way to maintain our technology edge is through the rigors of enterprise architecture. This discipline is critical in developing a well thought-out business and technology plan, making sound IT investments, and governing our IT with care and diligence.

While at times it may seem that this great country has limitless resources, the truth is that all resources are finite and we must put those to the best uses, so that the technology we develop and deploy truly enables the mission of protecting this honored country and its noble citizens.

Bioterror Sensors and Enterprise Architecture

The Evils of Computers and Enterprise Architecture

Computers and information technology have revolutionized how we do just about everything in our lives. Yet some people have demonized technology either out of fear, ignorance, or a belief that we will not be able to control the awesome power of the technology we are developing.

The Wall Street Journal, 15-16 March 2008, reports that during the 1960s and 70s, Joseph Wiezenbaum, an MIT professor, was a gifted computer programmer who later came “to preach the evils of computers.”

Wiezenbaum created a “computer program called Eliza that was designed to simulate a psychiatrist…but after test subjects told him the program really empathized with their problems, Mr. Weizenbaum became a digital Jeremiah, and spent decades preaching the computer apocalypse.”

Surely Wiezenbaum isn’t alone in predicting the concern that computers could become smarter (and stronger) than people and could pose a dire threat to humankind’s very existence. These fears have been portrayed by Hollywood in 2001: A Space Odyssey, iRobot, Termininator, War Games, and other such hit movies.

Weizenbaum “soured on computers and condemned automated decision making as antihuman.”

“He raised questions that are as relevant today as they were when he first raised them” about 40 years ago.

As an enterprise architect, my job is to align technology solutions to business problems and requirements. Am I to consider the potential for the malevolent information system, database, storage server, or network router when trying to use technology to help achieve mission results?

OK. Maybe the question is a little too facetious. The truth is computer processing power is reaching ever greater potential, and at accelerating speeds, based on Moore’s Law. Computers now can process at speeds in trillions of calculations a second. Who can even imagine?

Is it possible, at some time that a computer or robot will go loony and do the unthinkable? Of course it is. Don’t some people have pit bulls that are friendly to their owners and then go nutty and attack the neighbor’s poodle or the neighbor himself? Don’t we all drive cars that are wonderful transportation mechanisms, but also hurt and kill thousands of people a year?

We raise and develop things that have tremendous capability to improve our way of life; however, they also have the potential to hurt us if not properly controlled.

A time will soon come with technology that we will have to worry about controlling the very machines that we have created to help us do our everyday tasks. We will have to architect safeguards for people from the very technologies that we developed and deployed to aid them.

The Evils of Computers and Enterprise Architecture

Military Robots and Enterprise Architecture

One reason that I love the military is that they truly think out of the box and are not only cutting-edge, but they continuously innovate. They drive change that ripples throughout all areas of the economy, and they use the best from the private sector and make it even cooler.

If you’re into robotics, you’ve most certainly heard of the Roomba from iRobot that vacuums floors on auto-pilot.

Now the military is taking that idea and through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) developing a robot that will aid battlefield communications.

MIT Technology Review, 11 March 2008, reports that “iRobot is developing communications robots for the military.”

“Expendable robots that can be tossed into a building or over a wall…will be used to set up communications networks to assist soldiers in urban battlefields,” where communication are often by impeded by obstacles and structures that “reflect, refract, diffract, and absorb radio signals leading to signal loss and attenuation.”

These robot are call Local Area Network or LAN-droids, and they will have autonomous positioning systems so that the bots will be mobile and be able to adapt to get the best signal. The bots “will use 801.11g Wi-Fi standards to form mobile ad hoc networks that can repair and reroute themselves if, for example, the enemy destroys a robot.”

The robots, each costing less than $100, will “weigh less than a kilogram and [be]…about 10 centimeters long,” so soldiers can carry multiple bots and be able to throw them into position.

The robots are planned to be able to travel at “half a meter a second and be capable of functioning for up to 10 hours.”

The LANdroids prototype is expected by the end of the year.

What a terrific target architecture! Focused on mission requirements with a vision for improved results of operation, DARPA is aligning technology solutions to the soldier’s needs for better, more reliable communication in the battlefield.

Further, the LANdroid is a solution that is grounded in market reality. Using the Roomba vacuum robot as a model for mobile bot technology, DARPA is taking it to the next level. They are applying the technology to their mission space and upping the ante on the adversary.

In a sense that is what EA is all about, staying one or more steps ahead of the competition whether in terms of business process efficiency, quality products and services, and technology enablement. EA engineers the organization to succeed.

Today it’s the LANDdroid, tomorrow the Battlefield KillerBot.

Military Robots and Enterprise Architecture

Dreaming and Enterprise Architecture

Planning for the target architecture of an enterprise is a difficult task; some would compare it to looking into a crystal ball and trying to divine the future of an organization and the marketplace. The funny thing is that some of the best planning and thinking that people do may actually not be when they're awake and cognizant, but rather when they're sleeping!

“Dreams are the images, thoughts and feelings experienced while asleep, particularly strongly associated with rapid eye movement sleep. The contents and purpose of dreams are poorly understood, though they have been a topic of speculation and interest throughout recorded history.” (Wikipedia)

The Wall Street Journal, 15 January 2008, reports that dreaming can be useful to making connections in your mind that you might otherwise never make.

“There is a growing body of research that indicates that sleep is a time when we can figure out patterns beyond our grasp during the day…during sleep, the brain engages in processing that explores connections and ideas in trial-and-error fashion.”

Not only are new connections made in the subconscious while sleeping, but dreams may actually be a wake-up call to the person. “Your dreams may be useful to you simply as reminders that you need to address certain issues sooner than their placement at the bottom of your to-do-list would suggest... ‘my subconscious is kicking me in the rear end,’ as one marketer puts it.”

Another researcher states that “dreams are like Rorschach tests…they ‘are basically always a report of memory that is reconstructed while the person is awake.’”

Unfortunately, not all dreams help us reconstruct events, make new connections and insights. “Roughly half of all dreams are related to anxiety and fear.”

According Freud, “dreams, which he called the ‘royal road to the unconscious,’The Interpretation of Dreams (1899) in which he proposed the argument that the unconscious exists and described a method for gaining access to it...for Freud, the ideals of the Enlightenment, positivism and rationalism, could be achieved through understanding, transforming, and mastering the unconscious, rather than through denying or repressing it.” (Wikipedia) provided the best access to our unconscious life and the best illustration of its ‘logic,’ which was different from the logic of conscious thought. Freud developed his first topology of the psyche in

While I would be cautious in interpreting dreams, when it comes to enterprise architecture and the skillful forecasting and planning that it entails, dreams can be beneficial in a number of ways. Firstly, dreams can provide insights and connections that one wouldn’t normally have in a fully conscious state. Further, not only does sleep provides the ability to see things differently in dreams, but also when you wake up and are refreshed, you “see things in a new light.” That’s why you may have heard the saying “to sleep on it” before making an important decision. Sleeping refreshes the body and the soul; with adequate sleep, the mind is sharper and the thinking more analytical and precise. I would rather get my architecture from someone who is well rested and clear-headed, than a sleep deprived architecture jockey.

Dreaming and Enterprise Architecture

Invention versus Innovation and Enterprise Architecture

User-centric Enterprise architecture is about producing valuable information products and governance services for the organization to enhance IT planning, governance and decision-making. There are elements of both invention and innovation in EA.

Invent—“1. To produce or contrive (something previously unknown) by the use of ingenuity or imagination. 2. To make up; fabricate.”

Innovate—“To begin or introduce (something new) for or as if for the first time.”

(TheFreeDictionary.com)

The definitions of invent and innovate are similar, but have important subtle differences.

• Invent is to produce first which connotes a physical production or manufacture of an items, and secondarily to contrive or think up something imaginatively.
• Innovate, however, is not producing or just thinking up something, but actually introducing it (for the first time), and in the process of introducing, there is an element of not only thinking up an idea or making it, but of actually bringing it to the marketplace to create value and reap benefit from it.

In User-centric EA, we both invent (think up and produce) products and services such as baseline and target architectures and transition plans as well as services to govern IT. However, we also innovate; we introduce the products and services, through effective marketing, communications, training, and leveraging their use to add value to the mission.

• From a User-centric EA perspective, it is not enough just to put things out there (invent them)—like the “build it, and they will come” motto heard frequently during the period of “irrational exuberance” in the stock market and internet bubble of the early 21^st century. Rather, we must innovate--constantly consider our users and build for them, to their requirements and make the EA of true value to them.

In BI Review Magazine, 3 December 2007, Thomas Koulopoulos presents “Don’t Invent, Innovate.”

Tom writes: “Myriad catalysts have suddenly created an ability to invent beyond our wildest dreams. Manufacturing is a global commodity…capital moves more efficiently to fund new ideas, micro markets can easily be targeted and fulfilled with well oiled supply chains. As a result we are surrounded by more useless inventions than at any other time in history. Affluence seems measured by the number of things we can accumulate and then drag to the nearest landfill…we confuse invention with innovation…too many people and organizations get wrapped up in the premise that quantity of invention is what drives progress. It’s not. Innovation is about imposing a discipline of value creation in an organization…Innovation is change with a purpose and a vision. Invention is simply change, the age-old battle between quantity and quality.”

In architecting the business and technical aspects of our enterprises, we need to keep in mind the distinction between inventing and innovation. Of course, we need to invent—we need to build idea and things--as humans, we need these “things” to survive. But also we need to innovate and ensure that what we invent is truly with purpose, vision, and is of value to the end-user.

Invention versus Innovation and Enterprise Architecture

Conflict Theory and Enterprise Architecture

“Conflict theory states that the society or organization functions so that each individual participant and its groups struggle to maximize their benefits… The essence of conflict theory is best epitomized by the classic 'pyramid structure' in which an elite dictates terms to the larger masses. All major institutions, laws, and traditions in the society are created to support those who have traditionally been in power, or the groups that are perceived to be superior in the society according to this theory. This can also be expanded to include any society's 'morality' and by extension their definition of deviance. Anything that challenges the control of the elite will likely be considered 'deviant' or 'morally reprehensible.” (Wikipedia)

In the organization that we work in, today—modern times—is everything copascetic or is there inherent conflict, and how does this affect EA? And how is this impacted by EA?

We all hear and read the message from the top—from the executive(s) in charge—messages of unity of command, unity of purpose, and unity of structure. “We’re all in this together!”

However, the reality is that there are power struggles up and down, sideways, and on the diagonals, of the organization—this is conflict theory! Those at the top, wish to stay there. Those at the lower rungs, wish to climb up and check out the view. The organization is a pyramid, with fewer and fewer senior level positions as you go higher and higher up. Everyone in the organization is evaluated by measures of performance and is competing for resources, power, influence, and advancement.

I remember learning at Jewish day school, that people are half animal and half angel. Sort of like the age old conflict of good and evil. Freud, for the individual, put it in terms of the id and superego.

On one hand, conflict theory pits egocentric and selfish behavior against the greater needs of the organization (and the goals of EA) to share, collaborate, integrate, and go forward as the army slogan states, “an army of one!” The individual or group in the enterprise wants to know the proverbial, “what’s in it for me?”

On the other hand, User-centric EA is about collaboration: collaboration between business and IT, collaboration within the business, collaboration within IT, and even collaboration outside the agency (such as through alignment to the department, the federal EA, and so on). The collaboration takes the form of information sharing, structured governance, an agreed on target and plan, and the building of interoperability, standards, efficiencies, enterprise solutions, and overall integration!

It is not easy for EA to be a counterbalance for conflict theory. The organization needs to provide incentives for positive behavior (and disincentives for negative behavior), so that everyone is encouraged to team, collaborate, share, and look at the bigger picture for the success of overall enterprise!

I’ve seen organizations take steps toward building unity through team awards, criteria in everyone’s performance evaluation for teamwork, and actual mandates to share information. These are positive steps, but more needs to be done to make the enterprise flatter, more collaborative, and remind all employees that they work for the end-user.

Conflict Theory and Enterprise Architecture

“Clothes that Clean Themselves” and Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise architecture develops current and target architecture and transition plans and provides for governance. With the supersonic speed of change in the information technology industry, it is easy to see the necessity for constantly evolving target architectures for IT and associated business processes. However, how does target architecture apply to run of the mill items, like clothing—isn’t clothes, aside from changing fashions and styles, and occasionally a new material or two, pretty much the same old thing?

MIT Technology Review, 20 February 2008, reports on something truly novel with clothing, namely “Clothes That Clean Themselves.”

We’re all familiar with stain-repellent materials (where spills roll off instead of getting absorbed into the fabric), and that’s sort of cool. But relatively speaking that’s nothing compared with self-cleaning clothing—yes, that is for real (and boy, won’t it be nice to save even more on dry cleaning?)

“Researchers…in Victoria, Australia have found a way to coat fibers with titanium dioxide nanocrystals, which break down food and dirt in sunlight…natural fibers, such as wool, silk, and hemp that will automatically remove food, grime, and even red-wine stains when exposed to sunlight.”

Burning out stains and pathogens, but safe to fabric and the skin:

What’s great is that the nanoparticles “oxidize or decompose organic matter,” but “are harmless to skin. Moreover, the coating does not change the look and feel of the fabric. This titanium oxide coating is just burning organic matter at room temperature in the presence of light.

“Titanium oxide can also destroy pathogens such as bacteria in the presence of sunlight by breaking down the cell walls of the microorganisms. This should make self-cleaning fabrics especially useful in hospitals and other medical settings.”

What is the future for these self-cleaning clothes?

Researcher Walid Daoud says that “Self-cleaning property will become a standard feature of future textiles and other commonly used materials to maintain hygiene and prevent the spreading of pathogenic infection, particularly since pathogenic microorganisms can survive on textiles surfaces for up to three months.”

From a User-centric EA perspective, it is amazing how every area of our life, even simple clothing, can be transformed to next level of target architecture through invention, innovation, process reengineering and technological advances--such as information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology.

What next with clothing—maybe they can self-fit in the future, so one size truly can fit all?

“Clothes that Clean Themselves” and Enterprise Architecture

Knowledge Management and Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise architecture is a major contributor to knowledge management.

• EA documents and communicates the baseline, target, and transition plan for the organization.
• User-centric EA categorizes, analyzes, and visualizes the information to make it useful and usable.
• Further, User-centric EA develops information products to enable better decision making, and it makes these readily accessible to end-users.

The Wall Street Journal, 10 March 2008, reports that “knowledge management [KM] can make a difference—but it needs to be more pragmatic.”

What is KM?

“A concerted effort to improve how knowledge is created, delivered, and used.”

“Over the past 15 years or so, many large organizations have embraced the idea that they could become more productive and competitive by better managing knowledge—the ideas and expertise that originate in the human mind.”

But many KM programs have failed miserably or just gone nowhere—why?

“Some firms stumbled by focusing their knowledge management efforts on technology at the expense of everything else, while others failed to tie knowledge programs to overall business goals or the organization’s other activities.”

Here’s how to do KM right:

1. Creation—Organizations “define in advance the type of information they need and why they need it—say to improve customer service or to develop easier to use products. They solicit ideas, insights, and innovations from rank-and-file workers, customers, and business partners, rather than relying solely on R&D staff to come up with the ideas.” Web 2.0 technologies like blogs, wikis, and collaborative websites encourage broader participation.
2. Dissemination—“the focus is on putting in one place all the content a specific group of workers need, regardless of its source. To that end, many organizations are using Web portals, or intranet sites as one stop information shops.”
3. Application—“obtaining and sharing knowledge is beneficial only if employees use it to get better at what they do—that is, they learn from it.” Creating communities of interest (COIs) helps foster social learning that occurs when people with a common interest in some subject or problem are brought together to collaborate over an extended period to share ideas, solutions, and innovations.”

EA contributes to all three areas:

1. EA identifies information needs by the business and IT areas and captures, processes, and serves up this information to stakeholders.
2. EA disseminates information products through the EA website, handbook, EA repository, and other media to make it accessible to end-users.
3. EA that is User-centric focuses on providing information that is actionable—useful and usable by the business and IT executives and staffs. Only products with clear uses and users are developed, maintained, and shared. EA is focused on delivering value (shelfware is a dirty word in User-centric EA).

EA can be a shining example of KM, when it is User-centric!

Knowledge Management and Enterprise Architecture

Optimizing IT and Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise Architecture helps to align business strategy and IT implementation. However, one of the big problems for IT these days is that it is viewed as a utility and not as a strategic business partner.

The Wall Street Journal, 10 March 2008, reports that “Too often, there’s a wall between a company’s information technology department and everything else. That wall has to go.”

What’s the problem with how executives view IT?

“Simply put, top executives at most companies fail to recognize the value of IT. It can help a company transform data from its operations, its business partners, and its markets into useful competitive information, It can be the source of profitable innovations in the way a company interacts with its customers and suppliers. But there is still a tendency to think of IT as a basic utility, like plumbing or telephone service.”

IT doesn’t even have a seat at the table!

There is a “metaphysical glass wall that separates the IT group from the rest of the business at most companies. The wall prevents IT from being part of the discussion at the highest levels of company planning, robbing a firm of its full potential.”

Even in the federal government where there is legislation (The Clinger-Cohen Act) to support a CIO reporting directly to the agency head, often the CIO remains buried layers down in the hierarchy.

How can the CIO develop a viable enterprise architecture to support the business with needed technology if IT is viewed as computer geeks and walled off?

IT must become a true partner with the business!

Why is IT walled off and how can this change?

Obstacles:

• Mind-set—Business is focused on business problems and IT is focused on the technology (instead of focusing on solving the business problems).
• Language barriers—“much is lost in translation” between IT and business folks.
• Outsourcing—“IT professionals are almost pitied as dinosaurs whose jobs will soon be sent offshore.”
• IT governance—isn’t done collaboratively with the business and “the resulting IT failures drive a wedge between senior [business] managers and their IT colleagues.”
• Rapid pace of technological change—technology “is subject to fads,” which can be confusing in terms of direction, create competitive demands on scarce business resources, and causes IT to lose credibility with each and every subsequent change. Also, IT can be viewed as an endless sinkhole for investment and so the focus becomes not on optimizing value from IT, but rather on containing runaway cost.

Opportunities:

• Executive commitment—to understand the strategic value of IT and develop effective IT management.
• Strategic IT leadership—hire an IT leader who understands more than just technology; s/he needs to really understand the business and how IT can enable it.
• Value IT for its business potential—“managers at all levels across the organization need to be convinced that innovations in IT-related areas such as knowledge management, business intelligence, information security, change management, and process integration are essential to the success of the enterprise.”
• Translate business to IT and back again—“a company must have people at all levels who can translate IT language for those outside that department and translate the language of management to those in IT.”
• Sound IT governance—“ensure that every part of the organization that is affected by IT decisions is part of the decision making process…with a full understanding of all their implications.”
• IT portfolio management—“analyze the costs, benefits and risks of all IT projects to determine how to get the most benefits from the dollars invested in technology.”

Interestingly enough, enterprise architecture plays a key role in almost all the strategies to get IT to become an integral partner with the business:

• EA helps build executive commitment through effectively communicating the current, target, and transition plan and how it aligns to the business strategy and benefits the mission.
• The chief enterprise architect is a strategic, big picture, IT leader that focuses on business needs and how IT can solve those with current and emerging technologies as well as process improvement.
• User-centric EA develops information products for the organization that are useful and usable and support knowledge management, business intelligence, requirements management, change management, and so on.
• EA synthesizes business and technology information and is a bridge between the two for the organization to understand performance results desired, business processes to produce those, information required by the business processes, and systems and technologies to serve those up.
• The EA Board supporting the IT Investment Review Board implements sounds IT governance and brings business and technology subject matter experts to the table to vet decisions in the best overall interest of the enterprise.
• The EA governance process takes into account ROI, risk, strategic alignment, and technical compliance to drive better decision making and sound IT investments for the organization.

EA is central to bringing down the glass wall between business and IT and in bringing the two together to optimize IT solutions for the business needs.

Optimizing IT and Enterprise Architecture

Corning and Enterprise Architecture

Corning is one of those successful companies that almost seem to defy logic.

Perhaps best known by consumers for glassware and Pyrex, heat-resistant glass, Corning is a company that continually reinvents itself and in quite unexpected ways.

The Wall Street Journal, 7 March 2008, reports that “Corning has survived 157 years by betting big on new technologies, from ruby-colored railroad signals to fiber-optic cable to flat-panel TVs.”

Now, “under pressure to find its next hit, the company has spent half a billion dollars—its biggest wager yet—that tougher regulations in the U.S., Europe, and Japan will boost demand for emissions filters for diesel cars and trucks.”

Strange history of product development, no? (maybe even stranger than 3M and their yellow sticky notes?

How do they continually reinvent themselves?

“In Ervin, a few miles from the company’s headquarters in Corning, the glassmaker is spending $300 million to expand its research labs. There some 1700 scientists work on hundreds of speculative projects, from next generation lasers to optical sensors that could speed the discovery of drugs.”

“Culturally, they’re not afraid to invest and lose money for many years.”

Corning has also not outsourced production, but rather “continues to operate the 50 factories that churn out thousands of its different products.”

What is the drawback to Corning’s approach?

They “often depend heavily on a single product line for most of its profits—92% of last year’s $2.2 billion profit came from its flat-panel-display business.”

What is Corning’s EA strategy?

Corning is a company that goes where the profits are. They are like the nomad hunter-gathers of yester-year that followed their prey and harvest wherever that happened to be. They put a stake in the ground and then up-end it when it’s time.

They do not copy others, but rather like futurists, they seek out and develop the next great product and make a market for it.

While glassware is not generally considered high-tech; Corning has tech-enabled this everyday product in a myriad of ways, including: heat-resistant Pyrex glassware, fiber-optic cable, flat-panel TV displays, Corning has brought glass into modernity.

Even when looking into the distant outposts of space, it is Corning that had developed the special glass mirrors for the largest telescopes in the world to do this. Corning is truly the master architect of everything glass.

Corning and Enterprise Architecture

Better Data Management and Enterprise Architecture

What is Information Technology? Well in simple terms its technology that enables information processing, storage, sharing, and accessibility. The business needs information to carry out its functions, processes, activities, and tasks. The systems and their underlying technologies process the underlying data to get it to the people who need it in our organizations.

Government Computer News, 21 January 2008 has an article by Mike Daconta (previously from the Department of Homeland Security) that offers tip on better data management.

1. Data privacy audit—“given that identity theft and government data loss are of public concern, you should conduct an audit of the privacy vulnerability of your data assets.”
2. Data dictionary—the article calls for a business glossary to communicate across organizational boundaries; to ensure that terms mean the same thing to everyone. I would call this an enterprise data dictionary.
3. Data mashups—use web applications to combine data and/or functionality from more than one source.
4. Data elements—“expose each major data entity in your business glossary [I would say in your data inventory]…with a standard set of create, read, update, and delete services. You then build higher-level services on top of these foundational services” for SOA.

The article has a simile for describing data as follows: “if money is an organization’s lifeblood, and people its muscles, data is the nervous system.”

But data is not really the nervous system, instead the network is the nervous system, since it is the network that relays messages back and forth from one body part to another.

So what body part is data like?

Data is the electrical impulses carried by the nervous system that tells the various body parts what they need to do.

Interestingly, when is a person declared dead? When they have no brain function anymore. Not when they cannot eat or breathe (machines can perform this artificially to keep a person “alive”.) But if the brain that processes the data is not functioning, then we declare a person dead. Without the ability to process data, neither an organization nor a person can survive.

Better Data Management and Enterprise Architecture

Why IT Governance and Enterprise Architecture

I came across an excellent white paper by the National Association of the State CIOs (NASCIO) on IT governance that goes through the fundamentals.

What is IT governance?

IT governance is “specifying the decision rights and accountability framework to encourage desirable behavior in the use of IT.”

Sound IT governance helps to ensure effective use of IT resources, “avoid unnecessary or redundant investments,” more successfully deliver IT solutions, and “enhance appropriate cross-boundary interoperability.”

Why is IT governance ever more important?

According to Gartner, the net average ROI for IT projects is only 1% and as of 2002, “20% of all expenditures on IT were wasted.”

“Information management approaches used during previous eras are no longer sufficient.”

“Information technology is no longer restricted to simply automating procedures, or even managing information, rather, information technology now enables and even outstrips an enterprise organizational capabilities for transformation.”

We “continue to depend more and more on information technology to achieve efficiencies, collaborative information sharing, business intelligence, and information socialization.”

Who should be involved in IT governance?

“Proper IT governance requires a highly participative collaboration between…CIOs and executive leadership on the business side.”

“Pure technology decisions will be primarily made by leadership with information technology with consulting input from the business. Pure business decision making will be primarily made by business leadership with consulting input from the…CIO. However, in most cases, determination of where and when to employ technology will be a shared responsibility.”

This is the piece that I liked the best—the convergence of the necessity for sound IT governance with robust enterprise architecture is what it takes to truly yield results. As the paper states: “In fact, information technology properly managed and deployed within the umbrella of enterprise architecture will provide the path to transformation.”

Why IT Governance and Enterprise Architecture

Storytelling and Enterprise Architecture

Part of being a good leader is having a clear vision and the ability to articulate it.

Harvard Business Review, December 2007, reports that “the ability to articulate your story or that of your company is crucial in almost every phase of enterprise management.”

How do leaders use story-telling?

“A great salesperson knows how to tell a story in which the product is the hero. A successful line manager can rally the team to extraordinary efforts through a story that shows how short-term sacrifice leads to long-term success. An effective CEO uses an emotional narrative about the company’s mission to attract investors and partners, to set lofty goals, and to inspire employees.”

Here are some key lessons on how to tell the organization’s story:

• Action-oriented—“for the leader, storytelling is action oriented—a force for turning dreams into goals and then into results.”
• Instructional—“many think it is purely about entertainment, but the use of story is not only to delight, but to instruct and lead.”
• Truth—storytelling is not about spinning yarns, but rather must be truthful and authentic.
• Heartfelt—“our minds are relatively open, but we guard our hearts with zeal…so although the mind may be part of your target, the heart is the bulls-eye.”
• A worthwhile journey—“a promise that the listeners’ expectation once aroused, will be fulfilled.”
• A managed journey—“a great story is never fully predictable through foresight—but it’s projectable through hindsight.”
• Personalize it for the listener—“everyone wants to be the star, or at least to feel that the story is talking to or about him personally.”
• Tailor the story—“a great storyteller never tells a story the same way twice…tailor it to the situation [and the audience].”
• Prepare and improvise—“sheer repetition and practice it brings is one key to great storytelling…at the same time the great storyteller is flexible enough to drop the script and improvise.”

“State-of-the-art technology is a great tool for capturing and transmitting words, images, and ideas, but the power of storytelling resides most fundamentally in ‘state-of-the-heart’ technology.

The enterprise architect must use story telling effectively—the chief architect captures information, analyzes it, and uses this information to tell the corporate story. The architect connects the business and technical dots of the enterprise, identifies the impetus for change, articulates the issues and proposed solutions, builds readiness and consensus, and drives business processes improvement, reengineering, and the introduction of new technologies to enable mission success. The architect must be able to engage listeners intellectually and emotionally to “motivate, sell, inspire, engage, and lead.” The chief enterprise architect must be able to win the hearts and minds of the people across the organization. Architecture is not an ivory-tower exercise and should not develop useless shelfware, but rather the enterprise architecture needs to tell a coherent, useful, and useable story that decision-makers can understand and act upon.

Storytelling and Enterprise Architecture

Architecting Smart Kids and Enterprise Architecture

We’ve been hearing for years about our poor elementary and high school educational system in this country. For years, test scores have trailed our competitors in other countries across the globe. This has been especially true in science and math and has affected the number of qualified engineers we are producing as a nation. These are often the people who would take us into the future from an innovation standpoint.

The Wall Street Journal, 29 February 2008, asks “What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?”

“By one international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world. They earned some of the top scores by 15-year old students who were tested in 57 countries.”

By contrast, “American teens finished among the world’s C students even as educators piled on more homework, standards, and rules.”

So is it something in the Finnish drinking water or some magic vitamin that makes them outdo us academically?

“High school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over college and kids don’t start school until age 7.”

“Finnish youth, like their U.S. counterparts, also waste hours online. They dye their hair, love sarcasm, and listen to rap and heavy metal. But by ninth grade they’re way ahead in math, science, and reading—on track to keeping Finns among the world’s most productive workers.”

On the most recent test sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, “Finland’s students placed first in science, and near the top in reading and math…[and] in first place overall….the U.S. placed in the middle of the pack.”

So here’s the magic elixir—2 things:

1. Reading—Remember the commercial here in the states that said “reading is fun-damental”? Well in Finland reading really is. Finns love reading. “Parents of newborns receive a government-paid gift pack that includes a picture book. Some libraries are attached to shopping malls, and a book bus travels to more remote neighborhoods like a Good Humor truck.”
2. Self-reliance—While in the U.S., teens and even people well into their 20’s and even 30’s are hopelessly dependent on mommy and daddy and have been moving back home and throwing their dirty socks in the corner of their rooms, Finns are self-reliant from an early age.

“The Finns enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world, but they too worry about falling behind in the shifting global marketplace.” Based on their relative educational success, it is us Americans that should be doing more worrying.

If we are to architect success in our students’ educational scores and futures, it will not be by driving them into early adulthood through the paranoid assignment of an avalanche of nightly homework. Our children are ridden with test scores and admission anxiety, even as they continue to flunk by international standards.

Using enterprise architecture as our guide, we need to teach not to grow up faster, but to enjoy being a creative, questioning child. We need to inspire children not with fear for their future, but rather with a sincere love of learning (and of reading, and exploring, and of trying new things). We must not hold our children’s hands forever in paranoid fear, but rather teach them to be confident, self-reliant, innovative, and adventurous. We must not push our children to be “doctors, lawyers, or accountants”—to make lots of money—but rather must encourage them to go after their dreams and passions. These are strengths that education alone will not provide for our children’s future.

Architecting Smart Kids and Enterprise Architecture

Fighting Crime with Hair! And Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise architecture analyzes problem areas in an organization and identifies gap, redundancies, inefficiencies, and opportunities. It uses this information to drive business process improvement, reengineering, and the introduction of new technologies.

Enterprise architecture can benefit any process or problem area, even the difficult area of solving crimes.

Crime fighting has long faced major problems, such as identifying murder victims and tracking their killers. Now new technologies and associated analytical processes are being introduced to help solve these murder mysteries.

MIT Technology Review, 27 February 2008, reports that “Researchers at the University of Utah say that they are able to determine a person's recent travel history by comparing the isotope ratios of oxygen and hydrogen in a strand of his or her hair.”

The study, which was published February 25 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found a strong correlation between the isotopes in the water that a person drinks and the isotopes in her hair.”

“The hair closest to the root indicates where a person has been most recently. The longer the hair, the more recorded history the researchers have to work with. Hair grows one millimeter every three days, so if the hair is 20 centimeters long, that represents about 20 months' worth of history, says Ehleringer.”

Hair analysis is considered a major breakthrough for law enforcement in helping detectives narrow locations where a murder victims and their perpetrators have been and ultimately to identify them.

In the case of hair analysis for crime solving, the enterprise architecture solution actually crosses all three technology areas—information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. Hair analysis involves evaluating hydrogen and oxygen isotopes (biotechnology) in various regions’ water and air and comparing that to molecules from a person’s hair follicles (nanotechnology) using technologies called mass spectrometers (information technology), and then analyzing “geographic region of origin and travel history of humans” through predictive modeling (information technology).

As an enterprise architect, we look to deliver mission performance and results of operations through technology enablement. These technologies can take the form of information technologies, biotechnologies, or nanotechnologies. The use of these technologies in combination can solve even the toughest problem areas.

Fighting Crime with Hair! And Enterprise Architecture

John Zachman and Enterprise Architecture

In the Journal of Enterprise Architecture, February 2008, John Zachman, the father of EA, talks about core definitional elements of enterprise architecture.

• Enterprise versus IT or Applications Architecture—”First Enterprise Architecture constitutes a paradigm shift and many people have not yet been inclined to make the mental, cultural, and behavioral adjustment to engineering and manufacturing the enterprise” and I love that phase—engineering the enterprise!

“Because…many of the skills required to the work of enterprise architecture are typically found in the Information Systems community, some people misconstrue the Framework intent as an Information Systems schema rather than its true intent as an ENTERPRISE schema.”

And not only is the Zachman Framework misconstrued as an Information Systems schema, but many people mistakenly confuse the whole EA with IT or applications architecture. But EA is not focused on IT or applications, but rather on the overall organization—the enterprise.

• Lexicon—“As global communication and collaboration expands, there is an increasing requirement for semantic coherence. If people’s words do not mean the same thing, there is neither communication nor collaboration”—another good one, semantic coherence!

Without a lexicon with common definitions and standards for usage, we will not be talking to each other, but past each other.

Moreover, if we can’t even define EA elements in a common way, then how can we ever make them interoperable?

As Zachman says, “The underlying classification and components of architecture must be consistent for any interoperability (internal or external) to be effected.”

• Classification, Taxonomy, and Ontology—“Enterprises are complex. Managing the knowledge base of the enterprise that is required for enterprise operation and change is complex. The key to managing complexity is classification.”

This is so true. We need to categorize and relate items to make sense of them. Moreover, I would say we need to roll this information up to what I call the profile level—the big picture, strategic view using information visualization—so that our executives and decision makers can quickly understand the information and come to a decision point.

“Humanity for seven thousand years has found no mechanism for accommodating complexity and change other than architecture,” says Zachman.

EA is the way to plan, manage, and measure change in our increasingly complex world. And if we don’t take control over our enterprises and their future destiny, then we will be controlled by them.

John Zachman and Enterprise Architecture

IT Portfolio Management and Enterprise Architecture

IT portfolio management (ITPfM) is the application of systematic management to large classes of items managed by enterprise Information Technology (IT) capabilities. Examples of IT portfolios would be planned initiatives, projects, and ongoing IT services (such as application support). The promise of IT portfolio management is the quantification of previously mysterious IT efforts, enabling measurement and objective evaluation of investment scenarios.

Debates exist on the best way to measure value of IT investment. As pointed out by Jeffery and Leliveld (2004), companies have spent billions of dollars into IT investment and yet the headlines of misspent money are not uncommon…IT portfolio management started with a project-centric bias, but is evolving to include steady-state portfolio entries such as application maintenance and support, which consume the bulk of IT spending. (Wikipedia)

• ITPfM is related to the federal requirement for capital planning and investment control (CPIC), especially the select phase in which investments are authorized and funded.

The IT Management Reform Act of 1996 (Clinger-Cohen Act) specifies that executive agencies “establish effective and efficient capital planning processes for selecting, managing [controlling], and evaluating the results of all its major investments in information systems.”

The Architecture Alignment and Assessment Guide by the Federal CIO Council, November 2000 defines capital planning and investment control (CPIC) as—“a management process for ongoing identification, selection, control, and evaluation of investments in information resources.”

• CPIC/ITPfM and EA are closely linked processes. Enterprise architecture conducts technical reviews of proposed new IT projects, products, and standards and provides findings and recommendations to the IT Investment Review Board for decision-making on authorizing, prioritizing, and funding IT.

The Architecture and Assessment Guide states that “CPIC and enterprise architecture functions are closely linked…both have a common focus: the effective and efficient management of IT investments.

Further, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-130 requires that agencies establish and maintain a CPIC process and that they “must build from the agency’s current enterprise architecture.”

According to the Architecture Alignment and Assessment Guide, the three phases of CPIC align to EA as follows: CPIC’s select, control, and evaluate align to EA business alignment, technical alignment, and architecture assessment.

The Journal of Enterprise Architecture, February 2008, has an article by George Makiya that discusses “Integrating EA and IT Portfolio Management Processes”.

Makiya states “at the strategic level, the EA has to agree with the business side, what objectives the IT portfolio will be designed to achieve. It is imperative that the EA negotiate with the business side what constitutes value-add. The EA must then use ITPfM to engage the business to document or articulate its strategy and business objectives.”

Further, “at the operational level, the EA using ITPfM employs prioritization and selection processes to ensure that IT investment reflects the objectives and priorities of the business…through proactive management EAs can help the CIO align the IT budget with the demands of the portfolio.”

According to the Federal Enterprise Architecture Practice Guidance, November 2007, the performance improvement lifecycle starts with the agency’s strategy, and then has the three phases of architect (“develop and maintain EA”), invest (select investments and “define the implementation and funding strategy”, and implement (“execute projects”), which in turn yields strategic results.

• Generally speaking, ITPfM decisions are made on the basis of return on investment, risk mitigation, strategic alignment, and technical alignment to the EA.

There are many touch points and linkages between EA and CPIC.

• EA’s target architecture and transition plans drives the investments and portfolio make-up in the CPIC process.
• CPIC investments are used to provide updates on systems, technologies, and standards to the EA.

EA and CPIC/ITPfM are truly mutually dependent and create synergy and value for the organization through enhanced decision making and IT resource control.

IT Portfolio Management and Enterprise Architecture

Robotics and Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise architecture is about engineering the organization—people (the who), process (the how), and technology (as the enabler). However, the people and technology aspects to the organization are reaching a convergence through robotics.

The Associated Press, 2 March 2008, reports that “Japan Looks to a Robot Future.”

“For Japan, the robotics revolution is an imperative. With more than a fifth of the population 65 or older, the country is banking on robots to replenish the work force and care for the elderly.”

How big is the projection for robotics in Japan?

“The government estimates the industry could surge from about $5.2 billion in 2006 to $26 million in 20101 and nearly $70 billion by 2025.

“A 2007 national technology roadmap by the Trade Ministry calls for 1 million industrial robots to be installed throughout the country by 2025. [And] a single robot can replace about 10 employees…thats about 15% of the current workforce.”

“Robotics are the cornerstone of Japan’s international competitiveness.”

“The cost of machinery [like robots] is going down, while labor costs are rising.”

What type do jobs do the robots currently perform?

“Japan is already an industrial robot powerhouse. Over 370,000 robots worked at factories across Japan in 2005, about 40% of the global total and 32 robots for every 1,000 Japanese manufacturing employees.”

“There are robots serving as receptionists, vacuuming office corridors, spoon-feeding the elderly. They serve tea to company guests, and chatter away at public technology displays. Now startups are marching out robotic home helpers.”

What are some challenges with robotics?

1. Inanimate—robots do not feel emotions and have a conscience like humans do; they cannot interact with human in a truly personal, natural, and meaningful way.
2. Cost—“for all its research, Japan has yet to come up with a commercially successful, consumer robot” for the mass market.

From a User-centric EA perspective, we need to plan, invest, and transition for the new robotic revolution—it is at our threshold and will bring together and augment the information age we are in and the drive for process reengineering and improvement. Robotics is the natural evolution of machine/computer and human interface for providing information and performing processes for ourselves and our organizations.

As Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University says: “One day, they will live among us. Then you’d have to ask me: ‘Are you human? Or a robot?’”

Robotics and Enterprise Architecture

Types of Followers and Enterprise Architecture

A leader directs or guides and is in charge or commands others. Almost by definition, a leader must have followers. An enterprise architect leader influences and guides decision-making and direction of the enterprise business and IT planning and governance.

Harvard Business Review, December 2007, reports “there is no leader without at least one follower” and “increasingly, followers think of themselves as free agents, not as dependent underlings.”

HBR provides an interesting typology of followers based on their engagement—there are five types:

1. Isolates—“completely detached…scarcely aware of what’s going on around them. Moreover, they do not care about their leaders, know anything about them or respond to them in any obvious way. Their alienation…by knowing and doing nothing...[they] support the status quo…[they] can drag down their groups or organizations.”
2. Bystanders—“observe but do not participate. These free riders deliberately stand aside and disengage, both from their leaders and from their groups or organizations. They may go along passively when its’ in their self-interest to do so, but they are not internally motivated to engage in an active way.”
3. Participants—“are engaged in some way. Regardless of whether these followers clearly support their leaders and organizations or clearly oppose them, they care enough to invest some of what they have (time or money, for example) to try and make an impact.”
4. Activists—“feel strongly one way or another about their leaders and organizations, and they act accordingly. These followers are eager, energetic, and engaged. They are heavily invested in people and process, so they work hard either on behalf of their leaders or to undermine and even unseat them.
5. Diehards—“are prepared to go down for their cause-whether it’s an individual, an idea, or both. These followers may be deeply devoted to their leaders, or they may be strongly motivated to oust their leaders by any means necessary…they are willing, by definition, to endanger their own health and welfare in the service of their cause.”

Some lessons for leaders:

• Follower engagement--“Followers who do something are nearly always preferred to followers who do nothing.”
• Leadership support--“Good followers will actively support a leader who is good (effective and ethical) and will actively oppose a leader who is bad (ineffective and unethical.”
• Organizational contribution—“Bad followers will do nothing whatsoever to contribute to the group or organization.”
• Power and influence--“Followers act in their own self-interests, just as leaders do. And while they lack authority, at least in comparison with their superiors, followers do not lack power and influence.”

From a User-centric EA perspective, it is helpful to focus not only on leadership qualities, skills, and their development, but also on the types of followers and on their engagement, support, contribution, and power.

To lead an enterprise--establishing a target architecture, transition plan, and governance--the chief architect, must be able to develop a high energy, synergistic, A+ team of individuals that care, can perform, and are engaged and committed to drive effective change and organizational excellence.

Types of Followers and Enterprise Architecture

IT Project Engineering and Enterprise Architecture

Architecture and Governance Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 1, has an article called “The Secrets of IT Success: Transforming Companies” that identifies three critical architectural elements necessary for successful IT project execution, or as I see it, project initiation.

These critical IT project elements are as follows:

• Community Analysis—“It must understand the needs of the customers, the supply chain, and the transactions necessary for the day-to-day running of the business…generate understanding on both the business and IT sides of the equation, to capture organizational goals comprehensively, and to enable effective training and buy-in, IT analysts and engineers must identify with and embrace the community to be transformed.”
• Operations Analysis—“A deep understanding of the operational activities, capabilities, and business processes…Here work activities are identified, captured, and catalogued so that information flows, technologies, roles, and other processes and elements can be accurately mapped. The analytical results from this phase give a clear perspective to move from the business’s needs to the requirements of the new technology that will need to be implemented.
• Technology Analysis—“technical needs are defined and blueprinted, and their intersections with business rules are specified…A multidimensional analytical view encompassing user workflow, technologies, data, security, business rules, and interfaces can greatly enhance the pure IT view of transformation.”

To me this translates in simple terms to the following:

• Business needs
• Functional and technical requirements
• Technology solutions

While these IT project elements factor into the development of the enterprise architecture, they are more the domain of segment and solutions architecture that work toward business and operational outcomes, rather than strategic-level outcomes.

The article also calls for the use of visual tools to aid in IT project analysis:

• “In all three phases, a key ingredient is supplying a visual tool as part of the universal language that will be used throughout the project to facilitate clear communications between members of the community affected by it. Consistent and unambiguous visual expressions of the operational need and intent immeasurably enhance the likelihood of a successful IT implementation.”

This call for the use of visual tools is similar to and supportive of the use of information visualization in User-centric EA, where information visualization is especially helpful in the high-level, strategic profile views of the architecture as well as in modeling business, data, and systems. In all areas of User-centric EA, the principles of communication and design are critical for developing useful and usable information products and governance services for the end-user.

IT Project Engineering and Enterprise Architecture