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

A Pocket Printer and Enterprise Architecture

Ever wonder what happened to the old Polaroid cameras—you know point, click, shoot, and out pops your photo? Very cool technology for a society that expects, no demands, instant gratification.

Polaroid photos were great while they lasted, but their pictures have become obsolete with new digital photography.

However, Polaroid has a new architecture to transform itself. They have developed a pocket printer to enable the printing of digital photos from cell phones and cameras.

MIT Technology Review, 7 January 2008, reports that Polaroid’s “new handheld printers produce color photos using novel thermal-printing technology developed at Polaroid spinoff Zink Imaging…[and] will be priced at less than $150.”

How does the pocket printer work?

“The printer is about the size of a deck of cards. A user who takes a picture on a cell phone or camera can wirelessly send the file to the printer using Bluetooth, a common short-range wireless technology used in cell phones, or PictBridge, a wireless technology found in a number of cameras. The result is a two-inch-by-three-inch photo printed on paper engineered by Zink.”

Where does the printer cartridge go in the small pocket printer?

The printing technology is similar to that of a common thermal printer…since Zink's technology eliminates the need for printer cartridges...it has led to the smallest printers on the market, and it could eventually be integrated into cell phones and cameras. It would also dispense with the inconvenience of ink cartridges that unexpectedly begin to run out of ink, and which have to be replaced. "When you go to replace an ink-jet cartridge today, it's in the $40 range," Herchen says. With Zink, a person pays only by the print. Polaroid expects to sell the photo paper for $0.30 a page.”

What challenges does the pocket printer face?

“People are accustomed to e-mailing pictures to each other or sending them to each other's phones, and they probably won't want to carry around another gadget just to print pictures on the spot.” But this concern can be obviated if the printer can be integrated into the cell phone or camera, in essence creating a modern digital Polaroid camera equivalent.

From a User-centric EA perspective, you’ve got to hand it to Polaroid to extend their expertise in instant photography to the digital photo age. They have come up with a novel idea and have executed on it, so that it is standards-based (Bluetooth and PictBridge), interoperable with other technologies (cell phones and cameras), small and affordable—thus, appealing to end-users. It would be nice to see the pocket printer work with MS Office applications, so I can print my blog and other work on the go.

A Pocket Printer and Enterprise Architecture

Bionic Eyes and Enterprise Architecture

Remember the TV shows The Bionic Man and Woman? These folks had implants that gave them amazing super-human strength, speed, hearing, and vision.

“Bionics is a term which refers to flow of ideas from biology to engineering and vice versa…In medicine, Bionics means the replacement or enhancement of organs or other body parts by mechanical versions. Bionic implants differ from mere prostheses by mimicking the original function very closely, or even surpassing it. (Wikipedia)

Believe it or not, bionic eyes are now a reality, at least in a research stage.

MIT Technology Review, 25 January 2008, reports that “researchers have created an electronic contact lens that could be used as a display or medical sensor.”

Although, this bionic eye cannot see miles away like a telescope yet, it was created to see if it would be possible to fulfill two primary purposes:

1. Augmented reality display—a “display that could superimporse images onto a person’s field of view, while allowing her to see the real world...soldiers could use the technology to see information about their environment, collected from sensors. Or civilians could use the electronic lens as a cell-phone display, to see who is calling and to watch videos during a commute.”
2. Noninvasive medical monitor—“use the lens as a sensor that could monitor chemical levels in the body and notify the user if they indicate signs of disease...many indicators of health can be monitored from the surface of the eye. The live cells on the eye are in direct contact with blood serum, which contains biomarkers for disease."

How is the bionic eye made?

It “incorporates metal circuitry and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) into a polymer-based lens...a functional circuit that is biologically compatible with the eye.”

What are some of the challenges in making the bionic eye work in the real world?

1. Heat—The bionic eye is a functioning circuit and could generate heat that could adversely affect the eye.
2. Power—How will the contact lens be powered while worn?
3. Size—To create a visible display, the LEDs will have to shrink in size and in the process not break in the lens-shaping process

From a User-centric EA perspective, bionics is one of those incredible fields where end-users really benefit in everyday functions, in life-altering ways. Bionics opens up possibilities for people with disabilities (due to illness or accident) that are nothing short of miraculous. Imagine people being able to walk, look, hear, and so on not only on par with healthy individuals, but maybe even with an edge. Of course, this could open up all sorts of ethical dilemmas. If we think Olympians taking steroids is an issue, we haven’t seen nothing yet. Bionics is a field that is only just beginning, but it will have enormous implications for process improvement and reengineering based on new incredible capabilities of those that have these implants. Bionics is an example par excellence of technology enabling process (in this case, the very elements of mechanical human processes).

Bionic Eyes and Enterprise Architecture

Pepsi and Enterprise Architecture

Pepsi knows and practices User-centric Enterprise Architecture. They plan, develop, and manage their business to meet end-user needs, and the CEO, India-born Indra Nooyi is the mastermind behind their approach.

In Fortune Magazine, 3 March 2008, the article “The Pepsi Challenge” describes how Ms. Nooyi has remade Pepsi into a totally user-driven, architecture astute, mega-food company that is firing on all cylinders.

• Architecting with a global view—“her South Asian heritage gives her a wide-angle view on the world…Pepsi’s international business grew 22% last year, triple the rate of domestic sales, and now contributes 40% of total revenue ($39 billion last year).
• Architecting wise acquisitions and divestitures—in 1997, seeing that “the fast-food market was saturated and the real estate a hard investment to maximize,” she spun off Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC. In 1998, she championed the acquisition of Tropicana, the largest branded-juice producer, and the 2001 acquisition of Quaker Oats, maker of Gatorade.
• Architecting the corporate culture—Ms. Nooyi is an expert in the art of persuasion and rallying the troops to her cause. “She can rouse an audience and rally them around something as mind-numbing as a new companywide software installation.” “She has created the motto—‘Performance With Purpose’” as a means of ‘herding the organization’ towards her vision.
• Architecting through good people and demanding performance excellence—Ms. Nooyi relies on the expertise of her staff and has “broadened the power structure by doubling her executive team to 29.” Moreover, “she expects everyone around her to measure up.”
• Architecting a healthy diet, green environment, and care for her people—“she…puts a positive spin on how she wants PepsiCo to do business…balancing the profit motive with making healthier snacks, striving for a net-zero impact on the environment, and taking care of your workforce.” For example, Pepsi got into healthy foods (such as bottled water, sports drinks, and teas) earlier than Coke and now “commands half the U.S. market share—about twice Coke’s share, according to Beverage Digest. Ms. Nooyi’s plan is continue shifting to healthy snacks (currently at 30% to 50% of the product portfolio).

What I find inspiring about Ms. Nooyi is that she is not only a strategic, big picture minded leader, but that she performs with the eloquence of a master architect that knows her users and their needs, strives to fulfill them, and doing so with an apparent conscience that dictates ethical behavior toward her people, the environment, and the health of her customers.

That is an amazing EA legacy!

Pepsi and Enterprise Architecture

Microsoft Reveals Secrets and Enterprise Architecture

This week Microsoft said they had a big announcement, and that it wasn’t about Yahoo! It turns out that Microsoft decided to reveal some of their technical documents for Microsoft Vista, Office, and other applications.

Why would a company like Microsoft reveal their technical secrets to partners and rivals alike? How is this decision a good architecture move, especially by the master architect himself, Bill Gates?

We all know that companies strive to achieve strategic competitive advantage and that one major way to do this is by product differentiation. The goal is to develop a unique product offering that customers want and need and then build market share. In some case, this results in a situation like Microsoft’s virtual monopoly status in desktop operating systems and productivity suites.

So why give up the keys to the Microsoft kingdom?

Well they are not giving up the keys, maybe just giving a peek inside. And an article in The Wall Street Journal, 22 February 2008 tells us why Microsoft is doing this:

1. Internet Revolution—“For 30 years, Microsoft has…tightly held onto the technical details of how its software works… [and] it become one of the most lucrative franchises in business history. But Microsoft traditional products aren’t designed to evolve via add-ons or tweaks of thousands of non-Microsoft programmers. Nor can they be easily mixed or matched with other software and services not controlled by Microsoft or its partners. Now the Internet is making that kind of evolution possible, and transforming the way software is made and distributed.” As Ray Ozzie, chief software architect of Microsoft states: “The world really has changed.”
2. Do or die—Microsoft’s prior business model was leading it down a path of eventual extinction. “The more people use these applications [free technologies and shareware], the less they need they have for Microsoft’s applications.” Microsoft is hoping to maintain their relevance.
3. Antitrust ruling—“Last September, an appeals court in Luxembourg ruled against Microsoft in a long-running European case that forced Microsoft to announce a month later that it would drop its appeals and take steps to license information to competitors.”
4. Interoperability—“Microsoft announced in July 2006 [its “Windows Principles”]…such as a commitment to providing rival developers with access to interfaces that let their products talk with Windows.” The key here is customer requirements for systems interoperability and Microsoft is begrudgingly going along.

Is this fifth such announcement on sharing by Microsoft the charm? I suppose it all hinges on how much marketplace and legal pressure Microsoft is feeling to divulge its secrets.

So it this the right User-centric EA decision?

If Microsoft is listening to their users, then they will comply and share technical details of their products, so that new technology products in the market can develop that add on to Microsoft’s and are fully interoperable. The longer Microsoft fights the customer, the more harm they are doing to their brand.

At the same time, no one can expect Microsoft to do anything that will hurt their own pocketbook, so as long as they can successfully maintain their monopoly, they will. Not that Microsoft is going away, but they are holding onto a fleeting business model. In the information age, Microsoft will have to play ball and show some goodwill to their users.

Microsoft Reveals Secrets and Enterprise Architecture

Solid-State Drives and Enterprise Architecture

What is one, if not the biggest fear, with putting data on a computer?

Yes, that the hard drive crashes #@$%&!!

Well a new bred of hard drives will help prevent the hard drive failures (and those Monday morning blues).

The Wall Street Journal, 7 February 2008, reports that “Solid-State Drives [SSDs]…because they lack moving parts, they are faster, draw less power, are harder to damage and are quieter than [mechanical] hard drives.”

“Hard-disk drives, or HDDs, are mechanical devices. They work by recording data on a spinning magnetic platter or platters. By contrast, solid-state drives are made of chips and have no moving parts.”

The new SSDs are “close cousins to the so-called flash memory used in digital cameras, cell phones and smaller-capacity music players. They record data to special memory chips that retain their contents even when the device is turned off.”

SSDs are expected to become more popular as “their capacities increase and their prices drop.”

From the User-centric enterprise architecture perspective the value proposition, cost-benefit, for SSDs is not there yet. But it soon will be and then it will time to help alleviate your user angst of hard drive failures with safer, faster SSDs.

Solid-State Drives and Enterprise Architecture