The Sigmoid Curve and Enterprise Architecture

The Sigmoid Curve is critical for understanding the need, timing, and challenge for organization transformation efforts.

According to Charles Handy in the book “The Empty Raincoat,” The Sigmoid Curve, which is a S-shaped curve is the metaphor for the life-cycle of all things: from a product’s waxing and waning in popularity to the rise and fall of empires.

What can individuals or organizations do to survive beyond the Sigmoid Curve?

“The secret of constant growth is to start a new Sigmoid Curve before the first one peters out.” And the right time to start the second curve is before reaching pinnacle of the first, so that there is time and resources to get the new curve off the ground (this is at point A). The challenge with starting a transformation effort or new Sigmoid Curve at point A is that “all messages coming through…are that everything is going to be fine, that it would be folly to change when the current recipes are working so well.” Unfortunately, if we wait until the sign of downturn and disaster is apparent (point B), then it is probably too late to make the leap to a new Sigmoid Curve, “leaders are discredited…resources are depleted,” and morale is damaged.

Another challenge with starting a new Sigmoid Curve and undertaking a transformation effort is that from point A to the pinnacle of the first Sigmoid Curve, it is “a time of great confusion. Two groups of people, or more, and two sets of ideas are competing for the future.”

“The discipline of the second curve requires that you always assume that you are near the peak of the first curve, at point A, and should therefore be starting to prepare a second curve. Organizations should assume that their present strategies will need to replaced within two to three years…it may well be that the assumption turns out to be wrong that the present trends can be prolonged longer…nothing has been lost. Only the exploratory phase of the second curve has been done. No major commitments will have been undertaken until the second curve overtakes the first.”

However, the importance of preparing for the second curve is that “it will have forced one to challenge the assumptions underlying the first curve and to devise some possible alternatives. It is tempting to think that the world has always been arranged the way it is and to delude ourselves that nothing will ever change. The discipline of the second curve keeps one skeptical, curious, and inventive.”

From a User-centric EA perspective, the first Sigmoid Curve is the current or baseline architecture and the second Sigmoid Curve is the target architecture. The Sigmoid Curves demonstrate to us the constant need to reinvent ourselves and our organizations—to transform from the as-is state to the to-be state. “Moving on requires a belief in…curvilinear logic, the conviction that the word and everything in it really is a Sigmoid Curve, that everything has its ups and then its downs, and that nothing last forever or was there forever.” This is the mandate for enterprise architecture; it is the way of constant vigilance, innovation, and transformation to survive to the next Sigmoid Curve of life. Moreover, “the accelerating pace of change shrinks every Sigmoid Curve.”

The Sigmoid Curve and Enterprise Architecture

Fire Sale Attack and Enterprise Architecture

Fire Sale─“Matt Farrell (Justin Long), a character in the movie Live Free or Die Hard, used this term to describe the plot by Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) to systematically shut down the United States computer infrastructure. The plan crashes the stock market, communications and utilities infrastructure, crippling America's economy and causing nation-wide chaos. The term was coined because of the phrase "everything must go" meaning all of the world's technology based off of a computer system, virtually everything.” (Wikipedia)

The New York Times, 4 June 2007, in an article titled, “When Computers Attacks,” states how governments are preparing for the worst in terms of cyber attacks.

“Anyone who follows technology or military affairs has heard the predictions for more than a decade. Cyberwar is coming. Although the long-announced, long-awaited computer-based conflict has yet to occur, the forecast grows more ominous with every telling: an onslaught is brought by a warring nation, backed by its brains and computing resources; banks and other businesses in the enemy states are destroyed; governments grind to a halt; telephones disconnect.”

What systems are at risk?

All computers are at risk that connect “to the Internet through the industrial remote-control technologies known as Scada systems, for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition. The technology allows remote monitoring and control of operations like manufacturing production lines and civil works projects like dams. So security experts envision terrorists at a keyboard remotely shutting down factory floors or opening a dam’s floodgates to devastate cities downstream.

But how bad would a cyberwar really be — especially when compared with the blood-and-guts genuine article? And is there really a chance it would happen at all? Whatever the answer, governments are readying themselves for the Big One.”

For example, “China, security experts believe, has long probed United States networks.Congress, China’s military has invested heavily in electronic countermeasures and defenses against attack, and concepts like “computer network attack, computer network defense and computer network exploitation.” According to a 2007 Defense Department annual report to

What are we doing?

The United States is arming up, as well. Robert Elder, commander of the Air Force Cyberspace Command, told reporters in Washington at a recent breakfast that his newly formed command, which defends military data, communications and control networks, is learning how to disable an opponent’s computer networks and crash its databases.

How serious is the threat of cyber attack?

“An all-out cyberconflict could ‘could have huge impacts,’ said Danny McPherson, an expert with Arbor Networks. Hacking into industrial control systems, he said, could be ‘a very real threat.’”

Is our nation’s architecture prepared to secure our enterprises and this country from a fire sale-type or other cyber terrorism attacks? Here are some actions that have been taken based on a CRS Report for Congress on “Computer Attacks and Cyber Terrorism” (17 October 2003)

• In 2002, The Federal Information Management Security Act (FISMA) was enacted giving the office of OMB responsibility for coordinating information security and standards developed by civilian federal agencies.
• In 2003, The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace was published by the administration to encourage the private sector to improve computer security for critical infrastructure.
• DHS has established the National Cyber Security Division (NSCD) to oversee the Cyber Security National Tracking and Response Center to conduct analysis of threats and vulnerabilities, issue alerts and warnings, improve information sharing, and respond to major cyber security incidents.
• The Cyber Warning and Information Network (CWIN) is an early warning system for cyber attacks.
• In 2003, there was established a new Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC) to monitor and analyze threat information (composed of CIA, FBI, DOD, DHS, and Department of State officials)

Additionally, “The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) is a partnership between the Department of Homeland Security and the public and private sectors. Established in 2003 to protect the nation's Internet infrastructure, US-CERThttp://www.us-cert.gov/) coordinates defense against and responses to cyber attacks across the nation.

According to the CRS Report For Congress, in July 2002, The U.S. Naval War College hosted a three day seminar style war game called ‘Digital Pearl Harbor;” 79% of participants believed that a strategic cyber attack was likely within 2 years.

While the dreaded cyber attack did not occur as feared by the war game participants, the scenario of a devastating cyber attack remain a real possibility that we must be prepared to confront and defeat.

As in the movie Live Free or Die Hard, a major cyber attack on this country could quickly bring us to our knees, if successful. We have become a nation born and bred on computers and automation. I challenge you to think of many things that you do that does not in some way involve these. We have formed a day-to-day dependency on all things computers, as individuals and as a nation.

In our enterprise architecture, we must continue to focus on comprehensive security frameworks for our organizations that address technical, managerial, and operational security areas. While the Federal Enterprise Architecture treats Security as a cross-cutting area, I believe that Security should be its own perspective (even though it crosses all domains), so that it can be given focus as an area that each and every agency and organization addresses. We must do more than create alerts, warning, and reporting capabilities. We need both “computer vaccines” that can quickly cure and rid us from the encroachment of a cyber attack, as well as hunter-killer offensive capabilities that can paralyze any warring nation or terrorist organization that would dare to attack us.

I remember hearing a saying that once something is created, it is bound to eventually be used. So it was with the atomic bomb. So it will be with cyber warfare, and we must be prepared to defend this nation.

Fire Sale Attack and Enterprise Architecture

The Marines and Enterprise Architecture

Traditionally, the Marines are known for their rapid, hit hard capabilities. They are a highly mobile force trained to transport quickly on naval vessels and literally “take the beachhead.” However, with the war in Iraq, the Marines have assumed a more non-offensive deployment posture in “conducting patrols.”.

The Wall Street Journal, 12-13 January 2008, provides an interview with the Commandant of the Marines, General James T. Conway about the need for “the Corps to preserve its agility and its speed.”

“It’s the future of the Corps not its past that dominates Gen. Conway’s thoughts…that in order to fight this war, his Corps could be transformed into just another ‘land army’; and if that should happen, that it would lost the flexibility and expeditionary culture that has made it a powerful military force. The corps was built originally to live aboard ships and wade ashore to confront emerging threats far from home. It has long prided itself in being ‘first to the fight’ relying on speed, agility, and tenacity to win battles. It’s a small, offensive outfit that has its own attack aircraft.” However, in Iraq, the Marines are performing in a “static environment where there is no forward movement” Additionally, there is a feared culture change taking place, the marines “losing their connection to the sea while fighting in the desert” over an extended period of time.

When we think about enterprise architecture, most people in IT think about technology planning and transformation. However, EA is about both the business and technology sides of the enterprise. Change, process reengineering, and retooling can take place in either or both domains (business and technology). In terms of the Marines, we have altered their business side of the enterprise architecture roadmap. We have radically changed their business/mission functions and activities. They have gone from service and alignment to the long term mission needs of this nation for a rapid, mobile, offensive fighting force to accommodate the short term needs for additional troops to stabilize and conduct counter-insurgency and peace-keeping operations in Iraq. Whether the business functional change ends up hurting the culture and offensive capabilities of the Marines remains to be seen. However, it does raise the interesting question of how organizations should react and change their functions and processes in reaction to short term needs versus keeping to their long term roadmap and core competencies.

Of course, when it comes to the Marines, they must adapt and serve whatever the mission need and they have done so with distinction.

In regards to the long term affects, General Conway states: “Now, it is necessitated that we undergo these changes to the way we are constituted. But that’s OK. We made those adjustments. We’ll adjust back when the threat is different. But that’s adaptability…You create a force that you have to have at the time. But you don’t accept that as the new norm.”

As we know, in EA and other planning and transformation efforts, change for an organization—even the Marines—is not easy and resistances abound all around. How easy will it be for the Marines to return to their long term mission capabilities? And how should EA deal with short term business needs when they conflict with long term strategy for success?

The Marines and Enterprise Architecture

Web 2.0 and Enterprise Architecture

Web 2.0─”a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis, and folksonomies — which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing between users. The term gained currency following the first O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. Although the term suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but to changes in the ways software developers and end-users use webs."

“Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. They can build on the interactive facilities of "Web 1.0" to provide "Network as platform" computing, allowing users to run software-applications entirely through a browser. Users can own the data on a Web 2.0 site and exercise control over that data. These sites may have an "Architecture of participation" that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it. This stands in contrast to very old traditional websites, the sort which limited visitors to viewing and whose content only the site's owner could modify. Web 2.0 sites often feature a rich, user-friendly interface based on Ajax, Flex or similar rich media. The sites may also have social-networking aspects.”

“The concept of Web-as-participation-platform captures many of these characteristics. Bart Decrem, a founder and former CEO of Flock, calls Web 2.0 the "participatory Web" and regards the Web-as-information-source as Web 1.0.” (Wikipedia, including Tim O’Reilly and Dion Hinchcliffe)

From a User-centric EA perspective, Web 2.0 has implications for all perspectives of the architecture:

• Performance—enterprise’s results of operations will be enhanced by the ability to do more (in terms of automation, applications, and collaboration) over the web.
• Business—they way organizations conduct their process and activities will be simpler and more collaborative through a more user-friendly web and participatory web (for example, many business are developing in-house blogs, wikis, and web portals, like SharePoint.).
• Information—the web is transformed from a source of information to a mechanism for controlling, updating, and even analyzing information (for example, viewing financial information, updating account information, and running portfolio analysis tools).
• Services—applications are available on demand on the web and are available as interoperable services rather than monolithic stovepipe systems (i.e. SOA); additionally, user can participate in the development of the applications themselves (for example, Linux).
• Technology—while Web 2.0 itself is not based on new technologies, the new participatory uses of the web are spurring technology advances in accessing the web and its more profound social networking and collaborative capabilities (for example with mobile media devices such as PDAs and cell phones).
• Security—with greater user participation on the web and the ability to control data and applications, there of course is greater security vulnerabilities (for example, identity theft).

Architects need to recognize and build the power of Web 2.0 and its participatory and collaboration capabilities into their target architectures and transition plans.

Web 2.0 and Enterprise Architecture

Branding and Enterprise Architecture

User-centric EA is concerned with establishing a baseline and target architecture and transition plan for the organization. This endeavor includes everything from performance results, business function and processes, information requirements, systems and technologies, and how we secure it all. But how about including the organization’s brand and reputation in defining the architecture, especially in targeting and planning for a stronger reputation with customers and stakeholders?

The Wall Street Journal, 9 January 2008, has an article titled, “As Economy Slows, Reputation Takes on Added Meaning.”

Organization’s brands can be an asset or liability, based on how well it has been planned and managed and “cared for and fed.”

‘‘Mending reputations can’t be done overnight’ says Kasper Nielson, the Reputation Institute’s managing partner.” As we do in EA, comparing the current to the target architecture and developing a transition plan, Mr. Nielson “takes companies through a seven-step analysis of what’s causing their reputations to suffer, followed by a close look at which constituencies—employees, customers or investors—are affected and what they are seeking. Then it’s time for the hard work of figuring out what aspects of company conduct are helpful and what needs to be fixed.”

Many organizations only care about their technology and business alignment after they run into problems with poor IT investment decisions or programs that are failing or falling behind because of inadequate automation and technological sophistication. Then the organization wants a quick fix for an enterprise architecture and IT governance, yesterday! Similarly Mr. Neilson states about reputation, “A lot of companies care about reputation only after a crisis hits. Then they want to know, can you fix things? They don’t integrate reputation into their everyday processes. That’s dangerous. You have to do a lot of things right to build up a reputation platform.”

“‘Reputation is invisible, but it’s an enormously powerful force,” says Alan Towers, a New York advisor to companies concerned about reputation issues. He encourages CEO’s themselves to assume the role of chief reputation officer.” If brand and reputation is important enough for the CEO to take the lead role, it is certainly important enough to be considered a factor in building an viable enterprise architecture that will consider not only a company’s technology, but also how it is perceived to customers and stakeholders.

Some examples come to mind in terms of applying EA to organizational branding:

1. Do we want to organization to be perceived as a technological leader or laggard?
2. Is the organization viewed as having strong governance, including IT governance?
3. Do stakeholders perceive that the organizations is spending its resources prudently and controlling its investment in new IT?
4. Do stakeholders see the company as customer-centric, providing the latest in customer service systems, sales ordering and tracking, payment processing, website information and transaction processing, online help and other IT enabled user tools?
5. Is technology seen as integral to the future of the organization or a sidebar or worse yet a distraction?

I once heard someone say that “perception is reality”. So, even if the organization is managing their technology and business alignment, if its stakeholders don’t perceive that to be the case, then the enterprise is not being effective with its constituents. The organization must factor stakeholder perceptions and its organizational reputation into the development of its target architecture and transition plan. Brand and reputation does not just materialize, but rather needs to be planned and managed to. EA can help to perform this role.

Branding and Enterprise Architecture

Taxonomy, Ontology, and Enterprise Architecture

The terms Taxonomy and Ontology are frequently confused; here are some basic definitions:

“Taxonomy is the practice and science of classification…Taxonomies, or taxonomic schemes, are composed of taxonomic units known as taxa (singular taxon), or kinds of things that are arranged frequently in a hierarchical structure, typically related by subtype-supertype relationships, also called parent-child relationships. In such a subtype-supertype relationship the subtype kind of thing has by definition the same constraints as the supertype kind of thing plus one or more additional constraints…Originally the term taxonomy referred to the classifying of living organisms (now known as alpha taxonomy); however, the term is now applied in a wider, more general sense and now may refer to a classification of things, as well as to the principles underlying such a classification. Almost anything — animate objects, inanimate objects, places, concepts, events, properties, and relationships — may be classified according to some taxonomic scheme.”

Ontology─ “In both computer science and information science, an ontology is a data model that represents a set of concepts within a domain and the relationships between those concepts. It is used to reason about the objects within that domain. Ontologies are used in artificial intelligence, the Semantic Web, software engineering, biomedical informatics and information architecture as a form of knowledge representation about the world or some part of it. Ontologies generally describe:

• Individuals: the basic or "ground level" objects
• Classes: sets, collections, or types of objects
• Attributes: properties, features, characteristics, or parameters that objects can have and share
• Relations: ways that objects can be related to one another
• Events: the changing of attributes or relations”

“If you did not define attributes for the concepts you would have either a taxonomy or a controlled vocabulary. These are useful, but are not considered true ontologies.” (Wikipedia)

What is the real difference between taxonomies and ontologies?

A Taxonomy is a hierarchical representation of a specific data set…Taxonomies are useful in software for navigation, in fact Amazon.com does something like this. You select "Books", and you can then select a subcategory, and drill down from there.

An Ontology is a set of concepts and the relationships between them. Concepts are nouns, and relationships are verbs. Two commonly used relationships are "is a" and "has a". Concepts have attributes, which are things that describe the concept. For instance, there is a concept "Retirement Account". An IRA is a retirement account, and a 401(k) is a retirement account. An IRA "has a" balance. A balance is itself a concept, that has a "date" attribute and an amount attribute. In computer science, these things are relevant for areas such as search and text analysis…

That is the basic difference: ontology defines concepts and how they relate, and a taxonomy is a hierarchical breakdown of items.”

(http://koolplaces.blogspot.com/2007/02/so-what-is-difference-between-taxonomy.html)

How are taxonomy and ontology used in EA?

For User-centric EA, taxonomies are useful for categorizing the elements of the enterprise into a useful and usable architecture. For example, in the business architecture, we use a taxonomy to classify our organization’s functions into core mission, mission support, and business support categories. The taxonomy adds value by providing context and depth to the information.

Additionally, ontology is necessary in enterprise architecture for identifying the relationships between elements in the architecture and for building the information repository in a relational database. For example, Systems are related to the business functions they support as well as to the underlying technologies that make up the system. The relationships between the perspectives of the architecture (performance, business, information, services, technology, security) and their elements is actually where core value from the information is derived from. Each perspective of the architecture has important information, but it is in relating the information, that deeper analysis becomes possible. For example, in a straight taxonomy of systems and applications, we may understand what systems and how many the organization has; however, when we relate those systems, for example, to functional areas, then we can see which functions have redundant systems or gaps and which are mission critical systems based on the functions they support.

The use of both taxonomy and ontology is important and necessary to structures the enterprise architecture and to analyzing it and provide meaningful findings and recommendations.

Taxonomy, Ontology, and Enterprise Architecture

Unmanned Vehicles and Enterprise Architecture

Cars that drive themselves, fiction or a soon to be reality?

General Motors believe that new technology enabling unmanned vehicles is the key to their business future; so GM is setting their sights on this as their target architecture for their turnaround.

The Wall Street Journal, 7 January 2008, reports that GM’s new target architecture is to develop unmanned vehicles by 2018.

Chairman and Chief Executive of GM, Rick Wagoner’s “vision of he not-too-distant future, vehicles crammed with cameras, sensors, and radar and navigation technology will be able to brake and accelerate on their own, avoid accidents, and spot congestion.”

Larry Burns, Chief Technologist at GM states “we see vehicles going from being largely mechanical o becoming more and more electronic.”

“Pushing the technological envelope is a key element of Mr. Wagoner’s strategy for turning GM around and positioning the company to compete with Toyota Motor Corp. in the long term. He is convinced being the first with game-changing innovations is the solutions to one of GM’s fundamental problems—battered image.”

While GM’s quality problems have mostly been addressed, consumers still perceive GM to be a stodgy company and have not come back to buy.

Mark LaNeve, GM’s U.S. sales and marketing chief said that “GM believes it must challenge Toyota on technology leadership in order to reverse the negative perceptions of GM and to win back customers who have defected to foreign brands…Toyota right now clearly has a leadership position on reputation, financial results, and many other measures.”

Will this new architecture strategy work for GM?

I wouldn’t bet on it for a number of reasons:

• Toyota is not standing still while GM retools; in fact, Toyota is already on the leading edge with the Prius gas-electic hybrid, and the Lexus luxury sedan that can parallel park itself.
• If GM doesn’t deliver on this technology promise, they will have shot themselves in the foot; it’s one thing to be perceived as behind the 8 ball and it’s another thing to prove that you can’t deliver on your commitments.
• GM has not clearly articulated the business requirement for unmanned vehicles in the consumer market; we are not dealing with the need for unmanned aerial vehicles in fighting the enemy in Iraq.
• GM’s strategy, as presented, is not coherent; they talk about getting ahead with technology, but have not addressed their inferior position on other issues such as financial results and other measures that GM’s Mark LaNeve acknowledged.

From a User-centric EA perspective, GM has still not caught on to the essence of the Japanese concept of Kaizen—continuous improvement and user-centricity. GM is looking at trying to steal the technology mantle from Toyota instead of incremental and evolutionary improvement time and time again. It’s a philosophy you live by, not one that you steal.

Unmanned Vehicles and Enterprise Architecture

McDonalds and Enterprise Architecture

User-centric EA is focused on meeting the architecture needs of the users and stakeholders.

The Wall Street Journal, 7 January 2008, reports that McDonald’s is changing course and installing specialty coffee bars like Starbucks.

The question is whether this new target architecture for McDonalds is meeting the needs of their consumers or are they simply copying Starbucks business model (but it’s wrong for McDonald’s clientele)?

“McDonald’s is setting to poach Starbucks customers with the biggest addition to its menu in 30 years. Starting this year, the company’s nearly 14,000 U.S. locations will install coffee bars, with ‘baristas’ serving cappuccinos, lattes, mochas, and the frappe, similar to Starbucks ice-blended Frappuccino.”

McDonalds and Starbucks, which at one time seemed to be in completely different market segments are now going head-to-head. “McDonald’s upgraded its drip coffee and its interior, while Starbucks added drive-through windows and hot breakfast sandwiches.”

McDonald’s is expecting to add $1 billion in revenue (to their annual sales of $21.6 billion) from this coffee program and the addition of smoothies and bottled beverages. “McDonald’s is entering the sixth year of a successful turnaround, while Starbucks has begun struggling after years of strong earning and stock growth.”

So it seems like McDonald’s knows what they’re doing right now.

What’s driving the McDonalds-Starbucks convergence?

“Convenience has become the dominant force shaping the food-service industry. Consumers who are unwilling to cross the street to get coffee or make a left turn to grab lunch have pushed all food purveyors to adapt the strategies of fast-food chains.”

“McDonald’s executives say they aren’t launching espresso drinks to go after Starbucks, but instead to cater to consumers’ growing interest in specialty drinks.”

McDonald’s has realized that “they were missing out on the fastest-growing parts of the beverage business. Data showed that soda sales [McDonald’s specializes in Coke] had flattened while sales of specialty coffee and smoothies were growing at double-digit rates outside McDonald’s. Customers were buying food at McDonald’s, then going to convenience stores to get bottled energy drinks, sports drinks, and tea, as well as sodas by Coke competitors.”

Finally, McDonald’s has done extensive research and testing on the introduction of the coffee bars, including “three hour interviews where they videotaped the customers talking about their coffee-buying habits. The researchers got in the cars of the customers and drove with them to their favorite coffee place and then took them to McDonalds and had them try the espresso drinks.”

McDonald’s new strategy is well researched and data driven, and their identification of user needs and trends, like convenience and specialty drinks, is sound and appears like a solid user-centric EA target and plan.

However, could this strategy still backfire for McDonald’s?

Yes, “it could slow down operations and alienate customers who come to McDonalds for cheap, simple fare rather than theatrics. Franchisees say that many of their customers don’t know what a latte is.”

Will the new McDonald’s target architecture succeed?

Yes and no. While McDonald’s is off to a very good start—in February, “Consumer Reports rated the chain’s drip coffee [the precursor to their new coffee bars] as better-tasting than Starbucks,”—yes, I know this hard to believe, for me too—it seems unlikely that McDonald’s can easily emulate the Starbucks ambiance of style, comfort, and hip that their stores offer. Let’s face it, you like to hang out in Starbucks, but you barely want to touch the skeevy environment in McDonalds.

McDonalds and Enterprise Architecture

CEOs and COOs – Enterprise Architecture has Elements of Both

A Chief Executive Officer (CEO), or chief executive, is the highest-ranking corporate officer, administrator, corporate administrator, executive, or executive officer, in charge of total management of a corporation, company, organization or agency.

A Chief Operating Officer or Chief Operations Officer (COO) is a corporate officer responsible for managing the day-to-day activities of the corporation. The COO is one of the highest ranking members of an organization, monitoring the daily operations of the company and reporting to the Board of Directors. The COO is usually an executive or senior vice president. (Wikipedia)

The Wall Street Journal, 22 October 2003, reports in an article entitled “A Different Animal Seeks the No. 1 Post; Often It’s Not No. 2” that the CEO and COO are very different “animals.”

CEOs have the vision and strategize; COOs manage day-to-day operations.

• “The very talents that make a great chief operating officer—like finicky attention to detail—can get in the way when you are in the top seat. CEO’s are supposed to strategize, not micromanage.”

CEOs are outer-directed; COOs are inward-focused.

• COOs “jobs focus them inward on the company’s problems, while CEOs spend much of their time convincing outsiders of the company’s strengths.”

CEOs function in the public eye; COOs play behind the scenes.

• “CEOs talk about getting acclimated to the limelight. Chief operating officers say they are used to working behind the scenes and submerging their egos.”

CEOs are the company cheerleaders; COOs are more gruff and forbidding.

• “It’s vital that a CEO consistently project a positive attitude to help keep up morale. In the No. 2 role, it was OK ‘to be more curmudgeonly.’”

User-centric EA is a hybrid of the CEO and the COO:

• Functionally—EA is more like the CEO, in that it is strategic-focused and visionary in terms of new technologies, business process improvement, and setting the target state and transition plan.
• Directedness—EA has elements of the CEO and COO. Like the COO, it looks internally to establish the as-is and to-be states of the organization based on capabilities, competencies, and strategies. However, like the CEO it looks externally to glean best practices and benchmarks.
• Publicity—EA is like the CEO in being in the corporate public eye, advocating for enhanced IT planning and sound governance based on architecture principles and informed decision-making. At the same time, EA is like the COO, working behind the scenes with leaders and subject matter experts to capture pertinent information, analyze, categorize, and serve it up to the end-users.
• Cheerleading—EA is like the CEO, a cheerleader for mission execution and results of operation, business process improvement, information sharing and accessibility, applications interoperability, technology standards, and confidentiality, integrity, availability, and privacy. EA is also like the COO gruff and to the point; taking EA information and using it to support incremental and transformative change initiatives.

CEOs and COOs – Enterprise Architecture has Elements of Both

GovNet and Enterprise Architecture

In Government Computer News, 10 December 2007, Edward Meagher, the deputy chief information officer at the Department of the Interior (DOI) asks why the federal government doesn’t have one IT infrastructure. He states:

“Despite the huge costs and inefficiencies, we still cling to the notion that each department and agency is so unique and special that we each have to create and maintain our own infrastructure to support our mission area.

I am convinced that a day will come when the billions of dollars we spend each year on each department’s stovepiped IT infrastructure will not only be viewed as incredibly wasteful but also incredibly stupid. It will be seen as the equivalent of having allowed each department to drill its own water wells, generate its own electricity and treat its own sewage.

The notion of a true “GovNet” has been around for many years, but I believe the time is fast approaching when we will agree on the terms and conditions and get about the business of designing, building, converting to, operating and managing a secure, unclassified IP network that will deliver all IP services to federal civilian agencies.”

What has the federal government done so far to advance the idea of one IT infrastructure?

An IT Infrastructure Line of Business (ITILOB) has been established as a Presidential Initiative as part of the President’s Management Agenda for e-Government (eGov).

The vision of ITILOB is:

• “An effective and efficient IT infrastructure enabling government-wide customer-centric services.”

The goals of ITILOB are:

• “Infrastructure enables interoperability of functions across agencies and programs.
• Optimize the infrastructure to enable collaboration within and across agencies, sectors, and government levels.
• Efficiencies realized from infrastructure investments will be recapitalized in support of agency mission.
• Infrastructure investment governed to achieve agency mission and government-wide goals.” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/OMB/egov/c-6-9-ioi.html)

Are we on the road to success with ITILOB?

The ITILOB links to a related site http://www.itinfrastructure.gov/. It is not clear what the relationship between IT Infrastructure LOB and IT Optimization Line of Business (IOI) are. However, the IT Optimization LOB states that “The Infrastructure Optimization Initiative (IOI) puts in place a government-wide approach for measuring and optimizing agency infrastructures to enhance cost efficiency/service level and better enable core agency missions and customer-centric services. While the IOI provides the standardized framework for comparing performance across the federal government, departments/agencies remain responsible for choosing appropriate strategies for optimizing their commodity infrastructure cost efficiency/service level metrics. The IOI does not mandate how agencies optimize their infrastructure – it will provide tools for agencies to leverage.”

So, while it seems that the vision of one IT infrastructure or GovNet is a noble one and probably one worth pursuing, if done right; the mandate of the existing IT Optimization LOB does not go far enough to actually mandate usage by federal agencies. This makes this initiative rather weak and unlikely to succeed, in its current form.

Are there similar initiatives in the federal government?

DHS has an Infrastructure Transformation Program (ITP) that has been working for a number of years now at “consolidating and centralizing control of its data centers, e-mail systems and help-desk services, and sensitive but unclassified video communication networks under three directorates.” (Government Computer News, 22 August 2005)

Is this DHS infrastructure consolidation perhaps, a first step, where each major federal department (like DHS), starts by consolidating its agencies, and then moves on toward an overall federal consolidation. Possibly, this two phased approach would give the overall federal consolidation a greater chance for success.

Meagher at DOI states: “Congress, the administration, the federal bureaucracies and the vendor community must come together to tackle the impediments and move rapidly to create a well-managed, 21st-century equivalent of the Eisenhower-era National Highway System.” Will a federal IT infrastructure be as successful?

GovNet and Enterprise Architecture

Blu-ray and HD DVD and Enterprise Architecture

User-centric EA focuses on providing useful and usable information and services to end-users and in satisfying user requirements.

In the high definition format wars, the sense of User-centric EA seems to have been lost, as Blu-ray and HD DVD has been set as the new target architecture for optical disc formats. As Stephanie Prange, Home Media Magazine, editor in chief states, “the battle has confused consumers…[and] many people don’t [even] see the need for high-definition anyway.

What is Blu-ray and HD DVD?

• “Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD), is the name of a next-generation optical disc format jointly developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), a group of the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer and media manufacturers (including Apple, Dell, Hitachi, HP, JVC, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK and Thomson). The format was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video (HD), as well as storing large amounts of data. The format offers more than five times the storage capacity of traditional DVDs and can hold up to 25GB on a single-layer disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc. This extra capacity combined with the use of advanced video and audio codecs will offer consumers an unprecedented HD experience…seven of the eight major movie studios (Disney, Fox, Warner, Paramount, Sony, Lionsgate and MGM) have released movies in the Blu-ray format and six of them (Disney, Fox, Sony, Warner, Lionsgate and MGM) are releasing their movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format.” (http://www.blu-ray.com/info/)

• “HD DVD delivers true high definition video content on the next generation optical disc format approved by the DVD Forum. With up to six times the resolution of DVD, HD DVDhttp://www.tacp.toshiba.com/hddvd/) offers a superior video experience.” (

So what is the conflict between Blu-ray and HD DVDs?

“HD DVD is currently in a ‘format war’ with rival format Blu-ray Disc, to determine which of the two formats will become the leading carrier for high-definition content to consumers.” As of November 27, 2007, 344 HD DVD titles have been released in the USA. As of November 25, 2007, 415 titles had been released on Blu-ray Disc in the United States (Wikipedia). Not only have more titles been released in Blue-ray, but Blue-rays have outsold HD DVDs by 2-to-1 in the U.S. last year. (Reuters)

On 4 January 2008, Warner Brothers studio announced that “it would exclusively release high-definition DVDs in Sony’s Blu-ray format, a big blow to Toshiba’s rival HD DVD technology.” (Reuters) Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox and Disney have earlier done the same. Of the big American distributors, only Paramount and Universal Pictures continue to release for HD DVD. (Wikipedia)

So for now, Blu-ray is looking to be the winner in the HD format war.

How are consumers being affected?

Consumers are asking is whether they will have to dump and replace all their DVDs (something that the movie studios are hoping for)─this is similar to all the record collections that went in the trash after CDs were launched. I found the question online with a favorable answer for consumers.

"Will Blu-ray be backwards compatible with DVD?

Yes, several leading consumer electronics companies (including Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Pioneer, Sharp and LG) have already demonstrated products that can read/write CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs using a BD/DVD/CD compatible optical head, so you don't have to worry about your existing DVD collection becoming obsolete. In fact, most of the Blu-ray players coming out will support upscaling of DVDs to 1080p/1080i, so your existing DVDDVD, the format is far too popular to not be supported. The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) expects every Blu-ray Disc device to be backward compatible with DVDs.” (http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/) collection will look even better than before. While it's up to each manufacturer to decide if they want to make their products backwards compatible with

What is wrong with the new high-definition format release of Blu-ray and HD DVD from a User-centric EA perspective?

While the new Blu-ray and HD DVD technologies may be a leap ahead from a technology perspective, the introduction of these products has been dismal from a User-centric EA perspective. Consumers have been caught up in the technology tug-of-war between these high definition formats─similar to the way consumers were ping-ponged between the old VHS and Beta formats. Additionally, the marketing and communications to consumers of why they need Blue-ray or HD DVD has been ineffective if not more or less absent. Finally, aside from the studio and technology companies wanting to make more money on replacements of DVDs, it has been unclear whether there is even user demand for the new format. This has been another “technology for technology’s sake” initiative by Sony and Toshiba, rather than true business needs driving technology.

Blu-ray and HD DVD and Enterprise Architecture

Immortality and Enterprise Architecture

In the book The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker, the author states: “Among all the animals, we alone are conscious of the fact that we will die, and we are obliged to spend our lives with knowledge of the paradox that while we may be capable of G-d-like spiritual transcendence beyond our bodies, our existence is dependent on a finite structure of flesh and bone that will ultimately wither away and disappear.” Becker believes that we deny the reality of death by pushing the fear of it into our deep unconscious.

Gareth Morgan, in the book Images of Organization, explains how the denial of death manifests itself not only in the individual, but also in the organization’s “quest for immortality.” “In creating organizations, we create structures of activity that are larger than life and that often survive for generations. And in becoming identified with such organizations, we ourselves find meaning and permanence.”

People and organizations want to “preserve the myth of immortality” by “creating a world that can be perceived as objective and real.” “This illusion of realness helps to disguise our unconscious fear that everything is highly vulnerable and transitory.”

How does EA deal with the “myth of immortality” of the organization?

Enterprise architecture is a forward looking discipline. EA takes the current state of the organization and develops a target and transition plan. However, when EA looks forward, does it acknowledge the ultimate mortality of the organization or does it seek to perpetuate the organization indefinitely?

Of course, as employees of the organization, our job is to do the best for the organization we work for: to plan and work for its survival, and more so, its growth, maturation, and ultimate competitiveness.

However, if as architects, we see that the organization will not be competitive and survive in its current form, then we need to acknowledge that reality. As architects, we are in a somewhat unique position to help remake and transform the organization so that it can live on and prosper. We can do this by envisioning a new state and planning for changes in what the organization does and/or how they do it. We can do this through process reengineering, new technologies, or a more drastic “organization makeover” in terms of a new/revised mission, strategy, leadership, and so on. Unlike a human being, whose life is fleeting, an organization can either die or be reborn again to live and compete another day.

Immortality and Enterprise Architecture

Creating Competitive Advantage and Enterprise Architecture

Planning endeavors, such as enterprise architecture, typically help drive competitive advantage for the organization.

In the book, Making Change Happen, by Matejka and Murphy, the authors summarize Porter’s model for competitive advantage, developed at Harvard University.

To achieve competitive advantage, an organization typically follows one of five strategies based on differentiation or scale:

1. Differentiate based on superior customer service—“provide such excellent customer service that it results in strong customer loyalty. These satisfied customers not only provide repeat business, but also enthusiastically refer your business to others.” The overall strategy is encapsulated by the slogan, “the customer is always right.” User-centric EA is an excellent enabler for customer service orientation, since the architecture captures lots of information on internal and external factors, analyzes, catalogues, and serves up this information to end-users to enhance decision-making and thereby provide superior customer service. For example, the EA can identify performance metrics such as customer satisfaction, quality, timeliness, and so on and apply business, information, and technology resources to achieve superior customer service.
2. Differentiation based on superior products—“build a better mousetrap…make products and services that are clearly better than your competitors from a feature and function perspective.” The goal is to command a price premium through innovation, superior product and service design. EA supports the development of superior products through the use of emerging or specialized technologies that can give the enterprise’s products an edge in their design and development. The EA identifies that baseline and target architectures and transition plan, and can use these to direct innovation and superior product development.
3. Differentiation based on niche market space—“identify and focus on smaller market segments and produce products and services that appeal to those unique markets…the goal to provide a more informed, personal touch that make customers feel special, because they identify with the image associated with the product or service.” The customers in essence feel special and become members of an affinity group. User-centric EA provides for strong requirements management capability, whereby the requirements of niche customers can be identified and business and technical solutions can be deployed to satisfy their unique needs.
   
4. Scale based on cost orientation—“become the low cost producer!” Common strategies to achieve low cost include: “achieving economies of scale (volume production); installing efficient (and volume discounted) supply chain management; continually improving production processes (including lean production techniques that eliminate waste); and outsourcing non-core competencies.” Here, the strategy is to “pursue continuous improvement and new technology.” EA can facilitate the investment in new technologies or more efficient technologies that reduce cost or make possible mass production and the attainment of economies of scale.
   
5. Scale based on market dominance—“be the 800-pound gorilla.” Strategies here include: “acquisitions, joint ventures, exclusive supplier relationships, new product development, new market entries, warranties or guarantees, integrated sales and IT structures.” The strategy here is to “keep growing market share.” EA is vital in identifying gaps that can be filled through strategic M&A, and in integrating disparate enterprises, consolidating redundant IT systems, developing interoperability between merging or partner organizations, and providing standards and governance for these large scale enterprises.

User-centric enterprise architecture is critical to achieving Porter’s vision of competitive advantage, driving organizational change, and achieving a winning business strategy.

Creating Competitive Advantage and Enterprise Architecture

Customization and Enterprise Architecture

While User-centric EA seeks to provide useful and useable products and services to the end-user, the heavy customization of major application systems to meet user needs is a huge mistake. Major customization of IT systems is a killer: it is a killer of the application and a killer of the underlying business processes.

What do I mean? When you heavily customize an application system (and I am not talking about changing settings), you do the following:

• You greatly increase the implementation cost of the system, since you have now added all sorts of modifications to the system.
• You greatly increase you maintenance burden, because new versions of the software often will need to be recoded.
• You hamper the ability of the system to interoperate with other systems that it was designed to work with (even when it is built with open standards), since you have tinkered and tweaked away at it.
• You missed one of the biggest opportunities to improve and reengineer your business processes; instead of aligning your business processes with those identified (by usually hundreds, if not thousands of other organizations) as best practices and written into the software, you have made your enterprise the odd man out and overwrote the best practices in the application system with your specific way of doing things. That’s a big no-no.
  

Let’s face it, most (and there are exceptions to every rule) organizations at their fundamental “business” (not mission) practices are often close to identical. Areas like finance, human capital, and even IT and considered utilities to the organization. These areas are often run in ways to exploit enterprise solutions for large organizations (for example, one timekeeping system, one payroll system, or one general ledger system ) and these functions are the first to be looked at for integration and downsizing on the corporate side during mergers and acquisitions.

Instead of insisting that your processes are so different, see why others are doing it another way and whether there is merit in it, before you go and customize and chip-away at the system—you may be doing yourself more harm than good. Generally (and there are exceptions to every rule), you’re better off changing business processes to meet widely used and verified software.

Customization and Enterprise Architecture

Change Management and Enterprise Architecture

“Change denotes the transition that occurs between one state to another…[There are two primary] “cultural attitudes towards change [either]:

• Change is random, lacking determinism or teleology, [or]


• Change is cyclical, and one expects circumstances to recur. This concept, often seen as related to Eastern world views such as Hinduism or Buddhism, nevertheless had great popularity in Europe in the Middle ages, and often appears in depictions of The Wheel of Fortune.

Change [does]...require organisms and organizations to adapt. Changes in society have been observed through slow, gradual modifications in mindsets and beliefs as well as through dramatic action (see revolutions). History is one of the tools used to document change.” (Wikipedia)

In the book, Making Change Happen, by Matejka and Murphy, the authors show how the United States is well suited to handle change, but also why we must be vigilant not to let our prosperity lead us into a lull.
“Since its birth as a nation, the United States has consistently been on the cutting edge of change. Why? Immigration, invention, and the belief in a better tomorrow…[we] have created the most diverse nation on the face of planet Earth…immigration has led to the invention. Each group brings different values, cultures, ideas, and prospectuses and is motivated to achieve the American dream. [Finally,] our belief in possibilities—a better tomorrow—has further stimulated change. This belief in what could be is an optimistic, creative approach to life itself.”
Ultimately, in our diversity lies our strength!
So what’s the issue?

“Evan a country such as the United States, generally more comfortable with change than other nations, has occasionally seen its collective organizations caught off-guard, dwelling in the past, asleep at the switch!”
Here’s one telling example:

“…a former member of the board of directors of Motorola (the leader in the cell phone industry at the time). At one board meeting, a board member walked in holding a small cell phone and exclaimed, ‘who the heck is No-ki-a and where are they? Sounds Japanese!’ When told that Nokia was a new competitor, located in Finland, the board member remarked, ‘Finland? How can that be? There’s nothing in Finland but ice and snow!’”
This is the new marketplace, “where firms you never heard of, from places you aren’t familiar with, can suddenly appear on your radar screens one day and steal your competitive advantage the next.”
So from a User-centric enterprise architecture perspective, there are two major imperatives here:

• Information is key to survival—“The way to stay afloat now is to go into a ‘heads up, sensing, searching, sorting anticipating, adjusting, survival mode.’ Pay attention! Scan the environment. Gather information quickly and process it even faster. Your life depends on it. As external changes accelerate and competitive advantages shift, leading change becomes an organizational imperative.”
• There must be an imperative to change—“The true paradox of ‘success and change.’…We must learn to change when we are performing successfully. But success makes us cocky and content. Change is the antithesis of the much-loved maxim ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!’ First organizations must be willing to change. But willingness depends on the belief that a change is necessary and that the proposal is the right change.” What makes change even more difficult is that strategic change is the enemy of short term efficiency (and profits).

In enterprise architecture, the architects are the change agents and the architecture is the roadmap for strategic change. The EA provides the information for the organization on internal and external factors that enable it to understand the nature, intensity, and impact of the oncoming change, and to take action to adapt, transform, survive, and even thrive. Further, EA is often maligned for shaking things up and there is often significant resistance to EA and change efforts; however, EA is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing, which is helping the organization change strategically, even when things are going well, and where operational efficiency may possibly ‘suffer’ somewhat. Strategic change is for the long term survival of the organization and this needs ongoing care and feeding to be successful, and not just an adrenaline shot when the heart of the organization is already in cardiac arrest.

Change Management and Enterprise Architecture

Ruminations and Enterprise Architecture

The Wall Street Journal, 23 October 2007 states: “at work there are countless things you should and could and would have said. But the tormenting fact is, you didn’t. So hemmed in by forces such as the fragility of reputations, your dependence on a paycheck, or even just slow-footedness, you re-enact one of the countless little workplace defeats in the confines of your head.”

Ruminations—“the process of chewing over old conversations.” This is sort of like 20-20 hindsight, again and again; thinking or saying to yourself, “If only…”

How often do you replay incidents over and over again in your mind? Probably, the more devastated, hurt, or taken aback you were by an incident, the more you hit the replay button!

Apparently, the more people ruminate, the more they let things fester, the more anger builds up in them—until they “go postal” or something crazy like that..

Perhaps they are angry at those who slighted them or possibly, they are just angry at themselves—at how ineffectually they think they handled things.

Fortunately, “cognitive tasks can distract us from ourselves.” Hence, crossword puzzles, sudoku, even needlework can take our minds off our troubles. Related to this, you can actually ruminate so much that you essentially “habituate” (or bore) yourself out of it.

In any case, you cannot just say anything you want to at work, even to respond to someone else's provocations. At work your interpersonal relationships are critical to your being able to get your job done.

In an information economy, most of our jobs are heavily dependent on having, strong interpersonal skills. As enterprise architect practitioners, this is certainly the case. Enterprise architects work with leaders, business and technical subject matter experts, and stakeholders, up, down, and across the organization as well as outside of it (to capture information, bring in best practices and trends, conduct benchmarking, and develop policies and practices to share information and build solutions to enable mission execution).

To be a good enterprise architect, you have to have great interpersonal and communication skills. Moreover, you’ve got to have a thick skin (like an elephant or better yet, like an Abrams tank!) The point is not to let people’s slights get to you, not to ruminate about things, and certainly not to get angry or frustrated. You’ve got to take it in stride and keep focused on the mission.

In a leadership class, I remember learning an important lesson: Managers usually incorrectly hire for technical skills, and then try to train people in interpersonal skills. Instead, the experts contend, managers should hire for interpersonal skills (the harder and more important) and train for technical skills.

Ruminations and Enterprise Architecture

Zen and Enterprise Architecture

Zen believes in the transience of everything in this world and seeks enlightenment or an understanding of the way of the world for its followers.

The Book of Zen, by Eric Chaline, states that “nothing we can see, hear, or touch in the world has any permanent existence. It will of necessity, pass away.” This is the concept of “emptiness.”

Emptiness means that “all forms or appearances in the universe” are constantly changing and transient. For example, a simple chair was once “a piece of wood from a tree.” And over time, the “wear and tear on the chair will change its appearance and structure: losing some of its wood and gaining deposits of dirt. In time, the chair will break, and the wood will decay, rot, and finally fall to dust.”

This is similar to how the Torah/Bible describes the lifecycle of mankind, “for dust thou art and unto dust shall thou return.” We are simply passing through this world.

Similarly, in the Jewish high holy day prayers of Yom Kippur, we recognize and contrast G-d’s kingship and everlasting permanence with the earthly transient world of mankind which is likened to “a broken shard, withering grass, a fading flower, a passing shade, a dissipating cloud, a blowing wind, flying dust, and a fleeting dream.” The point here is not to bemoan our mortality, but to rejoice in G-d’s eternalness.

Like in Judaism, Zen and other religions and belief systems, User-centric EA seeks to understand the “as-is” nature of things, in this case, the organization, and it seeks to reconcile the “emptiness” and transiency of the current state with the necessity for adaptation and metamorphosis to its future state. EA recognizes that the way things are today and not the way they will be tomorrow; all factors inside an organization as well as the external factors affecting the organization are constantly in a state of flux. Therefore, the state of the organization is temporary and the organization must adapt or die. EA seeks organizational change and transformation through the development of a new “to-be” state along with a transition plan to get there.

In that sense, EA is a form of enlightenment for the organization and its transformation to a new state of being.

Zen and Enterprise Architecture