Re organisation-out versus outside-in, what we’re doing here is actually a mixture of both. For example, I used organisation-out right at the beginning, to go back through my own work-history, so as to help identify my probable extended-enterprise; and I used it again in the earlier part of this work, to identify my current market. The huge danger with organisation-out – especially if we use it as our default – is that in effect it always starts from the as-is and/or as-was, which really puts the blinders on re broader possibilities. If you then couple that with the tendency of organisation-out to become organisation-centric, you have the makings of a strategy for ‘change’ that doesn’t actually allow any change at all. On the other hand, going only outside-in leads not so much to Blue Ocean Strategy as blue-sky thinking – in other words so idealised that it’s no actual use at all. Hence the need for balance.

The whole point of these two layers (row-0 ‘Enterprise’ and row-1 ‘Context’) is that they are larger-scope than the organisation itself. By intent, organisation-centric thinking will not work here: to make it work – in the sense of making sense at all – we’re forced to think wider. It forces us to create a space around the existing organisation, within which change is possible. It forces us to think long-term, to think in the abstract, to think of a scope larger than ourselves. And that’s really important in any architecture.

I’m well aware that that kind of abstract-thinking is very alien to a lot of people, especially the “prove it, here, now” folks (those who default to Myers-Briggs ‘ESTJ’, the most dominant mindset amongst middle-managers) – it’s way outside of the natural comfort-zone for that mindset. But unless we do establish these topmost levels, there’s nothing to anchor the rest of the work below. (You can always flip the layers over, of course, with row-0 as the subsoil foundations.) Once we’ve done this part, we can indeed move on to the more ‘normal’ organisation-out views. But we must do this first: we can’t afford to skip over it, or throw in some meaningless chunk of marketing-drivel as a ‘substitute’ here.

Getting the right balance here, between organisation-out and outside-in, is absolutely crucial for longer-term success and to critical success-factors such as sustainable agility. So the process matters here, the discipline matters – and yes, as we can see, it’s a lot harder than it looks at first glance.

Time to move on to the next stage of the work, anyway.

I think we are both coming from different perspectives. Movement trends and business building. I think they are both valid tests. I go from organization out. You are going from outside influences in. I think this is very interesting. I don’t think either of us are different from a probable audience to use this canvas. It’s just challenging to make it understandable for both.

Ingredients Matter: for the affect on people, the environment, and supply sources (farms, feed, industries).

OK…going to get coffee now.

(I think you mentioned once that your default Myers-Briggs profile was something like ENTJ? If so, the ‘J’ approach would cause you trouble here: switch to at least an ENTP, and perhaps even as far over as an INFP, to get a sense of the kind of mindset that’s needed to make this work.)

So yes, there’s a sort-of filtering going on, but it’s still nothing as such to do with the choices of the business for whom we’re building this enterprise-architecture: it’s still above that specific a scope. And again, I’d suggest using the ‘Making Food That Matters’ line here, because it’s closer to an enterprise-vision than ‘Ingredients Matter’ (which is closer to a principle derived from an enterprise-value derived from the vision).

You have the key point here exactly right: “The only relationship to identify is the relationship to the vision”. But what you’ve then done is jumped straight to filtering people in terms of a probable role – e.g. supplier of strawberries. Just hold back on that for a moment – that’s still jumping the gun, that’s what we’ll start to look at in row-2, in more detail in row-3, and again in much more detail in row-4. But here it’s still about alignment, about feelings or commitments more than actions as such. And some of the players in the space will share the same feeling or commitment about ‘Making Food That Matters’ or ‘Ingredients Matter’, without ever being suppliers or customers.

To give one example, the Slow Food movement could be very important player in this extended-enterprise: the burger is the almost archetypal fast-food item, yet Elevation Burger present the interesting paradox of fast-food with a Slow Food approach to the meal itself (e.g. “ingredients matter”). From there, that also links across to much more of the Slow-style mindset, such as the emphasis on ambience, which could bring the Slow Cities movement (and perhaps the Transition Towns movement) into the enterprise scope. None of these would be suppliers as such, but they could well be very important in strategy-development and marketing.

When we get there.

Which still isn’t yet.

Slow down.

All we’re doing here is building a feel for the extended-enterprise described/circumscribed by our enterprise-vision, the kinds of people and organisations who would be drawn to that vision, and why they would be drawn to that vision.

It’s all about the ‘why’ – still nothing much else as yet, at this level. Hope that makes more sense?

So you are filtering at this level…even if it is just the first cut. The relationship is categorizing how they relate to the vision (client, supplier, employee).

I know I’m splitting hairs. I’m trying to clarify that their is a relationship to the enterprise in the selection on who will be part of the enterprise. The lists are categorized into sub lists. Their is NO relationship between the lists…yet. The only relationship to identify is the relationship to the vision.

If you agree with the type of ingredients that matter … you will be on the list and placed in a category (even temporarily). If the process fits the “ingredients matter” then you are on the list. If you sell strawberries with color added, your company or service or product will not be part of the ingredients matter enterprise. If your product is not made of recycled or biodegradable material, you are not part of the ingredients matter enterprise.

There are no relationships here as yet, between us and anyone else: the only relationship is alignment of everyone to the vision. This is important, because when we do look at the possibility of (business-)relationship with someone else, this shared alignment gives a reason for building that relationship in the first place. The respective business-functions and business-capabilities and so on provide the potential to add value to the shared-enterprise; linking the players together in constructive ways is what realises that potential to add value to the enterprise. But again, we’re not looking at that as yet: here we’re solely identifying who else is in the same ecosystem, the same shared-enterprise.

The reason why this is valuable is that, given this, we can change our entire business-model, and even our entire set of business-relationships, and still remain in the same overall enterprise. This has huge impacts (or, more accurately, lack of impacts) on our business-culture, because we can make large surface changes that are only minimally disruptive because the core drivers and values remain unchanged. Trying to force people to change their values within business is always fraught, and fragile at best: this way, relying far more on ‘pull’ than ‘push’, we bypass all of those problems, and yet still have an organisation that can be extremely agile. I hope this will become clear as we move further into this series of articles.

At which point, yes, I’d better get back to writing the next one, hadn’t I?

Thanks again, anyway.

“Who makes the list?” – you do. It’s really important to get that point. Unless you’re a standards-body or the like whose whole aim is to create shared links between people, the purpose of this exercise is almost entirely to support your own organisation – it isn’t really about creating much if anything to share with everyone else. (In fact in many of the more competitive commercial contexts, this part of the enterprise-architecture might be something you’d be very careful to not share with anyone else!)

The crucial point is this: in most cases, we create an architecture about an enterprise, for an organisation. All of this top-layer stuff is about finding something stable for our own organisation. So we identify a vision that describes the enterprise which fits well with the past, present and future of our organisation; we identify other players in that enterprise; we identify relevant relationships, and so on. It’s all about our own strategy, our own strategic anchor. From a marketing perspective, it’s usually a very good idea to be explicit about what we see as the enterprise vision and values, because that creates the near-effortless ‘pull’ that builds relationships that we know will be useful to us (and also dissuade ones that won’t); but the reasoning behind it, and our views of who we see as other players in this enterprise, might well be cards that we hold very close to our chest.

I do get very frustrated with overly-competitive folks who seem terrified of anything that smacks of cooperation – which, yes, at first this may indeed appear to be. But the blunt fact is that business is cooperation: you just need to be clear what that cooperation is, and when and why you need it. And unless this kind of foundation is in place, even the most competitive-seeming strategy will be built on bare soil, and may well blow away at the first breeze of change. ‘Competitive’ strategies used to last for decades: in many industries now, we’re lucky if they manage to last for weeks. That’s why this kind of work is so important now.

Before you have the “relationship” you need to filter who to keep in and who to keep out. So, who makes the list?

Now…where does this fit?

That’s exactly the kind of focus we need, and how we would use the vision in practice, after identifying the players and shared-interest within this level.

The only disagreement I would have is where this happens – i.e. at what layer of the overall Canvas. Much of what you’ve described is about ‘our’ relationships with other people/players who would share the same vision (i.e. ‘belong’ in the same enterprise). If we follow the logic of the original Zachman layers of abstraction, this layer (row-1) is just a list: there are no relationships here, other than that of each player to the vision. The relationships between players start to happen (or be described, rather) in the next layer (row-2, ‘Business-Model’): hence much of what you described here – accurate though it is – would more properly belong in the next layer. May I quote this comment there?

In short, gimme a chance, guv’nor, I’s gettin’ there in the writin’, like, honest I is, but I ain’t gotten there yet!

Back to Elevation Burger’s “Ingredients Matter.” http://www.elevationburger.com/EB.php

They choose to make burgers (veggie and beef) and french fries (deep fried in olive oil which is healthier). They could extend their market to include chicken and sweet potato fries. As long as the ingredients are: sustainable, hormone free, etc. because INGREDIENTS MATTER.

Also…what type of companies could be the suppliers. Only those who supply healthy, sustainable ingredients/products. Because … Ingredients Matter.

What type of clients do we want? Our demographic core are people who believe what we believe … Ingredients Matter. (how to reach them and where to reach them would be in a different layer).

What type of employees would be hired … only those that believe that ingredients matter.

Who would invest in Elevation Burger? Those that can visualize the importance (and hopefully believe) that Ingredients Matter.