Tom Graves / Tetradian » business architecture

Context-space mapping with Enterprise Canvas, Part 4: Rethinking vision bottom-up

Tom G — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:30:13 +0000

So far in this series we’ve explored the key concept of the extended-enterprise, used that to summarise the ecosystem in which the organisation operates, and started to model the organisation’s value-proposition and business-relationships.

Up until this point we’ve been working top-down, starting from the most abstract layer, the ‘extended-enterprise’. But we do need to to remember that there’s no reason why we have to work only in this direction, and often many reasons why we should make use of the more freeform approach that context-space mapping will allow. And in the usual serendipitous way – via an article in IndustryWeek, ‘Assessing Product Innovation Assets: What’s in your attic?‘ – we now have a useful reminder that the vision and strategy for an organisation may also be reconstructed bottom-up.

Low-cost innovation doesn’t have to be boring or incremental. Sometimes true innovation is as easy (and inexpensive) as evaluating the technologies and capabilities you currently have and expanding them to a new industry or customer base. It is a particularly powerful product innovation strategy during an economic downturn, yet too few companies today are taking advantage of it.

[An] important message for business leaders: “Use something you already own to generate income in a whole new way.” Truly innovative and resourceful manufacturers can embrace this message by reevaluating their existing assets, intellectual property, and product lines to develop completely new streams of revenue with little investment. The assets are already in their “corporate attics.” All a company has to do is unlock the revenue-generating power of those assets.

So let’s use the examples from that article – and a couple of others – to see how this works, in terms of context-space mapping and the Enterprise Canvas.

The examples we’ll use are Swatch, Mars M&M customisation, Oceaneering animatronics, Play-Doh and Nokia. (The middle three examples are from the IndustryWeek article – the respective quotes appear below.) In each case we’ll assess the context and the trigger for change; the relationship between the new market and the old; the role of and impact on technology; and the impact on enterprise-vision, echoing back down through the organisation itself.

For Swatch the trigger for urgent change was the shift in watchmaking from fine mechanical-engineering to digital displays and thence to digital movements. By the late 1970s the Swiss watchmaking industry – with a long tradition of unsurpassed engineering excellence but at high price, even in the mid-range – had been decimated by Japanese competition. The only apparent market that remained was for luxury craftsman-watches, and even that seemed under threat. In the early 1980s Nicolas Hayek combined business-restructure, technological innovation and radically different marketing to reframe the Swiss watch-industry – most of it under the new ‘Swatch’ brand – and reclaim its previous preeminent position.

The market for the new type of watch was actually a new ‘Blue Ocean‘ niche, presenting a new concept of the watch as a low-cost, almost transitory fashion-statement, where the notion of ‘the watch’ is linked less to the raw function of timekeeping than to the statement about self. In effect, this is actually closer in concept to the ‘luxury’ end of the market – both markets are more about the joy of time and relationship to time, rather than time itself.

New technology included the use of plastics and ultrasonic welding, and an almost Taylorist approach to manufacturing and reduction of number of components. This experience was also carefully echoed back into the ‘old’ Swiss-watch industry, retaining its ‘craftsman’ focus but combined with lessons-learned from bulk-manufacture.

The marketing for each of the sub-markets is different, yet interestingly the enterprise remains the same, if anything becomes more explicit, as something like “expressing the joy of time”.

Mars has had the technology to write “M&Ms” on little candies without smudging for decades. Recently, it created a multimillion dollar business using the same machine to let people write customized messages on their M&Ms.

As described in this BusinessWeek article, the trigger for what is now MyM&Ms was an idea from within Mars’ ‘Advanced R&D’ unit – not the marketing department.

The new market (promotions, special events) is significantly different from the regular market for M&Ms (retail candies/sweets), but leverages strongly from the main market in that the underlying product is well-known – in fact the ‘unique selling-proposition’ largely depends on the idea that this is a special personalised version of something that is not new.

The technology is actually much the same as in the main market: real-time labelling of mass-produced product. The main difference is that the new version of the labelling-technology permits mass-customisation. The market would not exist without this mass-customisation technology.

The core enterprise is significantly different from that of the main Mars company: although the enterprises are related, the focus here is on the customisation rather than on the underlying product (a point emphasised by the fact that Mars are also starting to provide mass-customisation of others of their products). The Mars website describes core-principles but no explicit vision-descriptor; it’s notable, though, that MyM&Ms is marketed through its own distinct website. The probable enterprise-descriptor for MyM&Ms would be something like “celebrating who we are”, compared to a probable main-organisation enterprise of something like “the enjoyment of small moments in the everyday”.

Oceaneering once only applied its hydraulic technology to deepwater remote operated vehicles and other oilfield related products – that is until the company met with some Hollywood executives who wanted to use the technology to power large dinosaurs for Jurassic Park. Revenues from the entertainment industry now make up over 15% of Oceaneering’s top line.

As described above, the trigger for the new market appears to have been a chance meeting, or a cross-connection made by someone within the entertainment/animatronics industry rather than by the company itself.

Functionally, the new market is very similar to the old, namely highly-specialised engineering applications for hydraulic technologies and control-systems. The main difference (as with their space-engineering applications) is that the application itself is outside of their main area of expertise in marine and underwater systems for oilfields, and hence will require much closer collaboration with the end-client.

The technology is essentially the same as in their main market – if anything, is actually simpler, or at least for use in less-extreme physical environments.

The enterprise can remain unchanged as long as the focus is on the activity (i.e. engineering) rather than on the purpose or application of that activity (oilfields or animatronics or space any of their other ‘advanced technologies’ areas). Unfortunately their ‘About’ page includes a ‘Mission Statement’ that is an almost perfect example of what to not do in an enterprise-descriptor (“Oceaneering’s mission is to increase the net wealth of its shareholders by providing safe, cost-effective, and quality-based technical solutions satisfying customer needs worldwide”), and it seems clear that the emphasis of identity is very clearly on the main application (“Oceaneering is a global oilfield provider of engineered services and products primarily to the offshore oil and gas industry, with a focus on deepwater applications”), and the animatronics section does not even rate a mention anywhere in that description (“Through the use of its applied technology expertise, Oceaneering also serves the defense and aerospace industries.”) Despite the Industryweek reference, and the apparently sizeable contribution to corporate income, the animatronics application appears to be a poor fit with Oceaneering’s current identity: if that is the case, it should almost certainly be split off as a separate-but-linked enterprise, much as with the relationship between MyM&Ms and the parent Mars Group.

Play-Doh used to be a wallpaper-cleaning product with dwindling sales. All it took was the willingness to change markets and a clever revenue-sharing agreement with Captain Kangaroo to convert Play-Doh into one of America’s most successful children’s toys.

As described on Wikipedia, the trigger for the new market was a request in 1955 from a school-teacher – a relative of the company founders – for “a safe and fun modeling clay substitute”; they sent her “a sample of a non-toxic compound used to clean wallpaper”, which the children used to make Christmas decorations, with results that were described all round as “a hit”.

The new market is fundamentally different from the old: from trade cleaning-products to children’s toys.

The technology is essentially unchanged; in later developments the formula included colourants and minor changes to improve plasticity, but the basic bulk-mixing technology remains almost identical.

The enterprise is radically different, largely following the change in market: from something like “effective and reliable cleaning for the building-trade” to “safe and fun modelling” (an enterprise which does not restrict the market solely to children). Much as with Mars and MyM&Ms, but even more so, the base-technology is the same but the enterprise-vision are so different that they must be operated as separate divisions or even formally-separate organisations. Over the years, the Play-Doh production and marketing has been acquired and transferred more and more into a ‘toy’-oriented enterprise; the original parent-company Kutol continues as a manufacturer of cleaning-products specialising in hand-hygiene.

Nokia is perhaps the most extreme example of an organisation that has mutated and reinvented itself and its enterprise many times over the decades.

The Wikipedia page shows it starting out in the mid-1860s as a lumber company – initially named after the town in which it was located, Nokia – and later moving into electricity-generation in the 1900s. The trigger for that change was recognition of market-opportunity.

In the 1910s the organisation is essentially taken over by another company, a rubber-products manufacturer, which later, in the 1920, acquired a cable-manufacturer. The trigger in the first case seems to be commercial opportunity, retaining the name because of the location; the acquisition would have been driven by parallel interests, in that rubber would have been for insulation.

In the 1930s, and onwards into Finland’s somewhat tangential engagement in the Second World War, Nokia changes to more of an industrial conglomerate, including products such as paper, bicycle and car tyres, footwear, cables, televisions and consumer-electronics, electricity-generation equipment, communications equipment, plastics, aluminium and chemicals. All of these products and business-lines can be traced back to the four roots of the corporation: lumber, electricity-generation, rubber and cables.

However, the spread of market and and scope of enterprise were far too broad to be practical, causing major financial losses in the late 1970s and 1980s, and arguably a major contributing factor in the suicide of the then CEO, Kari Kairamo. During the late 1980s and 1990s Nokia refocussed itself around telecommunications, divesting itself of the rubber, cable, footwear and consumer-electronics divisions.

Its current enterprise is summarised by its tag-line “connecting people”. Guidelines for corporate culture are described in the document The Nokia Way; the Wikipedia article indicates that up until May 2007 the defined core-values were “Customer Satisfaction, Respect, Achievement, Renewal”, and redefined as “Engaging You, Achieving Together, Passion for Innovation, Very Human”.

The Nokia history indicates the problems that arise when an organisation grows without an explicit of identity to act as a guide to what should and should not be included as the organisation expands by natural growth and by mergers and acquisitions. Over time, the enterprise – and hence organisational identity – becomes less and less clear, leading to excessive tensions across the entire organisation. The break-up in the late-1980s and 1990s was a necessary foundation for its later growth, because each sub-unit could now align with a more-clearly defined enterprise-vision.

Looking back at all of these examples, it’s clear that strategy can be driven bottom-up as well as top-down. Sometimes, as with MyM&Ms and Play-Doh, the change in strategy requires the creation of a new enterprise, distinct from that of the parent. In both those cases, the technology essentially remained the same, with the new identity linked to the new market. In effect, the new identity is based on a new role for the technology.

In the case of Oceaneering, the new application of the existing technology remained under the old enterprise. It would in fact have been a good fit to the existing enterprise, if that enterprise had focussed around the technology rather than its application. However, the organisation’s declared enterprise is firmly linked to the application (underwater oilfields) rather than the technology (specialist bespoke hydraulic-engineering). The apparently highly-profitable animatronics division barely even rates a mention on the website, and is not included at all in the organisation’s stated vision or mission. It seems likely that a split similar to that of Mars and MyM&Ms will be necessary in the fairly near future.

Context-space mapping with Enterprise Canvas, Part 3: Value-proposition

Tom G — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 05:44:19 +0000

So far in this series we’ve explored enterprise-vision (Enterprise Canvas row-0) and high-level business-context (row-1) in a fairly straightforward way. It’s been much the same as any other conventional ‘top-down’ strategy-development, except that we haven’t really mentioned our own organisation at all as yet. (That’s coming shortly. )

A few important points have come up in the comments to those two articles, though, which are worth reiterating here before we move on.

One is to remember why we’re doing all of this. It’s not about abstract ‘blue-sky’ thinking: it’s about building a stable platform for organisational change. In enterprise-architecture, this needs to be a platform in which all of the other architectures – business-architecture, process-architecture, skills-architecture, values-architecture, security-architecture and, oh yes, all the IT-architectures too – can all interweave and interlink and intermesh into a single unified, dynamic whole. But although we talk a lot about the extended-enterprise here – especially in these ‘higher’ layers – this isn’t actually for anyone else at all: unless someone seriously-senior decides otherwise, all of this is solely for our own organisation (or client, if we’re doing this work as external-consultants). Working this way, whatever we develop is always in the context of this broader extended-enterprise: but our own organisation (or client) becomes more and more the centre of our attention as we move down the layers. That transition of emphasis starts to happen here. In short:

In enterprise-architecture, we create an architecture about an enterprise, but for an organisation.

It’s really important to remember that point – not least because it’s the organisation, not the extended-enterprise, that’s paying our bills!

Another point that came up in the comments is that the usual nine-cell structure of the Enterprise Canvas can be a bit misleading in these upper levels. The nine-cell structure is really a kind of functional-decomposition – who’s handling what interfaces, and why. But functional-decomposition assumes or describes specific interfaces and relationships – and we haven’t even got that far yet. In row-0 and row-1 we only deal with each entity as a whole, without any internal subdivision into cells. It’s only here, in row-2, that we start to introduce the idea of relationships and roles between entities, which eventually leads us to relationships and roles within entities, which leads us in turn to that nine-cell structure. If you try to use the nine-cell structure in rows 0 or 1, or in most of the work in row-2, you may have missed the point somewhere: at those levels, it’s only about each entity as a whole.

And finally, I would hope that by now you’ll have realised that this can be a lot harder to do than it might seem at first glance. It’s so easy to fall back to organisation-centric habits, where the organisation is placed as the sole centre of everything. The blunt fact is that it isn’t that ’sole centre’ at all: in fact, the organisation only has a reason to exist if it’s placed within the context of its extended-enterprise. If we don’t understand that broader context, we would have nothing to guide us when that context changes – which, these days, can happen on a literally moment-by-moment basis. One of the keys here is that the description of that enterprise is literally emotive – it drives change. So although a lot of thinking and analysis will be needed here, ultimately it’s not a rational matter – it’s about what feels ‘right’, about identifying what is valued. This is especially true of the vision-descriptor: we need to keep exploring that context-space until we hit upon a phrase that can engender emotions and commitment that are literally strong enough to get people out of bed in the morning.

Anyway, time to move on: time to start looking at the business of the enterprise, and of the organisation itself. To summarise where we’ve gotten to so far with this example, we’d established a row-0 ‘Enterprise’:

We then started a Zachman-style row-1 ‘Context’ with a conventional market-based view of our enterprise, with our own organisation as its centre:

Which didn’t show us many options. But as we started to explore what that enterprise-vision meant in practice, and what kinds of stakeholders would be engaged in that vision, we realised that the actual enterprise was much broader than our current market:

Which should create many more strategic opportunities than we were able to see before. To make this work, though, we first need look more closely at the meaning of a common business-term: value-proposition.

Rethinking the value-proposition

In much of the conventional business-literature the term ‘value’ is linked indivisibly with price, or even equated with price. This is certainly the view associated with neoclassical economics, currently the dominant paradigm in most mainstream economic thinking. (If it can be called ‘thinking’: a more accurate term would probably be ’superstition’ or, more literally, ‘cargo cult‘. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that I’m continually astounded by the gaping flaws in both observation and reasoning in most so-called economics: the flaws in key concepts such as ‘rational-actor theory‘ are so blatant and so fundamental that I still find it almost impossible to understand how nominally-sane, nominally-intelligent beings can take those concepts seriously at all. But I digress…)

We also see other value-laden terms – ‘value’ in a somewhat different, broader sense – in the idea of ‘value-proposition as a means of positioning a product or service relatives to those provided by direct or indirect competitors: for example, the product is purported to be cheaper, cleaner, easier to use, more ‘green’, more ‘exclusive’, and so on. That type of modelling and comparison does become relevant when we get down to the fine-detail of business-models and the like in row-3 ‘System’ and, far more, in row-4 ‘Design’. But here, in row-2 ‘Business’ and above, there is a much simpler definition of value:

Value is whatever the enterprise-vision says it is.

The enterprise-vision – and particular the Qualifier in the vision-phrase – defines what is most valued in and by the extended-enterprise. In effect, it’s a condition of membership of the enterprise that the respective value or values are assigned to a high or even highest priority by each player in the enterprise.

The enterprise-values are not always assigned the highest priority, by the way, for the simple reason that every person and organisation exists within multiple enterprises – the enterprise of professional discipline, a family, a community, a country, humanity as a whole, and so on. Technically speaking, an enterprise is a ’system’: every system – every enterprise – is contained in and intersects with other systems. The enterprise in scope that we’re exploring here is the one that’s of primary business-interest to our organisation – the enterprise about which we’re building an architecture for this organisation – but it’s essential to remember that it’s not the only enterprise that exists.

As part of their membership of the extended-enterprise, each player in the enterprise commits to delivering some kind of value to that extended-enterprise. In the context of this layer (row-2 ‘Business’ and above), the value-proposition is the value that the entity may and can bring to the shared-enterprise. In effect, the value-proposition is the choice of value to deliver, the ability to deliver that value, and the commitment to deliver that value.

Which brings us back to some of the questions with which we started this series: What can I/we do that creates value? Where could I/we add value? What role could I/we play within this enterprise? What capabilities (and hence, when linked with a role, ‘missions’) could I/we bring to make this enterprise happen? Who do I/we need to work with to make this happen?

There’s an important recap we need to do here, though. The enterprise-vision is energising, literally emotive, a literal driver for action. If we feel committed to that enterprise, yet have no apparent value to bring to the party, we perhaps need to do some deeper exploration – which we’ll tackle here shortly. But if we try to force-fit our skills and so on to an enterprise to which we don’t feel that same emotive commitment, the amount of value that we can add will be much less: being in the ‘wrong’ enterprise is literally ‘de-motivating’, certainly passively so, and often actively, and always reduces effectiveness for all parties involved. (This is true for all types of work, but especially so for knowledge-work or decision-work, as Daniel Pink explains well in his book ‘Drive‘.) This is a major reason why Taylorism and monetarist-economics are so ineffective in practice: they force just about everyone to be in the ‘wrong’ enterprise. It’s something we need to watch for, very carefully, if we want our organisations and our own work to be effective, valuable and valued.

The same questions apply to every player in the enterprise: What is their value-proposition? What can they do to make the vision come to life in the real world? That’s the nature of an ecosystem: in principle at least, everyone brings something to the party:

This delineates each party’s role relative to the enterprise – the ‘vertical’ dimension for each Enterprise Canvas element, the commitment to create value in the enterprise.

Their roles relative to each other within the enterprise – the ways in which value moves around within the enterprise – provides the ‘horizontal’ dimension for the Enterprise Canvas element:

In effect, the linkages in that horizontal dimension represent the value-propositions we have for each other within the enterprise. A couple of layers further down towards implementation, this leads us to the kind of value-proposition that would typically underpin a conventional business-model – better, cheaper, faster and so on – but we need to remember that all of that actually comes from here: the value we offer to the enterprise as a whole, and the dynamic flow of value around the enterprise that brings the enterprise-vision to fruition.

Value-relationships

Looking at these ‘horizontal’ relationships is what brings us ‘downward’ to row-2 (‘Business’) in the layering of the Enterprise Canvas. For example, there’s the (very simplified!) example row-2 diagram for the TED Conferences shared-enterprise, from the ‘Layers‘ article in the initial Enterprise Canvas series:

This is also the first point at which we need to start thinking in depth about our own organisation, as an entity in its own right rather than solely in terms of an extended-enterprise. Whilst still keeping the extended-enterprise as a whole in mind, we need here to be ’self-centric’ for a while:

What value could I/we add to the extended-enterprise? – our value-proposition to the whole, the reason we are here?
Which other players need the value we create for the enterprise in order to create their value for the enterprise? – who are our customers?
What value (such as in the form of products or services) do we need from other players in order to create that value? – who are our suppliers?
Which other players deliver complementary value to the extended-enterprise? – who are our partners?
Which other players deliver the same value to the extended-enterprise? – who are our competitors?
Which other players will support us to get started (or continue) to deliver value to the enterprise? – who are our investors?
Which other players will we support whilst delivering value to the enterprise? – who are our beneficiaries?

And we also need to look at this in terms of the extended-enterprise as a whole:

Which other players help to keep the overall value-web moving? – who are the coordinators, the suppliers of ‘coordination-services’?
Which other players help to identify direction of the overall enterprise? – who are the futurists and/or historians, the suppliers of ‘direction-services’?
Which other players will help to keep us on-track to the vision and values of the enterprise? – who are the regulators, the suppliers of ‘validation-services’?

Each of these relationships implies a value-proposition of some kind – a mutual value-proposition, since the aim is that value will be exchanged between the parties. The most problematic relationship, of course, is that of ‘competitor’: whenever we have two or more players purporting to deliver the exact same value, this implies – and potentially creates – ineffectiveness within the overall extended-enterprise. Sometimes there is genuine value in such ‘competition’: for example, redundant-duplication also supports resilience, in reducing the risk associated with any single point of failure. Constructive ‘competition-with‘ also helps to drive innovation and creativity to push the overall enterprise forward towards its vision. Destructive ‘competition-against‘, though, is something we do need to avoid, for everyone’s sake. Techniques such as Blue Ocean Strategy can help a lot here: what we need to look for is a niche that fits well with our own competencies and capabilities, fits well with our sense of the enterprise as a whole, and which complements rather than competes directly with anyone else in the shared-enterprise.

Note that although we’re starting to get closer here to conventional strategy-development and business-model development, we’re still not there yet: in fact the proper ‘business-models’ and the like don’t properly begin to emerge until down in the next layer, row-3 ‘System’. What we really look at here is just one question:

Given each player’s value-proposition in the overall extended-enterprise, what would that imply in their relationship with us?

Or, to put it the other way round:

Given our own value-proposition in the extended-enterprise, what relationships with us would that suggest to others?

The answers to either version of that question provide the prototype for our organisation’s business-models. And importantly, by the value-driven nature of those relationships, that would be a self-marketing ‘pull’-type business-model – a huge advantage over the conventional ‘push’-type marketing-model, where the absence of any self-evident reason to relate forces us to manufacture a sort-of-relationship from nothing.

So to apply all of this for our main example here, my own enterprise-architecture consulting-business:

What is the vision for the overall extended-enterprise? – “enhancing enterprise effectiveness”
What are the key values here? – examples include the five dimensions of effectiveness – efficiency, reliability, elegance (in the generic sense), appropriacy, integration – and direct derivatives or compounds such as resilience, simplicity and integrity
What is our own value-proposition to the extended-enterprise? – we provide tools, techniques, training and insight on enterprise-effectiveness, particularly in whole-of-enterprise architectures (the intersection of structure and purpose) and whole-of-enterprise integration (processes, practices, metrics and people-related themes)
Who would value our value-proposition? – in principle, anyone doing the practice of enhancing effectiveness within organisations

That last line tells us our nominal customer-base, which is huge: in principle, it applies to just about any organisation anywhere in the world. Too large to be practical, in fact – which is a serious problem for us. As futurists and developers of new techniques, the work we do is often a long way ‘ahead’ of the mainstream: our main customers at present tend to be early-adopters or very-early-adopters, but in almost any industry. This means that our current market is very broad but very ‘lumpy’ (“the future is already here, it’s just that it’s not evenly distributed”, as one science-fiction writer put it), so we’re faced with a classic dilemma: do we spread the net wide but risk being too generic to be much use, or limit it to a narrow domain which has a more explicit practical focus but for which there are too few early-adopters to make it viable? Getting the right balance here is going to be crucial to success.

What products, services and other value do we need from other players? – our ‘product’ is ideas and techniques, hence anything that feeds into that, such as information, practices, test-cases and peer-review

Although this is fairly typical for a professional-services firm with a strong research-and-development focus, it demands radically different relationships from those of, say, a retail outlet or a utilities corporation. In the latter, there are clear distinctions between ‘customer’ and ’supplier’, and hence (usually) clear boundaries between the respective relationships; whereas in this case, every customer is also a ’supplier’ in that each context will have always have some aspects that are new and unique, and hence provide us new information, new test-cases and new peer-review. The same applies to our partners and even to our nominal ‘competitors’: we each become most effective when we each provide peer-review for each other. Conventional near-combative relationships based on ‘competition-against’ and proprietary notions of ‘intellectual property’ will guarantee failure here, for everyone: yet we also need to protect ourselves – and everyone else in our enterprise – from predatory types who unfortunately do believe that aggression leads to ’success’. The key here is to leverage off the enterprise-vision and values: we need to assess all potential relationships – customer, supplier, partner, even ‘competitor’ – against that yardstick of shared overall effectiveness.

Which other players deliver complementary value to the extended-enterprise? – anyone working on enhancing enterprise effectiveness in organisations, particularly those people or groups working in more specialist domains such as organisational-development, process-improvement, knowledge-management, quality-management, skills-architectures and the like

This again is a huge ‘market’ – and hence again a real risk of spreading ourselves too wide and too thin. The key point is that our emphasis on whole-of-enterprise architectures is a generalist domain, whereas most of these potential partners are specialists. So there’s no ‘competition’ as such: what we look for are synergies, to cross-leverage each others’ work. Building appropriate relationships here would be fundamental to our marketing. One of our key value-points is that as generalists we provide a means to cross-link between the specialist domains; we and our colleagues will often act as facilitators, arbitrators and ‘thought-translators‘ to reduce the risk of getting lost in translation between domains.

Which other players deliver the same value to the extended-enterprise? – the ‘product’ is ourselves, so there are no direct competitors as such: the real ‘competition’ here is not so much for market-share as mind-share

Our greatest ‘competitive’ problem at present is misuse and misappropriation of key terms by others, which can make it almost impossible to communicate what it is that we do, and the value that we deliver. Perhaps the most important of these are the near-ubiquitous misuse of the terms ‘enterprise’ and ‘enterprise-architecture’, and thence also ‘business-architecture’. It seems that most business-people fail to understand the difference between ‘the organisation’ and ‘the enterprise’ – hence why so many references in these articles to ‘extended-enterprise’, to try to establish those crucial distinctions. And it certainly seems true that very few IT-folks seem able to grasp that serious problems can arise from conflating the term ‘enterprise-wide IT-architecture’ into ‘enterprise-architecture’: in the former, the IT-architecture has an enterprise-wide scope, whereas in the latter the enterprise is the scope. One result of such IT-centrism is that ‘business-architecture’ is often taken to mean ‘anything not-IT that might affect IT’, leaving no space to describe anything which is mostly or entirely outside of the scope of IT.

In our work, we struggle every day with the consequences of these fundamental terminology-mistakes: although there are some signs of change (such as the Open Group’s dawning awareness that enterprise-architecture must extend beyond the ‘comfort-zone’ of IT), it seems likely that this ‘mind-share problem’ will remain with us for at least another decade or more. In the meantime, just about all we can do is, again, point to the enterprise-values, demonstrate that IT-centrism, business-centrism and the like are in direct breach of most of the ‘effectiveness’ themes – particularly ‘integration’ – and explain quietly what to do to repair the damage. Frustrating, but that’s what happens when mind-share is dominated by major misunderstandings about the nature of the extended-enterprise itself, and by mistaken, much-mangled terminology.

Which other players will support us to get started (or continue) to deliver value to the enterprise? – our ‘investors’ are mostly ourselves, though we need to remember that many others (especially our partners) invest ideas and personal and/or professional support in what we do
Which other players will we support whilst delivering value to the enterprise? – our key ‘beneficiaries’, again, are ourselves, though it’s extremely important to us that we also contribute to our partners’ development and to the development of the enterprise as a whole

And, in terms of the extended-enterprise as a whole:

Which other players help to keep the overall value-web moving? – the short answer is ‘not many’: there’s a real dearth of ‘coordination-services’ across this enterprise, and a real need for an equivalent of the services that SourceForge, for example, provides to Open-Source collaboration
Which other players help to identify direction of the overall enterprise? – other than our partners, ourselves and some futurist organisations, there don’t seem to be many working in this space: most of the industry-bodies such as Open Group focus solely on subsets such as IT, rather than on the extended-enterprise as a whole
Which other players will help to keep us on-track to the vision and values of the enterprise? – again, there don’t seem to be any real providers of ‘validation-services’ here: there’s a real need for this

The other key point to note here is that we need to remember to keep in mind that all of the players in the extended-enterprise could play any of these roles, relative to each other, or relative to us – and likewise we to them. This awareness becomes extremely valuable whenever we need to rethink our current positioning or current market, because it greatly increases our options relative to most conventional approach to business-strategy or business-development.

Another example

We could also apply all of the above to the example provided by Pat Ferdinandi in the comments to the previous articles, a real chain of restaurants in the US called Elevation Burger. Using quotes from their website (in double-quotes below), our assessment at this whole-of-enterprise layers of the Enterprise Canvas might go like this:

What is the vision for the overall extended-enterprise? – tag-line “ingredients matter”, implying an enterprise-vision of something like ‘making food that matters’ or ‘making food matter’

Note that the ‘vision’ on the website is a fairly standard organisation-centric marketing-style vision. It tells us quite a bit about the values and decisions made by the organisation: “a vision for an elevated product that is fresh and flavorful… for authentic, sustainably prepared food… for an elevated experience in a well-appointed and environmentally friendly setting”. But it tells us very little about the extended-enterprise in which the organisation operates – and that’s what we would need to know if we were to be trying to re-think the organisation and its relationships when the market context changes. In essence, what we have here in Enterprise Canvas terms is a (very good) example of a set of drivers at the row-3 ‘System’ layer – which is fine if we’re only refining our marketing based on the current business-model, but not much use if we need to rethink the business-model itself.

What are the key values here? – examples include “quality ingredients”, “better for you”, “better for the environment”, “passion for good food”, “enthusiasm, drive and passion”, “bright, sincere, engaging and energetic”, “genuine enjoyment in serving others”

There are other values or emphases listed on the website, such as “organic, grass-fed, free-range”, but to me these are more likely to be detail-layer decisions – down at row-3 ‘System’ or even row-4 ‘Design’ – that express beliefs or instantiations around the more core values such as “quality ingredients, better for you, better for the environment”.

What is the value-proposition that Elevation Burger offers to the extended-enterprise? – the company and its franchisees express the vision of ‘making food that matters’ via provision of burgers, fries, shakes, malts and cookies in a “well-appointed and environmentally friendly setting”, mainly in cities and larger towns in the US

In other words, this is the chosen role that the organisation will play in the extended-enterprise

Who would value this value-proposition? – anyone wishing to eat ‘food that matters’, those suppliers who would provide such ‘ingredients that matter’, anyone who holds similar beliefs, anyone who would like to be a customer but is not yet resident or visiting any locations at which the organisation operates, potential franchisees (primarily those who hold similar beliefs), food-critics and other media representatives, environmental activists, restaurant-builders and other ancillary-service providers, local government, regulatory authorities and many others
What value do Elevation Burger add to the extended-enterprise? - the organisation provides a practical instantiation of the enterprise-vision and values, via operation of restaurants that express those values
Which other players are ‘customers’ who need the value that Elevation Burger create for the enterprise? – those who wish to eat ‘food that matters’ of the types that Elevation Burger offer (e.g. burgers, fries etc), and who place value on the food and the context in which that food is provided (e.g. “well appointed environmentally friendly setting”, via “genuine enjoyment in serving others”
What value (such as in the form of products or services) do Elevation Burger need from other ’supplier’ players in order to create that value? – providers of ‘ingredients that matter’ (meat, salads, bread, potatoes, milk, drinks, etc), providers of construction-services (e.g. “well appointed environmentally friendly setting”), real-estate services, marketing services (websites, advertising, flyers etc), logistics services, management and accounting services, etc, all of whom need to align with the enterprise-vision and values
Which other players are ‘partners’ for Elevation Burger, who deliver complementary value to the extended-enterprise? – other restaurants who likewise commit to the tag-line “ingredients matter”, but who provide different types of food, such as pasta/pizza, fish, Asian-style, French/European-style, bakery etc
Which other players are ‘competitors’ who deliver the same value to the extended-enterprise? – Elevation Burger claims there are none, at least on the US Eastern seaboard: “our founder couldn’t find the burger he had been dreaming of since he left California in 1999″

Note that although fast-food burger chains such as McDonalds or Hungry-Jacks/Burger-King might in principle seem to be direct commercial competitors, in practice they operate in a different market-segment – a different enterprise – in which price has a higher priority relative to “ingredients matter”. Or, to put it the other way round, Elevation Burger’s clientele would place a higher priority (and premium) on taste, environmental history, restaurant ambience and so on. The competition is therefore indirect (a comparison of somewhat-different extended-enterprises and enterprise-visions) rather than direct (a comparison of near-identical services and values). However, if McDonalds or the others choose (or are pressured) to re-emphasise their positioning on ingredient-quality relative to price, they might move more into the same enterprise-space. Clarity on enterprise-vision would help to mitigate this risk by creating more of a ‘pull’-orientation rather than the fast-food chains’ ‘push’.

Which other players are ‘investors’ who will support Elevation Burger to get started (or continue) to deliver value to the enterprise? – management, direct financial-investors, franchisees, all employees and other staff, local communities, any of the ‘partner’ and/or ’supplier’ and/or ‘customer’ groups
Which other players are ‘beneficiaries’ whom Elevation Burger will support whilst delivering value to the enterprise? – any or all of the ‘investors’, also (in non-monetary values) farmers and other suppliers, community and environment

And we also need to look at this in terms of the extended-enterprise as a whole:

Which other players are the coordinators, the suppliers of ‘coordination-services’ that help to keep the overall value-web moving? – examples include logistics, event- or media-organisers for shared-marketing across the extended-enterprise, collective sourcing for ‘ingredients that matter’, support-groups for organic-farming and for environmentally-friendly building etc
Which other players are the futurists, the suppliers of ‘direction-services’ that help to identify direction of the overall enterprise? – examples include the Slow Food movement, food-critics and other writers on food, sustainability and/or urban renewal, futurists on sustainability, agriculture, food and health etc
Which other players are the regulators, the suppliers of ‘validation-services’ will help to keep everyone on-track to the vision and values of the enterprise? – examples include support-groups for organic-farming and for environmentally-friendly building etc, certification-bodies for same plus sustainability etc

The important point in this last section is that all of the individuals or groups listed there are potential allies – and, importantly, any challenge from any of them should be regarded as a spur to action rather than as an ‘attack’, because their role is to remind Elevation Burger how to keep on-track to their own commitment to the extended-enterprise.

I’d better stop there – this has been more than long enough already! More to follow, anyway, including a look at how to re-leverage assets and capabilities that we already have, in order to support a new strategy or business-model.

A week in Tweets: 18-24 July 2010

Tom G — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:20:22 +0000

Another week gone by, hence another collection of Tweets and links, as usual. (There were also a whole stream of possibly-useful Tweets from the Open Group enterprise-architecture conference in Boston during the week – see here and here.) Usual categories, with extras as appropriate, as usual.

Enterprise-architecture, business-architecture, business-strategy and related matters:

SAlhir: RT @ellenfweber: 25 Signs an Organizational Model is Broken http://twurl.nl/mdnygs
AG_Mag: RT @eacorg: bus. capability maps not only bridge the gap between business & IT in #entarch projects, also improve bus 2 bus. communication

basvg: useful image for #entarch : http://tinyurl.com/2vjfxkb

eatraining: Is EA Effectiveness At The Mercy Of Process Standardization? http://bit.ly/9MC2oI

business_design: A ‘business’ book I recommend as summer reading RT @davegray: Gamestorming, hot off the press! http://post.ly/ntMR

eatraining: Joe McKendrick: Enterprise Architects as Quantum Mechanics http://bit.ly/dsJ7Ni #entarch

kvistgaard: RT @ariscommunity: BPMN 2 examples for original 20 workflow patterns http://bit.ly/ddcsQV #bpmn2 <- nice and clear. And down-loadable #processarch

SAlhir: The Essential Vs & Ps: Values & Vision and Passion & Purpose

kvistgaard: RT @ariscommunity: Interesting post by @adrianrcampbell on combining VPEC-T and ArchiMate http://bit.ly/ch0MJo

kvistgaard: SOA would b more successful if applied as #entarch approach, not just app integr. etc but on infrastr. & business (non IT part of it incl.) // ..In theory it should (TOGAF Archimate DoDAF) but in practice EA & SOA guys go diff. directions although we use more HW & Biz s. than SW s.

toddbiske: @Kvistgaard only if the #entarch program is already successful. Putting SOA under a maturing #entarch program doesn’t guarantee success.

SAlhir: RT @umairh The central idea in strategy is sustainable competitive advantage. Many get the “competitive”. Few remember the “sustainable”. #bizarch

DavidGurteen: Towards a co-evolutionary praxis of value http://bit.ly/cwdUjO #KM <’important new piece’ by Dave Snowden (but I must admit I’m having some difficulty with it, because part of his categorisation method seems identical to that which he so virulently attacked in my own supposedly ‘illegitimate approach’ to Cynefin…)

davidsprott: blogging on Cyberwarfare – a real threat or an over reaction? http://tinyurl.com/325axyt

taotwit: @Cybersal a Role/Actor is just a manifestation of a Value System which makes it superordinate & it is formalized in Policy : so VP covers

SAlhir: Culture eats Strategy — and Systems — for Breakfast … Systems trump Mission Statements; Culture trumps Systems http://bit.ly/dadZvK

taotwit: @Cybersal @seabird20 the roots of my thoughts on Value Systems/Roles, Pirsig and EA summed up by Sam Lowe http://bit.ly/aOpCwT

tebbo: RT @rennew: Is #CSR bad for profitability? Fast Company says No: it’s the solution for profitability http://bit.ly/atGs2D #bizarch

nickmalik: Can your EA metamodel support the modeling of a Benefits Dependency Network? If not, you may want to consider making the change. #entarch

SAlhir: RT @pauljansen You cannot see architecture. What you actually see is only that which contains it, and through that reveals it. #entarch

CreatvEmergence: RT @JuneHolley – Lectures on self-organization – http://bit.ly/aXCzac – great source of videos on self-organizing

toddbiske: New blog post: A Lesson in Service Management http://www.biske.com/blog/?p=786

kvistgaard: Problems sometimes are very cozy to live in. Like old shoes. The comfort in complaining is much nicer compared to breaking into new ones.

BillIves: Useful Guidelines and Metrics for Speeding Up Your Organization from @theforumcorp http://bit.ly/cuSjhp

CreatvEmergence: Newness occurs not in the plan/control/manage machine, but in the deep well of the untamed, ever-generating creative unknown

CreatvEmergence: Old org: control life out of the system. New org: structure life within the system…& it generates more life

rlimbanda: RT @chrisfinlay: Designing Systems at Scale – IDEO http://bit.ly/9Pr26E RT @IATV

DavidGurteen: Johnnie Moore: The danger of safety http://bit.ly/9fIPsq #KM #entarch #bizarch

thoughttrans: RT @sniukas Innovation doesn’t have to be expensive http://ow.ly/2eZKb

bartleeten: Enterprise architecture goes agile? http://bit.ly/9UadLg

oscarberg: RT @rhappe: RT @elsua: [Blog] Forget Social Strategy, Think Social Philosophy: Hippie 2.0 > http://bit.ly/8XXeOp [nice...]

taotwit: @Cybersal Tweets with @seabird20 on VNA >> #vpect maps nicely http://bit.ly/9pfMuN >> WRT our chat with your VNA contact a while ago

kvistgaard: The best source for KPIs for your customer perspective (Balanced #scorecard) is the purchasing KPI’s of your customers, Watson. #kpi

basvg: Fiddling with TIBCO Business Studio. Impressive tool by the looks of it // created proces simulation with a few clicks in the tibco suite. Impressive http://twitpic.com/27tvv8

AussiMike: Avoiding Business Architecture Paralysis http://ff.im/-o8JWY

SAlhir: RT @goonth Timely —> The Evolution of Commitment http://bit.ly/aG7sVV /via @db

CreatvEmergence: Fractal Adaptive Cycles in Natural and Human Systems – http://ow.ly/2fpLJ – via @VenessaMiemis

thoughttrans: RT @pauljansen @KnowledgeBishop:The business that finds value IN its customers will outlast the 1 that extracts value FROM them.<4 IT 2 biz

business_design: RT @sgblank: latest SlideShare upload: Business plans vs Business models http://slidesha.re/cztfFE

SAlhir: Kanban described as a “softer” Scrum; and #Scrum described as a “more rigid” #Kanban; and #Agile described as more generic.

CreatvEmergence: CNN: Why using improvisation to teach business skills is no joke – http://bit.ly/d0mlhe #cnn

adrianrcampbell: SOCITM KPI’s at http://tinyurl.com/367gt6f also good for #entarch

mikejwalker: IEEE 1471 adopted as ISO/IEC 42010:2007 http://bit.ly/dbcLCw

An item that lead to one of my more embarrassing blunders, that I ought to record for posterity…:

adrianrcampbell: Useful for #entarch and #bizarch – IBM’s Business Component Models http://tinyurl.com/3767ana

tetradian: [post] ‘On IBM’s Component Business Model’ http://bit.ly/bU6tGY #entarch #bizarch

miket0181: @tetradian IBM’s CBM isn’t new. I think it’s at least 5 years old…

tetradian: @miket0181 re IBM’s CBM – in which case I apologise: I was sent a tweet the other day which purported it was new – no dates on their site

operninha: @tetradian aqui na empresa contratamos a IBM e eles usaram o CBM

seabird20: @tetradian I have seen CBM in RFPs for at least 5 years. Original work 10+ yrs. ago. Takes a while to get to rank and file though

richardveryard: @miket0181 @tetradian … IBM’s CBM came sometime after my 2001 book on Component-Based Business http://tinyurl.com/23gelj7

gotze: @tetradian Also note that IBM holds several patents on CBM.

tetradian: [post] ‘How to screw up in one easy lesson…’ http://bit.ly/b46soY (a ‘mea culpa’ on my CBM post) #entarch #bizarch

thefullkernick: @tetradian ‘How to screw up in one easy lesson…’ http://bit.ly/b46soY < nice to know you’re human too nice post.

Narrative-knowledge, knowledge-management, creativity and in-person collaboration:

hebsgaard: How to incentivise knowledge sharing? http://tinyurl.com/328vvwn #km

unorder: RT @gtdguy: Want to learn some fascinating stuff re: motivation & learning? http://bit.ly/bEsfZ4

unorder: Panel sessions in conferences blow. Becomes theatre set pieces. What about panel member (PM) speed dating. Each PM at a table, 5 min, swap.

SAlhir: RT @umairh: Most orgs (&people) fail 2 learn from experience. Not because they don’t want 2 learn – but because they don’t fully experience.

oscarberg: RT @VenessaMiemis: 10 signs you work in a fear-based workplace [msnbc] http://bit.ly/9Ih3gU http://bit.ly/as1fBb

SAlhir: RT @prwpmp Food for thought! – RT @timkastelle – New blog post: Can #Innovation Management be a Profession? http://bit.ly/al50Nz

SAlhir: RT @Billy_Cox Effective people are not problemminded; theyre opportunityminded. They feed opportunities and starve problems. Stephen Covey

unorder: How superstition improves performance http://j.mp/cfmlMW Those lucky charms are lucky

SAlhir: RT @umairh: very interesting post about collaboration with very cool ‘mixing-desk’ metaphor by @nurturegirl. http://is.gd/dA0Xu

CreatvEmergence: How we engage the dance between structure & flow becomes our unique creative signature

DavidGurteen: Sacrificing sense-making for senselessness. http://bit.ly/97tQOx #KM

CreatvEmergence: RT @Brainzooming – 26 Ways to Break a CreativeBlock – http://bit.ly/aS66Yk

CreatvEmergence: Ideation Techniques on @smartstorming’s blog – http://bit.ly/bi8tpY <”ideation techniques. we like them. we just don’t know them” – illustrates just how limited most people’s ideation-toolkits are, and how to extend that range of options

CreatvEmergence: RT @richbugger The art of Design/Creative thinking, ways to foster Innovation | Richworks http://bit.ly/bXEjRl

CreatvEmergence: 101 Patterns for Influencing Behavior Through Design – w/downloadable cards – http://bit.ly/c4XRDU via @brainpicker

SAlhir: Understand people, and you understand everything. < Absolutely Brilliant! (per @jorgebarba by @thebrandbuilder) http://icio.us/on22pi

kcoreresearch: First Look: Knowledge for the Public Good (Societal Knowledge Management) http://wp.me/pUfyy-1p

Social-media, ‘enterprise 2.0’ and online collaboration:

SAlhir: RT @Agotthelf morning read: Social Hearing Versus Social Listening, There is a Difference – by @mjayliebs http://tinyurl.com/2v5os2m #scrm #e20

oscarberg: “Social” Thinking vs. Doing http://www.relationship-economy.com/?p=11222 by @JDeragon

SAlhir: RT @venessamiemis: Will future of social networking be open & distributed? Here comes @mpesce’s Plexus http://bit.ly/9QzDBh via @rossdawson

oscarberg: RT @bduhon: #ROI? #e20? It just doesn’t matter. by @jmancini77 http://ow.ly/2feO3 #AIIM #ECM

joyce_hostyn: Lizard brain. Fear impacts adoption of many things #BPM adoption: Welcome to Planet Fear http://j.mp/cZ4bSG via @process2go @ScarletCoral

joyce_hostyn: designing effective search & discovery experiences: new Endeca UI pattern library > very cool +1 http://bit.ly/aPCMjN via @dmitryn @uxnu

joyce_hostyn: Love this presentation on design! Hits on problem of linear processes. Needs organic, multidimensional, uncertainties http://bit.ly/aFvWlJ

joyce_hostyn: Designing for accessibility? Personas for cognitive, vision, hearing, communication, upper limb impairments http://bit.ly/bChfkw by @aegisproj

A particular theme about complexity as regards social-learning:

SAlhir: self-organising system with learning as an emergent behaviour (via @socialsyntax) http://bit.ly/bX0p2u

rotkapchen: .@tetradian @SAlhir @socialsyntax Most significant “It doesn’t work if you give them each a computer individually,” #LearningIsSocial

tetradian: @rotkapchen @SAlhir @socialsyntax exactly – ‘One Laptop Per Child’ etc may actually *damage* the social-learning process

IT-architecture, IT-systems and similar matters:

AussiMike: OpenStack: game changing open source cloud platform http://ff.im/-nWea1 #itarch

bartleeten: RT @brianblanchard: Touchable Holograms come to life http://bit.ly/bCYeFy << cool item of the day #japan #tech

Cybersal: RT @roygrubb ..distrust present cloud svcs…but this thoughtful piece by @laurenweinstein is worth yr consideration. http://bit.ly/9Lo4cH

rtolido: 8 ways to measure cloud ROI, remarkably successful Open Group work http://bit.ly/aDAGBy

rtolido: Top tip for application rationalization: when selling to management, minimize your design / architecture and maximize your business case

jdevoo: Cameras as open platforms http://bit.ly/b3t3rE #photo

Society, culture and corporate social responsibility:

unorder: If you want your teenagers to live with you well into their 20s, buy them a double bed.

SAlhir: RT @Billy_Cox There is no reciprocity. Men love women. Women love children. Children love hamsters. Alice Thomas Ellis

SAlhir: RT @jorgebarba How Will You Measure Your Life? (HBR) #psychology #happiness http://icio.us/gghivl

ChristineArena: Two great posts today on markets + morals, one from @nytimes: http://3bl.me/vvs3yf other from @maxineudall: http://3bl.me/vcz548

davidcushman: Watching a young person writing things in a Filofax. With a pen. I could be in an episode of #ashestoashes

SAlhir: Closing Triangles in http://is.gd/dA1TX by @nurturegirl & Triading in http://is.gd/dpFJL #tlcc #culture #creatingcommunity

tetradian: FastDesign: Infographic of the day: Hidden side of the ‘War on Terror’ http://bit.ly/byGoAB

SAlhir: Culture is the sum of those things that adorn human nature in a given context. // Transformation is not about Change (as in I change You or We change It). // Transformation is not about Liberation (as in I liberate You from those things in your context, from the culture tweet, or We liberate Them) // Transformation is the shaping of context so that you liberate yourself and your nature emerges from the cultural adornments. // If I have 2 motivate You or You have 2 motivate Me, it’s the wrong We. We don’t need 2 motivate 1 another, we need 2 engage 1 another.

jdevoo: Nuclear fission: wastes must be isolated for 50 x all of recorded history and some are bound to leak http://tiny.cc/bddr8 via @johnthackara

Cybersal: Don’t think I’ll be using Foursquare any time soon, especially after reading this article in today’s Guardian http://bit.ly/90oFF6

Eclectopedic: Re Banker bonuses: We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we now know that it is bad economics. – F.D. Roosevelt

bartleeten: Another great TED presentation, on the mating of ideas: http://on.ted.com/8TOK <…with copyright and patent as the self-obsessed Puritans who prevent such mating taking place…

And, without doubt, the mellifluous miscellany:

SAlhir: Great translation of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” http://www.victoryoverwar.com

craighepburn: Loving this innovative design for a kinetic phone http://bit.ly/a3ZM5O

SAlhir: RT @Billy_Cox Logic is a system whereby one may go wrong with confidence. Charles K. Kettering

CreatvEmergence: RT @presentationzen: Be like the bamboo: 7 lessons from the Japanese forest http://snipurl.com/zrhx6 (new PZ post)

davidcushman: RT @xaviervallee: I knew teleportation was possible but now time travel is thanks to MIT. http://bit.ly/9UkTOr and http://bit.ly/90kbwq

kvistgaard: Yann Tiersen “Tabarly” #nowplaying And here is a nice track from another album of YT http://youtu.be/4Z2ljWwIaHs <”Piano” – beautiful… one of my most-favourite-ever tracks linked to a poignant animation-short

More Tweets from Open Group conference, Boston

Tom G — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 06:03:41 +0000

Another collection of Tweets from the Open Group Boston conference, mostly from Day 3 (21 July 2010), and variously on business-architecture, the EA profession, cloud-computing and a few miscellaneous themes. As before, a few additional comments from me in italics.) Thanks again to everyone who Tweeted, especially Aleks Buterman (@aleksb6) and @rsevero.

First, a brief follow-up discussion about the previous day’s presentation by Savi Sharma of Nike:

aleksb6: @MartijnVeldkamp @bmichelson Nike is operating within the assumption that #entarch must be a local FTE to be effective. Validity? #ogbos

tetradian: @aleksb6 re “#entarch must be local FTE” – yes for long-term ops/maintenance; setup/practice-refresh can (should?) be ext-consultant #ogbos

aleksb6: @tetradian why is it better in long-term? i’m questioning the validity of this assumption, since assumptions must be questioned #entarch

tetradian: @aleksb6 in AusPost etc we found that #entarch depends very much on know-who as much as know-how – needed long-term connections across org.. // ..we consultants had better knowledge of process, for setup etc, but didn’t have ‘insider’ knowledge needed for long-term maintenance

The first session in the morning track on ‘EA and Business Strategy’, Jack Calhoun from Accelare on “EA and Business Alignment: The Progress You Make, Depends on Where You Start’:

rsevero: Wednesday first session at #ogbos : EA and Business Alignment: The Progress You Make, Depends on Where You Start – Jack Calhoun Accelare CEO

aleksb6: Jack Calhoun: using value maps as a way to force executive team to make the important choices rather than chase after everything

aleksb6: Jack Calhoun at #ogbos on a Sample Enterprise Capability Model – lots of text, but multiple levels of capabilities. The rabbit hole is deep!

aleksb6: Jack Calhoun at #ogbos – build a multi-year financial model to hedge against annual budgeting short-term thinking challenges

rsevero: Mr. Calhoun on EA: Culture eats strategy for breakfast every day!

neilwd: RT @rsevero: Calhoun on EA: Culture eats strategy for breakfast every day!
rsevero: @aleksb6 One of the best culture-aware strategy is to have the CEO supporting the EA initiative with a good communication plan.

aleksb6: Thanks to Jack Calhoun for giving me a deck of #capability poker cards (#agile and #capabilities together) for a good question at #ogbos

An assortment of tweets from the morning track on Cloud:

srog: Cloud initiative founded in a customer service perspective   – San Diego office of educ #cloud

innovationerik: At Open Group event in Boston. First two cloud presentations today were sadly very lightweight. Hoping things will improve soon!

rtolido: watching “Building ROI from cloud computing” at Open Group conference Boston

rtolido: three new Cloud white papers available in The Open Group bookstore

rtolido: three steps described for buying cloud services: determine fit, establish business case, negotiate

lmelsted: 1Plug’s Penelope Gordon discusses framework for orgs to identify whether the cloud is right for them

rtolido: ah yes, cloud and RISK… I always tend to see reduction of risk as a reason to move to cloud…

stevenunn: @rtolido absolutely! That view was supported in our first Open Group run CloudCamp. Reduced risk was one of the top reasons for Cloud

Technodad: Panel discussion on “Taking the Decision to use Cloud Computing at #ogbos http://post.ly/oC8e

rtolido: Business case skills for cloud? Better use them to justify non-cloud strategies, as cloud very soon will be the market benchmark

The second session on ‘EA and Business Strategy’, this one by Paul Johnson of Pragmatica Innovations, on “EA for Decision Support: Connecting Data To Decisions”:

rsevero: Next session: Connecting Data to Decisions – CEO – Pragmatica

rsevero: Enterprise architects are the bridge between business and IT, and are expected to speak both languages.So lets do that!Talk is cheap!

aleksb6: @rsevero not sure that’s true in all organizational contexts. sometimes, a stealth #entarch approach is more culturally aware

rsevero: Yeap @aleksb6, the stealth has to be done with a good communication plan I’ve said. #entarch can be what you say to the teams to do

On the ‘Business Architecture’ track, Tony Mungham of Canadian Border Services Agency on “Using Business Architecture to Understand the End-to-End Value Proposition in a Public Sector Organization”:

aleksb6: listening to Tony Mungham from Canada Border Services Agency at #ogbos on using #bizarch to understand the end-to-end value proposition

aleksb6: Hooray for Tony Mungham of CBSA! First focus on linkage between #entarch and #pfmo at #ogbos today in #bizarch track

Followed by Aleks Buterman’s workshop on “Capability Based Architecture”:

aleksb6: next up… oh wait, I have to speak?! this should be interesting…

bmichelson: hey @aleksb6 how’d your #ogbos Capability Based Business Architecture session go?

aleksb6: @bmichelson using my metric for success (the higher the number of hard questions during/after preso, the better) it was great!

aleksb6: thanks to the #TOG for having me on the #bizarch menu at #ogbos. lots of talk about #capabilities, value, #entarch during the track

Some tweets about the Archimate track:

aleksb6: sitting in on the #archimate track at #ogbos ; not as abfab as #bizarch but it is a key standards-based component of #TIMM

rsevero: Archimate – A language for describing architectures covering business, app. and tech. Free stencils for Visio, SA, +others

rsevero: Archimate – better than UML, because have not only IT perspective, but also Business.

aleksb6: as with all, there is appropriate use for #archimate -> technology representations, as #uml is for req’s and #bpmn for processes

I don’t know which session this relates to, but it certainly hammers home the reason why cross-system integration with enterprise-architecture is so important:

rsevero: great session opening: I’ve discovered what EA really is, when my father was diagnosed with pancreas cancer. Wow! Direct to the point.

A couple of notes on Henry Peyret’s presentation on “How Much of Your Future Will Be In The Cloud? Strategies For Embracing Cloud Computing Services”:

lmelsted: Forrester’s Henry Peyret says smart computing is the next big thing, not cloud

bmichelson: RT @lmelsted: Forrester’s Henry Peyret says smart computing is the next big thing, not cloud <– I prefer smart-enough computing

The lead-in to the popular CloudCamp, another ‘unconference’ that’s become a staple part of the Open Group conferences:

rsevero: Tonight we’ll have #CloudCamp with Dave Nielsen… Looking forward…

rtolido: giving a brief introduction to The Open Group at #cloudcamp about to start here in Boston in collaboration with #ogbos

rsevero: People registering for #cloudcamp Boston at #ogbos http://tweetphoto.com/34076771

rsevero: PizzaCamp before the cloud! #ogbos http://tweetphoto.com/34078270

rsevero: Shrimp pizza? Only in #cloudcamp at #ogbos . Great taste! http://tweetphoto.com/34080800

rsevero: Mr. Dave “cloud” Nielsen is giving some explanation on cloud camp at #ogbos

rsevero: Lightning Speech! 5 minutes for the guys who pay the bill, flight tickets, shrimp pizza and everything else at #ogbos Thanks you!

smattoon: @johnsheehan explains @twilio: “Turns a phone into web browser” #cloudcamp

rsevero: Let’s go to the unpanel thing! Anyone can ask anything on cloud computing! I think those questions will become the breakdown session

And finally, a few miscellaneous items that didn’t fit anywhere else:

lmelsted: #ogbos: The Open Group Launches FACE Consortium to Develop Open Standards for U.S. Army, Navy and Avionics Industry – http://bit.ly/bTv5qW

rsevero: AOGEA presentation – Birgit Hartje – AOGEA. AOGEA stands for Association of Open Group Enterprise Architects.

rsevero: Great opportunity to become a #AOGEA Chapter Chair in Brazil. Birgit is already considering that… I think it would be great!

bmichelson: 6+1 Secrets of Successful SOA http://bit.ly/9kwLNG <– my deck from #ogbos now available on slideshare

aleksb6: leaving #ogbos behind and heading for home. follow @rsevero for further updates; meanwhile come on #united, get those planes flying on time!

rsevero: @aleksb6 thanks for your great tweets… Have a nice trip back!

oltranscendence: RT @Dana_Gardner: Enterprise architecture goes agile? http://bit.ly/da4IyD << Summing up EA chats at #ogbos, thx @ppossej for noting

Hope this has been useful, anyway – best wishes, and thanks to all!

How to screw up in one easy lesson…

Tom G — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 18:08:16 +0000

Yup, I screwed up badly over that last post on IBM’s definitely not ‘new’ Component Business Model. Within a matter of minutes I’d received a whole stream of Tweets warning me I’d been mistaken about the age of the model:

miket0181: @tetradian IBM’s CBM isn’t new. I think it’s at least 5 years old…

operninha: @tetradian aqui na empresa contratamos a IBM e eles usaram o CBM (“here the company hired IBM and they used the CBM”)

seabird20: @tetradian I have seen CBM in RFPs for at least 5 years. Original work 10+ yrs. ago. Takes a while to get to rank and file though

richardveryard: @miket0181 @tetradian … IBM’s CBM came sometime after my 2001 book on Component-Based Business http://tinyurl.com/23gelj7

So yes, I was wrong on that: badly wrong. A critique about outdatedness that would have made sense if the model had been ‘new’ just looks peevish and petty when it isn’t…

Even the critique about the structure of the model is barely fair. Sure, Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model has been around since at least the mid-1970s, but the number of people who knew about it and were applying it in practice (and I actually could include myself amongst them by the mid-1990s) was and still is very small. It’s better-known these days, and its value and importance is much better-understood; but at the time the Component Business Model was devised, I would doubt that anyone in that IBM team would have even heard of it, let alone known why those kind of whole-of-system cross-checks are so crucial. The critique would definitely be valid for an equivalent model developed now, but most of the current knowledge on whole-of-enterprise impacts simply wasn’t available a decade ago. And whilst critiquing a (relatively) old model on the basis of current knowledge is valid enough, it’s only fair to do so when it’s clear when that fact of history is acknowledged – which I didn’t, because I didn’t know it was that old.

I know why I screwed up: after five years of constant struggle against IT-centrism in ‘enterprise’-architecture, I’m now seeing management-centrism promoted as an ‘improvement’, and it’s frustrating as heck… The fundamental point in all enterprise-architecture is that there is no centre – everywhere and nowhere is ‘the centre’, all at the same time. In true whole-of-enterprise architecture, making anything ‘the centre’ – IT, finance, management, processes, security, whatever, even the business-organisation itself – will guarantee failure of the architecture over the longer term. When I saw the Tweet that triggered this, I thought it was yet another example of this lethal mistake. So I over-reacted.

In my defence, I did check the IBM site with some care. But the annoying point there is that there are no dates on that part of the site – nothing to give any clue as to when the material was posted, or its probable vintage. (Compare that to, say Apple or Microsoft, where just about everything has a ‘Last Updated’ timestamp.) I looked quite hard for anything there that would give me any clue as to the date. What I didn’t do, though, was search elsewhere – and yes, that was a mistake too. So I misread the implication of the Tweet, and mistakenly assumed the model was new – after all, it still says so, several years later…

Moral(s) of the story:

Fact-check everything, via multiple sources – not just the ‘official’ site for the respective information

If key metadata-items such as dates are missing, fact-check elsewhere again, and treat any implied derivatives (e.g. ‘new’) as suspect

Frustration is fine, and often all too understandable, but don’t let it rule the roost – engage doubt before pressing the ‘Send’ key…

Overall, though, the blunt fact remains that yes, I did indeed screw up there. Mea culpa…

On IBM’s ‘Component Business Model’

Tom G — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:05:13 +0000

(Another example of How To Lose Friends And Infuriate People, no doubt, but this does have to be said.)

[Update: this post was a reaction to a tweet I received yesterday, but Mike T. (@miket0181) tells me that the IBM CBM described here isn't new, in fact is apparently some years old, so my complaints on that regard are unfair. (Doesn't help that IBM don't put up any dates on their website-posts.) On that part, yes, I ought to apologise, and do - see 'How to screw up in one easy lesson...'. Yet the core critique still stands: it's not a complete model, and potentially is dangerously misleading if used as the basis for a business-architecture. That's my view for now an' I'm stickin' to it, anyways. ]

A couple of weeks back, as part of the ‘Patterns‘ section in the Enterprise Canvas series, I put up a an example of a variant of the Canvas which I said was definitely dysfunctional, all but guaranteed to be ineffective, and definitely not recommended – a kind of Taylorist-style model of the organisation and its (non-)relationship with its business-ecosystem:

I said explicitly that it was a stereotype, almost a parody – a guide as to how not to view an organisation, with quality-management and coordination subsumed into ‘management’, and rigid separation between the organisation and its broader shared-enterprise.

I was quite certain that no-one would be daft enough to try to model any real organisation in that way.

I was wrong.

Welcome to IBM’s new Component Business Model, where the organisation’s business-world is partitioned into just three layers: Direct, Control, Execute:

I’m going to have to be rude here, and describe this as a kind of ‘bastard child’ of Taylorism and TOGAF, combining many of the worst features of both and not many of their best. The one good item, and a definite improvement on TOGAF, is that the model does explicitly include People as well as Process and Technology:

Using the Component Business Model methodology, our consultants identify the basic building blocks of your business. Each building block includes the people, processes and technology needed by this component to act as a standalone entity and deliver value to your organisation.

But beyond that? – well, let’s compare it to Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model, which I regard as the minimum requirement for whole-of-business modelling:

system-5, ‘policy / purpose‘ – uh… might be tucked away somewhere in IBM’s ‘Direct’?

system-4, ‘outside / future‘ – sort-of in IBM’s ‘Direct’, but no reference to ‘outside’?

system-3, ‘inside / now‘ – yup, right there in IBM’s ‘Control’ – lots of it

system-3*, ‘monitor / audit‘ (including overall quality-management) – nope, not a sign of it – presumably squeezed into IBM’s ‘Control’?

system-2, ‘coordination‘ – nope – no sign of it anywhere

system-1, ‘operations‘ – yup, that’s IBM’s ‘Execute’ – probably…

In terms of the Enterprise Canvas model above, all it has is Staff-Management (what should be the guidance-services, but all scrunched up together in a nearly-unusable way), Line-Management (the Value-Management cell, blown up out of all proportion to its actual relevance) and, uh, Everything-Else…

In other words, there’s probably less than half of what’s needed to make sense of the organisation – but presented as if it’s the whole of it, much like TOGAF’s hopelessly-IT-centric model purports to be ‘enterprise’-architecture.

The four other worked examples are slightly better, but still dangerously incomplete: a Taylorist manager’s-eye view of the business-world, without any clue as to any of the glue-functions that hold it all together. You’ll also note that each one of those examples has a very different structure in its ‘horizontal’ axis – but no indication at all as to how it’s derived. Presumably only IBM’s own consultants could be considered competent to understand the ‘magic sauce’ needed to do this, and the rest of us mere mortals may do nothing else but bow down in awe?

What’s also irksome is that IBM have the temerity to present this as something ‘new’:

IBM’s Component Business Model is a new way of looking at your business. It represents the entire business in a simple framework that fits on a single page. It is an evolution of traditional views of a business, such as business unit, function, geographic or process.

Fact is that this is nothing ‘new’ at all: okay, it might seem new to IBM, but not to just about anyone else in ‘the trade’. We were doing it more than half a decade ago in Australia Post – certainly 2004, and probably earlier. It was only a Visio hack, but in business terms it proved straight away to be one of the most valuable artifacts from our Business Transformation team: just about every single manager in the whole organisation grabbed hold of their own copy and placed it, much annotated, above their desk. Since then I’ve done one or more of these models for just about every one of my enterprise-architecture clients: you’ll find a couple of (de-identified) examples in that VSM slidedeck referenced above, and in probably half of my other TOGAF-conference presentations over the past few years. I even published the instructions on how to build an ‘organisation-on-a-page’ map, complete with Visio templates, on my Tetradian Books website some two or three years ago. Aleks Buterman and his colleagues have had their own generic version – which they call an Enterprise Architecture Capability Map – up on their website for almost a year now. And it’s even built into some of the EA toolsets, such as Troux Metis, and, I believe, IBM’s own System Architect, and again has been so for years. So what’s ‘new’ about it? Nothing, frankly – other than the fact that IBM have finally cottoned-on to what the rest of us already knew anyway.

And I hate to think how much they charge for this ‘new’ approach… a lot, no doubt…

Sorry, folks, but I’d have to say I’m underwhelmed at all of this. Seriously underwhelmed. Oh well.

Bah.

Tweets from Open Group conference, Boston

Tom G — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 08:27:31 +0000

A collection of Tweets from and/or about the Open Group conference in Boston. A few references to Day 1 – particularly the ‘unconference’ – but mainly about Day 2, where the Jeanne Ross keynote was obviously the highlight.

I’ve split this into sections, mainly around the current speaker. I’ve also added occasional comments of my own at the end of some tweets, shown in italics.

Many thanks especially to Dana Gardner (@Dana_Gardner), Brenda Michelson (@bmichelson), Aleks Buterman (@aleksb6), Lisa Melsted (@lmelsted) and @rsevero (apologies, I don’t know the proper name), who provided the bulk of the Tweets here.

First segment was on security, which I admit is not my field:

lmelsted: Internet Security Alliance’s Larry Clinton says 90% of security breaches could be prevented by following known best practices

Technodad: Larry Clinton of ISA: Cyber targets shifted to individual employees; need to shift focus from security tech to business risk analysis

lmelsted: IBMers Peter Coldicott & Tony Carrato advise architects to consider security when the physical and digital worlds collide

cebess: Cybersecurity blog post on http://www.hp.com/go/tnbt #yam

Next up was the TOGAF Camp ‘unconference’, which seems to have been based on a somewhat more controlled version of the Open Space process. I’m very sad to have missed that – it looks like it would have been very good indeed:

theopengroup: Don’t just send the kids to camp!! There is a Free TOGAF Camp, #ogbos, this eve!

rsevero: The first TOGAF camp of the known universe. Wow, making history! http://tweetphoto.com/33733067

rsevero: Creating the unpanel (sic) for the unconference! Great anarchical process! Fantastic! http://tweetphoto.com/33733513

Technodad: Session planning at the inaugural TOGAFcamp at #ogbos http://post.ly/ntu3

rsevero: Audience voting the themes on the unpanel. Winning subjects go for the unconferences   http://tweetphoto.com/33734751

Technodad: Planning the breakouts at TOGCamp http://post.ly/ntvw

rsevero: TOGAF Pizza during the unconference process! Fed architects think better!   http://tweetphoto.com/33735209

rsevero: Yeaaah!!! This is TOGAF! Drinks before the unconference! Good event picture to send to the boss!   http://tweetphoto.com/33735757

rsevero: End of the voting process. Who proposed the subject will start each unconference!   http://tweetphoto.com/33736039

rsevero: The first unconference I’ll attend!   http://tweetphoto.com/33737341

rsevero: Unconference:a high quality conversation, high level specialists in a non formal model. Simply great   http://tweetphoto.com/33740814

stevenunn: 1st ever TOGAF(TM) Camp in progress at #ogbos. 6 break-out topics, over 2 hours. Good participation. Content to be continued on the wiki

On Day 2 (Tuesday 20 July), the evident highlight was the keynote on ‘Evolving EA from IT to Business’, by Jeanne Ross, co-author of ‘Enterprise Architecture As Strategy’:

bmichelson: Jeanne Ross’ talk is taking EA to the Business; Why architecture matters? “The quest for Agility”

Dana_Gardner: Ross: architecture is about business agility; essential for the digital enterprise; the best way to react to market changes.

bmichelson: Agility – use of existing business & IT capabilities to rapidly generate new business value while limiting costs & risks -Jeanne Ross

Dana_Gardner: Many businesses never get to promoting agility, they are too busy putting out risk and costs fires, says Ross.

bmichelson: With architecture, we are designing organizations, not just IT capabilities – Jeanne Ross

Dana_Gardner: Key question: How does IT get attention of business to get architecture to where it can work the agility problem, says Ross

aleksb6: Jeanne Ross: key question – how can #entarch sitting in #IT get everyone in biz on board? #bizarch #cio #cfo #ceo

bmichelson: In addition to being architects, we need to marketers and educators — Jeanne Ross, citing research findings <– +100 on marketers

Dana_Gardner: Ross: IT needs to “market” architecture across the firm, and take both short- and long-term goals; this is an “art”

aleksb6: Jeanne Ross at #ogbos – architecture journey involves a biz transformation #entarch #bizarch

Dana_Gardner: The architecture journey is really business transformation, “a really big deal,” says Ross.

bmichelson: The architecture journey, is itself a business transformation . Embracing architecture (correctly) is a really big deal – Jeanne Ross

trouxsoftware: “The art of architecture is reconciling long term view with current business imperatives”.Jeanne Ross

chrisdpotts: RT @aleksb6: Jeanne Ross at #ogbos – architecture journey involves a biz transformation #entarch #bizarch | me: so true!

chrisdpotts: @tetradian Concerned by the idea of ‘taking #entarch to the business’, as it’s already there. EAs role is to discover, join in & enhance.

tetradian: @chrisdpotts re ‘concerned by the idea of ‘taking #entarch to the business”‘ – strongly agree with you

darachennis: RT @bmichelson: The architecture journey, is itself a business transformation . Embracing architecture (correctly) is a really big deal – Jeanne Ross

tetradian: Jeanne Ross at re #entarch as business transform – music to my ears, this is exactly what we were doing at Australia Post 6 years ago

chrisdpotts: @tetradian Hmm. Are you inferring something about the currency of MIT’s research?

tetradian: @chrisdpotts no, ‘cos ‘EA as Strategy’ was researched around that time too – but most ‘#entarch’ is still way behind, as you know

chrisdpotts: @tetradian There are a number of schools of #entarch. Doesn’t necessarily mean that some are ‘behind’ others.

tetradian: @chrisdpotts in terms of deliberately restricting scope to IT-centrism and pretending that that ‘is’ #entarch, I would say they’re ‘behind’

chrisdpotts: @tetradian What may make them ‘behind’ is knowing what all the latest #entarch possibilities are.

tetradian: @chrisdpotts yup – except quote “there are none so blind as those who choose not to see” etc…

chrisdpotts: What would #entarch focus on if it were (temporarily) banned from mentioning technology?

tetradian: @chrisdpotts if #entarch ‘banned’ from mentioning tech, it might at last look at the whole-enterprise – whole-system integration etc

iaflash: #iaflash With architecture, we are designing organizations, not just IT capabilities – Jeanne Ross http://bit.ly/d7PAJ4

iaflash: #iaflash Jeanne Ross. Architecture is about business agility. http://bit.ly/c4yTdx

bmichelson: Jeanne Ross is talking about 4 stages of business: business silos, standardized tech, optimized core & business modularity

aleksb6: question: “Strategic Business Value of Architecture Maturity” curve, has anyone quantified the value of each maturity level? #entarch

allenbrownopen: Jeanne Ross says we have to be marketers. Market the impact of architecture to the enterprise.

bmichelson: everyday, we take the next step on the business and therefore #entarch journey. Not race to stage 4 – Jeanne Ross

Dana_Gardner: Ross; Businesses now in a deep learning phase, of going from using IT for projects to using IT and architecture to make them agile.

rsevero: Great speech: “Evolving EA from IT to Business”. Jeanne Ross (MIT) speaking. She wrote “EA As Strategy…” http://amzn.to/bOraDy

Technodad: Ross at: Great arch companies make 4 commitments: Strategic choices, actionable assessment, distinctive digitization, working smarter

bmichelson: Scope of IT — does it include digitized products, or not? BMW says yes, b/c need to be integrated – Jeanne Ross

Dana_Gardner: EA forces companies to define core from context, make strategic choices for role of IT, define their value, says Ross.

aleksb6: if #entarch is to be effective in marketing itself to biz, it’d help to have hard #’s on the value of moving along the maturity curve

bmichelson: @chrisdpotts it’s the business journey, from startup and experimentation to structured to optimized. EA need increases by stage

Dana_Gardner: No one in EA plenary believes if you build a platform users will use it. Platforms are not road to success, it’s people, says Ross.

stevenunn: Full room for Jeanne Ross at. Just because you build a platform, doesn’t mean people will use it. How true!

bmichelson: Every #entarch who is serious about business contribution should read Jeanne Ross and hear her speak

Dana_Gardner: Successful companies over next 10 years will figure out platforms don’t make IT work … architecture, people, process, says Ross.

Technodad: Ross at: Great IT co’s commit company-wide & long-term to working digitally using tech platform – changing work habits is hard.

stevenunn: Jeanne Ross predicts that those companies who really use their digital platform will differentiate themselves in next decade.

bmichelson: data, data, data, metrics, metrics, metrics, smart decision-making, now! – 7-Eleven Japan Success Story via platform – Jeanne Ross

aleksb6: did Jeanne Ross just throw a gauntlet to “IT is a commodity” school of thinking at? #entarch #bizarch #ceo #cio #cfo #coo

stevenunn: Jeanne Ross at talks of 7-Eleven Japan being divested from US parent, then becoming so successful that it bought it’s former parent!

bmichelson: re “IT as commodity” (or not) @aleksb6 think Jeanne Ross is saying there is a commodity-contribution line at the (bus) platform layer

gdaniels: Wish I was at #oscon, but digging tweets from both there and #ogbos. Thanks all for sharing perceptions + insights.

aleksb6: @chrisdpotts not #entarch, but the #ceo should care: firms that have digitized platform will gain higher strategic business value

stevenunn: Jeanne Ross talks of Toyota Europe’s information-centric platform being built on shared inventory, not shared CRM.

aleksb6: @bmichelson right, and that contribution line is dependent on organizational maturity at using IT

lmelsted: MIT’s Jeanne Ross says that evolving architecture to business is a four step journey

bmichelson: If Campbell’s soup can do it (digital transformation) anyone can! – Jeanne Ross — #entarch is mmm mmm good

srog: How will we help organizations understand as go from brick & mortar to digital companies that they will have to transform? J Ross

stevenunn: Jeanne Ross stresses the need to move towards long-term goals, while addressing short-term needs.

aleksb6: @chrisdpotts but investments themselves cannot be classified as commodity, can they? not just about optimization, it’s about value!

aleksb6: RT @srog: How will we help organizations understand as go from brick & mortar to digital companies that they will have to transform? J Ross

lmelsted: Steps for the evolution include: realizing EA is a journey, making a commitment, taking a long term view and major biz transformation

Dana_Gardner: New corporate piracy: ID the companies that DON’T do EA, buy a competitor and transform it fast, or start-up; take the whole market.

bmichelson: Campbell embraced a “total delivered cost” metric. Delivery of can of soup should never go up. Org rallied on keeping metric down -

bmichelson: “business architecture is not separate from tech or data arch, it’s the overarching logic” – Jeanne Ross

aleksb6: @Dana_Gardner to extend that thought, every corporate raider must have #entarch as core competency?

trouxsoftware: Jeanne Ross “Always focus on business outcomes of architecture efforts.”

Dana_Gardner: Business architecture is the over-arching logic of running a business, says Ross.

bmichelson: #entarch is everyone’s responsibility – architects might have to help people see and do it – Jeanne Ross

bmichelson: if there are no business metrics, there is no business architecture. stop the train. – Jeanne Ross

aleksb6: Jeanne Ross at : “if there are no biz metrics, there is no #bizarch. Stop the train!” #ceo #coo #cfo #cio #entarch

erikproper: @bmichelson That sounds like “BA is the B motivation for T and D arch” … that ain’t the Arch of the Businss IMHO …

Dana_Gardner: EA is a grass-roots effort inside companies, architects need to be the evangelists. Reap what you sow?

bmichelson: “architecture is at the heart of success in a digital economy” – Jeanne Ross

Dana_Gardner: How will EAs “market” the role of architecture? Metrics and logic, not spin; talk in their language, says Ross.

bmichelson: Jeanne Ross – Don’t use the “A” word in marketing Enterprise Architecture

bmichelson: “Architecture is not the only thing that matters, but it can have a huge impact” – Jeanne Ross

Dana_Gardner: ID pain points in terms of cost and time, and focus there to demonstrate agility benefits, says Ross of EA efforts.

Dana_Gardner: Cowboy agility not as good as repeatable, core agility based on refined process, not loose cannons on a tear, says Ross.

stevenunn: Jeanne Ross “1st 2 lessons for architects: Bus Arch is not separate from technology or data architecture; focus on business outcomes”

Technodad: Ross at: Business agility needs to come from re-use of IT & organizational capabilities, not heroics by IT staff.

stevenunn: Jeanne Ross: lessons 3&4: EA is everyone’s responsibility; there is no business architecture without business metrics

bmichelson: CIO at stage 2 (standardization) should be great at IT, CIO at stage 3 (optimized) could be from business - – Jeanne Ross

erikproper: @bmichelson Maybe Jeanne Ross can twitter an answer to BA versus BM for “Technologies A” question.

Dana_Gardner: CIOs with no IT background? Works only when the IT maturity has progressed, but can help bind biz and IT goals and means, says Ross.

aleksb6: question on whether a biz person w/o #IT background makes a good #CIO <- me: how about person w/o accounting background to be #CFO?

CIOLeader: RT @bmichelson: “always focus on business outcomes of architecture efforts” – Jeanne Ross – This is not practiced enough! #entarch

aleksb6: interesting thought: #cloud allows a firm to START their #capability investments with Stage 4, rather than mature there over time

bmichelson: Enterprise Architects aren’t always able to convert frameworks (TOGAF, DODAF, etc) into value - – Jeanne Ross

chrisonea: Why handicap ur company like that? RT @aleksb6: question on whether a biz person w/o #IT background makes a good #CIO

chrisonea: KEY >RT @productmarketer: RT @trouxsoftware: Jeanne Ross “Always focus on business outcomes of architecture efforts.” #entarch

bmichelson: business processes and information must be addressed (i say attacked) together – need better processes & good data - – Jeanne Ross

aleksb6: Jeanne Ross at : there is a cemetery dedicated to #failed data governance initiatives #MDM #entarch

ebenhewitt: RT @Dana_Gardner: Worldwide TOGAF Adoption Accelerates http://bit.ly/bxJh8M DG< China is particularly hot

nigelcameron: The key to all success, surely: via @stevenunn: Jeanne Ross – need to move towards long-term goals, while addressing s/term needs.

stevenunn: Dave Hornford, Chair of Open Group Architecture Forum says forum has more than 220 members from 22 countries & 12 vertical industries <220 members!!! no wonder they rarely succeed in getting anything done…

breadedcod: Would have liked to have heard the Jeanne Ross keynote at. Will have to wait until folks post updates > 140chars to catch up

Next up, Hamidou Dia of Oracle, on ‘Building Sustainable Architectures for Business Success’:

bmichelson: Hamidou Dia of Oracle’s Enterprise Architecture practice is up. Promises to not talk about Products.

lmelsted: Oracle’s Hamidou Dia discusses sustainable architecture – meet today’s needs without compromising the future

lmelsted: EA principles can be leveraged to build sustainability – Hamidou Dia,

aleksb6: next up, Hamadou Dia from #oracle #entarch practice, on painting EA red

stevenunn: 4 top business goals for EA: grow/ M&A, adapt, innovate, reduce costs, says Hamidou Dia at

bmichelson: oh, i get it. no product names. just category mentions. EA brings Abstraction to Oracle Marketing

bmichelson: well @tetradian i am an #entarch by trade. cynicism-as-a-service

tetradian: @bmichelson ‘cynicism-as-a-service’: beautifully put, ma’am, beautifully put!

aleksb6: hamadou dia at : current state documentation almost killed #entarch as a discipline need it (e.g. for gap-analysis), but not before – documenting current-state for its own sake is not entarch, it’s low-level administration

aleksb6: @bmichelson perhaps they took Jeanne’s advice of becoming expert #entarch marketers seriously?

rsevero: Mr. Hamidu Dia (Sr. Director – EA in Oracle) – EA mission: “Meet today’s needs without compromising the Future”

stevenunn: “It is possible not to spend ages documenting current architecture”, says Hamidou Dia at. “Just enough, just in time” is fine

chrisonea: RT @stevenunn: don’t spend ages documenting current arch says Hamidou Dia at. “Just enough, just in time” is fine < Agree u need SOME

trouxsoftware: Hamadou Dia of Oracle. Every Oracle EA will be TOGAF certified.

stevenunn: Hamidou Dia at stresses the value of using architecture principles, and a strategic roadmap. Take the time to do these properly!

tetradian: would be great if any of this supposed ‘enterprise’-architecture was actually about the architecture of the enterprise…

stevenunn: EA governance model has to include an engagement model which enables local businesses to contribute value, says Hamidou Dia at

erikproper: Wonders what the colour of Enterprise is …. can’t be a techno colour …

aleksb6: Hamadou Dia at : #oracle chose the Unified #bom – possible wen there’s a single stakeholder at the top?

aleksb6: Hamadou Dia at – the real value of #entarch transformation is in keeping G&A expenses low despite 45 acquisitions in last 4 years

A few ‘party political broadcasts’ from Andrew Josey on the Open Group’s support for the much-hyped ‘cloud-computing’:

a_josey: Strengthening your Business Case for Using Cloud:A White Paper by The Open Group Cloud Computing Work Group http://ow.ly/2dUlM

a_josey: Cloud Buyers’ Decision Tree: A White Paper by The Open Group Cloud Computing Work Group http://ow.ly/2dUgT

a_josey: Cloud Buyers’ Requirements Questionnaire, Version 1.0: A White Paper by The Open Group Cloud Computing Work Group http://ow.ly/2dUpn

Continuing (sort-of) the ‘EA beyond IT’ theme, Mary Tolbert on ‘TOGAF 9 and the US Department of Defense Architecture Framework 2.0 (DoDAF 2.0)’:

bmichelson: Mary Tolbert of Mitre is up, talking abt Togaf & Dodaf together

bmichelson: DoDAF Viewpoints and Models – Capability Viewpoint http://bit.ly/9Lg5SP <– hmm, new capability viewpoint

lmelsted: Practical tutorial with MITRE’s Mary Tolber on using DoDAF 2.0 with TOGAF 9 -

bmichelson: In DODAF business architecture is captured (mostly) in the Operational Viewpoint http://bit.ly/95aAmb – Mary Tolbert

bmichelson: The crux of Mary Tolbert’s TOGAF and DoDAF work is using TOGAF ADM as navigation to deliver the DoDAF Viewpoints.

bmichelson: side note: no #entarch success will come talking to our business & IT constituents in same manner as we talk to each other

Technodad: Mary Tolbert of MITRE covers using #TOGAF methodology to produce #DoDAF architectures at – mapping is at http://bit.ly/a3OEqS

a_josey: WP: TOGAF 9 and DoDAF 2.0, By Terry Blevins, Dr. Fatma Dandashi, and Mary Tolbert of MITRE Corporation http://ow.ly/2e1Li

A brief flurry on the brief ‘Spotlight’ presentation by the Open Group’s Archimate Forum:

bmichelson: Hey, #entarch types can do marketing! ArchiMate pitch right now. – http://www.archimate.org/

bmichelson: Archimate supports Phases B, C & D of TOGAF ADM

aleksb6: RT bmichelson #entarch types can do marketing! ArchiMate http://bit.ly/auvAF2 pitch right now. <- all we need is an oranje hat

bmichelson: Archimate is being extended to provide full TOGAF ADM coverage

bmichelson: @MartijnVeldkamp The ArchiMate Forum that is part of the open group. Henry [Franken?] the forum leader did the pitching

MartijnVeldkamp: @bmichelson I think what I am really saying is that I should have been attending the …

ariscommunity: Interesting post by @adrianrcampbell on combining VPEC-T and ArchiMate http://bit.ly/ch0MJo

In the afternoon, the conference split into four tracks: SOA, security (for which there don’t seem to have been any tweets), ‘professionalising the discipline of EA’, and ‘ecosystem of architects and architectures in the enterprise’. The latter is one that’s of particular interest to me, starting with a presentation by Len Fehskens on ‘Why the “Architecture” in “Enterprise Architecture” must be about essentials’:

aleksb6: splitting up from @bmichelson for a bit and sitting in on the #entarch ecology track at

aleksb6: up first, a primer on how #entarch can break out of the confines of #IT. and look, #ieee 1471 reference! I won’t be the only one!

rsevero: Back to the Conference – “Architecture is 80% about the future.. About the vision of Architecture”

rsevero: OpenGroup VP-Mr.Len Fehskens-”Architecture glues Mission with solutions using a specific environment and considering its properties”

rsevero: Another great statement from Mr.Len:”Nonessential elements are not part of an architecture” rsevero: identify your binaries decisions

rsevero: Mr. Len: more pragmatic, impossible! Great speech, direct to the point…

Still on the ‘ecosystem’ track, Bill Sheleg from Deloitte, on ‘Transforming EA into a Business Discipline’:

rsevero: OpenGroup Conference: Mr. William Sheleg: Starting now speaking about “Transforming EA into a Business Dicipline”

rsevero: Mr. William Sheleg – Deloitte: “Today, one of the most important objectives of EA is to improve performance of IT as a function” only IT – please!!!

aleksb6: oh boy… the guy from Deloitte made a crack about hiring expensive consultants as to why most companies can’t make strategy work

rsevero: “Making strategy work is harder than making strategy”. He pointed 4 pre-reqs to make strategy and a dozen to make it work!

And a few tweets on Walter Stahlecker’s ‘Architecture of the Enterprise: an Holistic View’:

rsevero: Here we go: Architecture of the Enterprise,a holistic view-Executives & architects will benefit from architecture with alignment

rsevero: Definitively, the theory is different in a practical landscape

rsevero: Architecture should NOT have political wars with other areas, otherwise the EA or even the IT Architecture initiatives will FAIL!

Over on the ‘Professionalising EA’ track, Brenda Michelson tweeted Savi Sharma ‘Approach to Design EA Practice to Support Architects throughout the Job Lifecycle’:

bmichelson: Savi Sharma, Enterprise Architect, Nike on approach to designing EA Practice that supports architects throughout job lifecycle

bmichelson: so this is cool, Nike Inc has program from architect on-boarding through Nike career, includes mentoring, coaching, community etc

bmichelson: a nice part of the Nike Inc program is growing architect skills of not just existing architects, but also “architect interested”

bmichelson: “architect has to be visionary, designer at heart, and be able to tell story” — architect hiring @ Nike – Savi Sharma

bmichelson: this [Nike] is great, Designing an Architect Program, vs. Designing an Architecture Framework Program <– talent mgt FTW

bmichelson: We don’t want standard IT managers to manage architects. Grow architects to be architecture managers – Savi Sharma <– +1

Finally, Brenda Michelson delivered her own presentation on ‘6+1 Secrets of Successful SOA’, tweeted by Aleks Buterman:

aleksb6: from @bmichelson – 6+1 secrets of successful #soa -> +1 means that we hear 6 secrets, and then some!

aleksb6: made the switch from the #entarch ecology track to @bmichelson ’s Secrets of #SOA track at

aleksb6: truism from @bmichelson : anything w an “A” in it (e.g. SOA, EA, EDA, BA…) will have a marketing challenge!

aleksb6: #SOA Governance def from @toddbiske “reused” by @bmichelson sounds a lot like our #SOA Governance capability definition!

toddbiske: thanks to @bmichelson (and @aleksb6 for making me aware of it* for the mention related to SOA Governance at.

aleksb6: now, time for the #SOA panel lead by @bmichelson – real world experience with #SOA, experience gained, lessons learned

That’s it for now: may post another set from the Wednesday sessions – but it seems they’re mostly on cloud-computing, which is not my bag at all. Hope these have been useful, anyway?

Context-space mapping with Enterprise Canvas, Part 2: Business context

Tom G — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 07:20:48 +0000

In the previous post in this series we did a quick review of context-space mapping and the Enterprise Canvas, and set out this into practice with a real-world example that, for me, is very close to home: rethinking my own enterprise-architecture consultancy business.

We started at the top layer, aiming to identify the core ‘enterprise’ within which I work. From exploring my own professional history, it became clear that the main focus of my work is about enterprises themselves, of any size, and always with the aim of enhancing enterprise effectiveness. From that, we ended up with an initial enterprise-descriptor – or ‘vision’ – of “creating more-effective enterprises”.

Notice, though, what’s happened right here, in that paragraph above. In trying to summarise that initial rather clunky vision-statement – ‘creating more-effective enterprises’ – we’ve accidentally hit upon a better one: ‘enhancing enterprise effectiveness’. It reads better, has a smoother flow to it, a poetry almost. It does describe what I’m passionate about – and finding that passion is central to the success of an enterprise. And ‘enhancing’ is actually a much more accurate term for what I do: I don’t often create enterprises in the sense that, say, an entrepreneur would do, but I do work to enhance their effectiveness. So note that this process is typical of what happens in context-space mapping: for example, we arrive at a ’solution’ – in this case, the initial ‘vision’-descriptor – which itself quietly dropped us back into the ’sensemaking’ space. So the trick here is to notice what’s happening, notice these little serendipitous events – and learning how to do that is a real skill in itself. To quote one of my favourite books, William Beveridge’s The Art of Scientific Investigation:

If these discoveries were made by chance or accident alone, as many discoveries of this type would be made by any inexperienced scientist starting to dabble in research as by Bernard or Pasteur. The truth of the matter lies in Pasteur’s famous saying, “In the field of observation, chance favours only the prepared mind.” It is the interpretation of the chance event which counts. The role of chance is merely to provide the opportunity and the scientist has to recognise it and grasp it.

Anyway, that’s what we now have as the ‘row-0′ or ‘Enterprise’ layer for the Enterprise Canvas model of my own enterprise:

Now what? Very pretty and all that, but what do we do with this?

At this point we need to do brief reprise on layering and the Enterprise Canvas. Each entity described in an Enterprise Canvas model is considered to be in just one of seven distinct layers of abstraction, summarised as follows:

row-0, ‘Enterprise‘: consists of a single entity summarising the overall enterprise, its vision and core-values

row-1, ‘Scope‘: consists of lists of core entities, such as key assets, key functions, capabilities and services, key events, key players in the enterprise, etc

row-2, ‘Business-model‘: describes roles and relationships between the key entities in scope

row-3, ‘System-model‘ (aka ‘Logical model’): includes attributes and events etc to describe more detail about generic ‘families’ of options and ‘platform-independent’ solutions

row-4, ‘Design-model‘ (aka ‘Physical model’): specifies ‘platform-dependent’ implementation-details, such as specific methodologies, technologies etc

row-5, ‘Action-plan‘ (aka ‘Operations-model’): specifies individual context-specific instances for final work-plans, such as work-rosters, individual system-configurations etc

row-6, ‘Action-record‘: detailed records of actual events, actual configurations etc at a specified (past) point in time

(The numbering starts at 0 rather than 1 for compatibility with the well-known Zachman framework, with which layers 1-5 here match almost exactly. Row-0 is unchanging – or should be, because if it does change, it ceases to be the same enterprise. Rows 1-5 represent various abstractions or concretisations of a potentially-alterable plan for the future; row-6 represents the unchangeable past.)

Three points to note about where we’ve gotten to so far.

One is a reminder that although I’ve chosen this as the definition for ‘my’ enterprise, it’s more accurate to say that it chose me: looking at my history and my natural focus and the like, this is the enterprise that I am actually working in, whatever I might think otherwise. Given that that’s the case, it’s more sensible all round if I become more explicit and intentional about aligning my work with this enterprise. And whether the ‘organisation’ in scope is made up of just one person or many millions, the same principles apply.

Next, this enterprise-definition is unchanging: it’s the same for to-be, as-is or as-was. (If it isn’t the same in each case, it’s not an enterprise-definition in the sense that we need here.) As in the ISO-9000 standard for quality-systems, this ‘vision’ provides a permanent anchor for everything that is done in the enterprise. When you work in a business-context that changes on a moment-by-moment basis, it can be very useful to have something that you know will not change whilst you’re working on it…

And note that there’s been no reference yet to the market, to money, or to the organisation itself. That’s intentional – and needs to be that way, too. (As you’ll see later, money doesn’t even rate a mention until we get to ‘System-model’, another three layers further down.) The point here is that the enterprise just is: it’s just an idea, an emotive idea. But until we have that idea firmly in place, and the intermediate layers properly in place too, everything else is at risk of becoming unstable, falling apart without warning – as we can see happening all too often in many large organisations. Yes, the sensemaking and decision-making will often get a great deal messier further down the layer-stack: but for now, in these rarefied levels, all we need to do is Follow The Process.

Anyway, time to move on, to look at the scope in which our organisation exists.

Identifying the scope

In strategy-development, we typically begin ‘top-down’, working our way down through the layers, in a kind of idealised view of the world, until we hit the real-world constraints coming ‘bottom-up’ -which will usually (and usefully!) force us to start being ‘realistic’. So now that we have our row-0 for the Enterprise Canvas, we’ll continue going top-down for a while – which takes us to row-1, ‘Scope’.

Row-1 is always just a list – nothing more than that. Later on we’ll probably come back to make lists of key-assets, key-functions, key-events and so on, but for now all we’ll need is a list of other players – or types of players – within this enterprise. In other words, who else is likely to be interested in the enterprise of ‘enhancing enterprise effectiveness’?

The natural tendency at this point is to start with the as-is, and list my existing customer-groups. I often describe myself as a ‘toolmaker to consultants’, especially in the enterprise-architecture/strategy space, and at first glance it seems that there isn’t much to show:

What’s worse, that market is tiny – probably no more than a few thousand of us worldwide – and, if we jump downward to the Enterprise Canvas row-2 for a moment, most of those that I and my colleagues know are not only our potential customers but potential suppliers and potential competitors as well. Sure, we also do some consultancy, either in setting up enterprise-architecture capabilities or running workshops for executives and in-house consultants – but again, one of the explicit aims there is that we’re training my own future competition each time we do so. And although IT-oriented ‘enterprise’-architecture is quite well-known, true whole-of-enterprise architecture isn’t at all well-known as yet: hence although the need for that kind of work is enormous and all-too-evident, the demand isn’t there – and won’t be, until we’ve created enough awareness of what it is and why it’s so important. The one saving grace here is that the emphasis in this market is always on quality, not quantity: those organisations who do understand what we do are well aware of what it’s worth to them, and are willing to pay for it, so that even a short assignment can fund a fair amount of ‘unbillable’ research and development for the future.

So far, so good – sort of – but in fact this would be setting our sights to far too narrow a scope. Our current market may seem tiny, but by definition the overall enterprise includes anyone with any interest in enhancing enterprise effectiveness. So for a start, it includes almost every consultant and in-house staffer working at a strategic, tactical or operational level to improve just about anything in the organisation: IT, efficiency, innovation, quality, production, skills and competencies, safety, security, risk-management, disaster-recovery – if you can give it a name and it’s anything to do with organisations, it’s likely to be in scope here. What’s even better is that all of these other people are doing work that’s different from ours – so not only may there be potential synergies there for us, but they’re also unlikely ever to be our competitors.

Yet even this is still thinking far too narrow. Who else would be interested in ‘enhancing enterprise effectiveness’, where ‘enterprise’ means anything that the organisation might touch, and ‘effective’ means that the organisation would be more efficient, reliable, elegant, appropriate, integrated, in just about any sense of those words? The short answer is “just about everyone”…

Executives would be very interested. So would investors. Regulators. Government. Business-partners. Business-clients. Standards-bodies. Environmental activists and other pressure-groups. The countries and local communities in which the organisation operates. Even competitors would be interested, if it helps to create a larger or more stable market for everyone. That’s not a small enterprise at all: it’s huge.

So far, this is just a list – a list of players in the enterprise of ‘enhancing enterprise effectiveness’. It doesn’t tell us anything as yet about the relationships between these players – which is what I’ll need to know if I’m to design a viable business-model within the scope of this enormous shared-enterprise. But that’s fine – that’s what we explore in the next layer of the model, which we’ll look at in the next post. For now, though, it’s useful just to bask for a moment in the plain fact that the enterprise – and market – that I’m dealing with is much, much larger than I’d previously believed, providing many more potential opportunities for my business if I make the effort to find them. Food for thought indeed…

A week in Tweets: 11-17 July 2010

Tom G — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:27:02 +0000

Finally catching up again: last week’s collection of Tweets and links. Usual categories unless otherwise noted.

Enterprise-architecture, business-architecture, business-strategy and similar stuff:

unorder: “organizational innovation and change processes cannot be outsourced” Scharmer and Kaeufer, Journal of Business Strategy

DavidGurteen: Origins of Cynefin (part 5) http://bit.ly/aumqOK #KM

tetradian: [post] ‘Context-space mapping – a bit of history’ http://bit.ly/czPiEz #entarch #csm

unorder: The world is not flat, it’s spiky and will continue to get spikier. http://bit.ly/aSbJMD

SAlhir: RT @jorgebarba: The #Innovation Hype Cycle http://icio.us/gvxhym
CreatvEmergence: Collective Intelligence as Field of Multi-disciplinary Study & Practice – http://bit.ly/cqUDmX – by @tehnoshaman & @tomatlee

SAlhir: The Quintessential Tribal-Leadership Triad: Tribe, Tribal-Leader, and Tribal-Strategy http://bit.ly/9JpYKY #tlcc

chrisdpotts: RT @YvesHanoulle: RT @Nalden: People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it. – George Bernard Shaw :wrygrin:

SAlhir: great leaders…have a clarity and purpose of vision. RT @mikemyatt: Vision and Leadership http://bit.ly/bGOMTK

ChristineArena: RT @davidcoethica: Return on Integrity Is the New Bottom Line for Marketers http://3bl.me/txwbx3 #csr #brands #entarch

CreatvEmergence: Gr8 creative/living org slideshow > The Biology of Business http://bit.ly/dAKbRZ via @spirospiliadis @mjayliebs @prem_k

CreatvEmergence: preso by @changeorder: ‘Work in Progress: Thoughts on Design Leadership’ http://slidesha.re/bZ9na5

thoughttrans: Scarlet’s caretaker was interviewed for her latest ebook Parrotology http://tinyurl.com/2byd6mb #bizarch #entarch

SAlhir: RT @venessamiemis: What are the Emerging Values & Business Models of the 21st Century Human/Organization? http://bit.ly/brsXTC

SAlhir: Complexity in context or content is not simplified by a complex process.

CreatvEmergence: How to Use Game Mechanics to Power Your Business – http://bit.ly/aw8aEL – via @jhagel #bizarch

BillIves: Book-review: Clay Shirky and Cognitive Surplus by @jmcgee http://bit.ly/cg6Hkf

toddbiske: RT @brhubart Bob Covington: #entarch should bridge silos, not create them.<< Only if those silos should be bridged based on operating model

toddbiske: Question for EA tweeps… Do we need more biz arch and less tech arch, or do we need more biz arch along with current tech arch? #eastop // My opinion: More of what is architecturally significant lies with biz decomposition than technology decomp, but some tech arch still needed.

thoughttrans: #EAstop stop limiting your solution to IT solutions

SAlhir: Don’t merely embrace change/simplicity/complexity; embrace uncertainty as much as certainty;these are the fountains of opportunity and risk.

jdevoo: Repository of papers on trust & reputation systems http://bit.ly/9yQmz0 via @VenessaMiemis @rachelbotsman #entarch #bizarch #csr

nickmalik: ‘Can Enterprise Architecture be effective if we ignore the needs of the customer?’ http://bit.ly/9JiQ9Z #entarch

joyce_hostyn: simplicity tipping point? RT @cmswire In a complex world, innovation can be all about simplifying and removing http://bit.ly/b8f0ns #ux #entarch #bizarch

CreatvEmergence: Nice description of Spiral Dynamics – jonesthought blog – http://bit.ly/axJdOF via @DavidHolzmer

DavidGurteen: Video: The cynefin framework http://bit.ly/aKJdoD #KM

CreatvEmergence: RT @frankspencer: The futures of Futures Studies: http://bit.ly/aHQGa5 Futures studies is likely to evolve through changes in five areas. They are: (1) forecasting to anticipatory action learning; (2) reductionist to complex; (3) horizontal to vertical; (4) from short-term empiricist research to the return of long-term history, including grand narratives; and (5) scenario development to moral futures.”

theopengroup: RT @brhubart: Pat Shepherd: Some of the Things EA’s Can Focus On. http://bit.ly/c1ZFND

CreatvEmergence: RT @HarvardBiz – The Miracle of Making Mistakes – http://s.hbr.org/9pcmz1

SAlhir: Why retrospect? Because our habits can be are undoing. // Why introspect? Because my habits can be my undoing.

EnterprisingA: Thought for today: Good architecture is common sense. Bad architecture is complete nonsense. No architecture is somewhere in between.

oscarberg: RT @weknowmore: Five Ways Pixar Makes Better Decisions http://ow.ly/189bj7 http://bit.ly/aKonUT

hebsgaard: Revisiting Toyota, Ethics and #Compliance http://bit.ly/bazooY

jdevoo: RT @shopatron_mark: blog: The future of mCommerce… is here. http://bit.ly/axiALb >> it’s the service stupid! #bizarch #itarch #ux

getstoried: RT @monstro: “monofuturism: the mistaken assumption that because only one future will happen, that only one future can happen.”

toddbiske: Blog post: Want Successful Enterprise Architecture? Define “Enterprise” First. http://www.biske.com/blog/?p=785

business_design: imagine playing with the numbers of your business model in an #iPad app http://post.ly/nPkR

theopengroup: Early notice: Mark your calendar for Nov/Dec. Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conference Stockholm 2010 http://ow.ly/2aKij #togaf #ea

DavidGurteen: ‘A hierarchy of failure worth following’ http://bit.ly/cVxBUs

CreatvEmergence: Creative Culture: From Finite to Infinite Games (blog post) http://bit.ly/a8B8Us // “To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.” ~ James Carse

CreatvEmergence: The Power of Colors: How Colors Are Used in (e-)Commerce to Influence You – http://daddu.net/the-power-of-colors

oscarberg: “Success hides problems…you don’t need to address problems” Ed Catmull, Pixar http://twurl.nl/4n2jrg

JohnPolgreen: RT @mcgoverntheory The only people who belong in ivory towers are captured princesses and even that wasn’t their choice. #entarch #TOGAF

kvistgaard: Most consultancy is means-driven, not goal-driven. It’s when-the-only-tool-u-have-is-a-hammer-then-all-the-world-tends-to-look-like-a-nail approach

aojensen: Meta-modelling is not only pure deliberation. It is an organisational soliloquy from which chunks of past wisdom are derived and retained.

oscarberg: RT @nikhilnulkar: Communication as Work by @vzrjvy http://bit.ly/dj3qyx @dachisgroup > +1 #e20 #entarch

SAlhir: RT @cdgrams: RT @davidburney: The first strategic question: http://tinyurl.com/2w4rcto #mission #purpose #strategicplanning #entarch

SAlhir: Is #purpose really an effective motivator? by @DanielPink http://is.gd/dvVyj

SAlhir: The Purpose Linked Organization http://is.gd/dvX4r and http://is.gd/dvX3Z by @workwithpassion #entarch #bizarch #csr

kvistgaard: People need to believe that there is value in what they do. But just sharing what they do does not add value to it.

tetradian: [post] ‘Context-space mapping with the Enterprise Canvas’ (tutorial, part 1) http://bit.ly/bk3HAh #entarch #bizarch

SAlhir: RT @Leadershipwatch: Are you creating or reacting to change? Bus #transformation ongoing process http://bit.ly/cCrNod #leadership #leadchange

Narrative-knowledge, knowledge-management, creativity and in-person collaboration:

unorder: How to get your story heard at work. http://bit.ly/9hMYvS [new Anecdote post] <”don’t use the ’s’-word…”

oscarberg: “Serendipity doesn’t just happen in a serendipitous way. You have to work for it” – Yossi Vardi for surprise” etc

CreatvEmergence: 33 strategies & concepts for personal & organizational creativity http://bit.ly/bmAfRC via @wanderingalan <#entarch etc – useful and practical detail

CreatvEmergence: Creativity comes to life at intersections of known & unknown, logic & intuition, right & left brain, movement & stillness

CreatvEmergence: Creativity by its nature transforms. If you want real creativity in your org, be prepared for the discomfort of real change.

CreatvEmergence: Presence–full-on, undistracted, spacious, unformulaic, be-here-now–exponentially expands creativity’s playing field

SAlhir: RT @mcottmeyer: Interesting Post… Kanban, Mental Models, and Double Loop Learning http://dlvr.it/2dpHb

jdevoo: Ketso: a resource for facilitators http://bit.ly/aCm1yy

Social-media, ‘enterprise 2.0’ and on-line collaboration:

jdevoo: Free yourself from technology & channel in #transmedia design – a macro framework by @goonth http://j.mp/alKWUD via @openworld

oscarberg: Serendipity & pull in action: discovered this great post ‘The Long Tail Of Enterprise Content Management’ http://contentperspective.se/?p=506 after publishing this ‘Serving the long tail of information needs with social intranets’ http://goo.gl/fb/eXfSb

joyce_hostyn: Some really smart thinking on content strategy & its real value http://bit.ly/aTxkGc (via @UXbooth @thejordanrules)

jdevoo: RT @VenessaMiemis: UI Designs That May Replace Touch Screens http://ow.ly/2bA7P >> revisit the list thinking of group instead of solo use

getstoried: Concept and persona mapping as evolutionary strategy – http://bit.ly/d5jUqZ #storytelling #visualporn

CreatvEmergence: RT @Harvardbiz – 10 Reasons to Stop Apologizing for Your Online Life: http://bit.ly/brLG3J

oscarberg: Blogged: Information is like water http://bit.ly/9LEKRC #aiim #e20 #information #e20

BillIves: a ‘Social Employee Manifesto’ from @joemckendrick http://bit.ly/91dL6h #e20 #entarch #bizarch

IT-architecture, IT-systems development and other IT-related matters:

kvistgaard: RT @gaz4695: [ProcessCafe] The Tao of On-line Processes (or how Amazon have got it right) http://bit.ly/d8veUV << offline p. in online skin

jdevoo: The Scratch-style block programming moves beyond education: App Inventor for Android http://bit.ly/93loY6 (via @valdiskrebs)

theopengroup: 8 Ways to Measure Cloud ROI – Business Technology Leadership http://ow.ly/28cAP #itarch

simonbrown: If you have a blank sheet of paper and some requirements, how do you start designing software? http://bit.ly/dsUOps (video) #itarch

simonbrown: It’s often missed, but more architectural layers means more things to think about … http://bit.ly/cRiwBL

ironick: I favorited a YouTube video — Welcome to Metaweb http://youtu.be/TJfrNo3Z-DU?a

Society, culture, corporate social responsibility and suchlike:

alphalo: My essay on how to apply open collaboration ideas to social justice issues at http://opencollaboration.wordpress.com

ChristineArena: RT @heif: citi owns “thankyou” http://flic.kr/p/8gKmPK

SAlhir: Recognise the yearning for meaning RT @VenessaMiemis: are we undergoing a conceptual emergency? http://bit.ly/5FpHu3

jdevoo: RT @OurWorld20: ‘Transition Towns: Local Networking for Global Sustainability?’ a dissertation – http://bit.ly/aKXO1s

unorder: RT @davidrock101: New Scientist: Why you can’t fight violence with violence http://bit.ly/bkxGXv

jdevoo: I still find this AidPod idea by colalife fantastic: http://www.colalife.org/

kvistgaard: Robbery increases by 2% per each 1% of unemployment rise according to a research by James Wilson.

And, as always, the mellifluent miscellany:

jdevoo: RT @timse7: The brain of the fly – a high-speed computer w/ unique take on image processing http://bit.ly/dhVnIQ >> attenuators at work

unorder: MeetingWords: Realtime Collaborative Text Editing http://icio.us/345hga via @johnt Just like Etherpad. I love this tool.

tebbo: If, like me, you’re working on a website for an iPad but you haven’t got one, this is handy: http://ipadpeek.com/ Thanks @elsua <very useful for testing how a website looks on an iPad (or equivalent)… hmm… thanks indeed

tebbo: Blog post on creating iPad-friendly interactive infographic on ‘How to handle the media’: http://bit.ly/9MEbdN // Thanks to @elsua, you can now hand craft your own interactive infographic. Here’s one way: http://bit.ly/aTGVzX

rlimbanda: “You’re the reason I believe in Creation” is a better pickup line than “You look like you evolved”

rlimbanda: Despite cancer, wars and murders, death is still the world’s number 1 killer #dumbtweet

CreatvEmergence: RT @ideahive: RT @davidhodgson: BBC Science: plants can think and remember http://tinyurl.com/39zrnsm

tebbo: RSS overload? Sensible advice from @wordful on fine-tuning your feeds: http://wordful.com/the-real-secret-of-rss-reading/

The Enterprise Canvas: a Really Simple Summary

Tom G — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 07:25:05 +0000

The full Enterprise Canvas model is a complex beast, with many ideas, many layers, many ramifications and side-themes: it can perhaps seem daunting at first. Yet when we strip it right down to its bare essentials, it’s actually very simple indeed – and its real power comes from that underlying simplicity. So here’s a Really Simple Summary of the ideas behind the Enterprise Canvas:

Everything in the enterprise is a service.

The Enterprise Canvas is a generic map to describe any service, anywhere in the enterprise, together with its interdependencies and flows.

The Enterprise Canvas therefore provides a consistent means to model anything, anywhere in the enterprise.

To give a bit more detail, to make that Really Simple Summary more usable in practice:

Everything exists within one infinite ecosystem, which we might label ‘the universe’.

For practical reasons – and for sanity’s sake – we usually restrict our view to a much smaller subset of that ‘the everything’. (We do always need to remember that it actually is ‘the everything’, though.)

One useful option, especially for organisations, is to select the subset that describes that part of the ecosystem within which the organisation operates. This ‘extended-enterprise’ (or ‘enterprise’, for short) is always larger than the organisation itself, and coalesces around a single idea or descriptor, usually referred to as the ‘vision’ for the enterprise.

Within that enterprise, we assert that every entity represents a service.

Every entity delivers services, provides services, consumes other services. The ecosystem is made viable by this constant interchange of services.

This interchange occurs at every level. Everything is a service, from whole organisations to the faucet in the bathroom or a single line of program-code.

Everything is a service.

For each entity, it can be useful to divide the view into three partitions, in terms of role and relationship: the role, function and services of the entity itself; its relationships with the entities that provide the services that this entity consumes (’supplier-side’); and its relationships with the entities that consume the services that this entity provides (‘customer-side’).

For each entity, it can also be useful to divide the view into three other partitions, in terms of time: what is intended to happen (‘future’); what is actually happening (‘present’); and what has happened (‘past’).

These two sets of views are orthogonal to each other. We can therefore map this as a three-by-three matrix:

The relationships with other entities are symmetrical in the sense that every entity shares the same pattern: the only difference between ’supplier-side’ and ‘customer-side’ is the main direction of service-flow relative to the entity that is our current focus of attention.

The ‘future’-oriented relationships are essentially peer-to-peer, and bidirectional.

The ‘present’-oriented relationships are mainly about ’supply-chain’ transfer of goods and services from supplier to self, or self-to customer (i.e. left-to-right on the Canvas).

The ‘past’-oriented relationships are mainly about balancing the supply-chain transfer via a ‘backchannel’ from customer to self, and self to supplier (i.e. right-to-left on the Canvas).

We can thus describe the overall entity in terms of nine subsidiary ‘cells’ or sets of related activities:

supplier-side/future: build and maintain relationships with potential and/or actual ’supplier’ service-provider entities, about things that need to happen in the future – supplier-relations

supplier-side/present: receive goods and/or services from ’supplier’ entities – supplier-channels

supplier-side/past: provide balance or compensation to ’supplier’ entities (e.g. pay for goods) – value-outlay

self/future: identify what this entity will do and deliver, aligned to the overall enterprise purpose and values – value-proposition

self/present: take all actions necessary to create and deliver the goods and/or services specified in the value-proposition – value-creation

self/past: ensure the appropriate functioning of the overall entity, balancing past, present and future – value-management

customer-side/future: build and maintain relationships with potential and/or actual ‘customer’ service-consumer entities, mainly about what should happen in the future – customer-relations

customer-side/present: deliver goods and/or services to ‘customer’ entities – customer-channels

customer-side/past: receive balance or compensation from ‘customer’ entities (e.g. payment for goods) – value-return

Each of these ‘cells’ delivers its own services to the entity, and could thus, recursively, be represented by and described on its own Enterprise Canvas.

Each entity may be described in terms of various layers on a spectrum between most-abstract (the enterprise as a whole) to most-concrete (the detailed-past).

Note that ultimately all boundaries are arbitrary, and in most cases exist for descriptive and/or administrative convenience only. Within the overall ecosystem, any or all of its services may be recombined and reconfigured in an infinity of alternate ways. The key criterion for success is not ‘correctness’, but effectiveness:

efficient: optimises use of resources, minimises wastage of resources

reliable: predictable, consistent, self-correcting, supports ’single source of truth’ etc

elegant: clarity, simplicity, consistency, self-adapting for human factors

appropriate: supports and optimises support for business purpose

integrated: creates, supports and optimises synergy across all systems

Effectiveness occurs when everything supports everything else, all the way up to the enterprise vision or purpose.

The Enterprise Canvas does not attempt to describe every aspect of every service. Its role is to provide a consistent base-frame to link descriptions together into a unified whole. It would generally be used in conjunction with many other model-types, for example:

use VPEC-T to model each of the flows to and from the entity in focus

use modified-Zachman to model the assets, functions, locations, capabilities, events and decisions in each flow, in each cell and in the entity as a whole

use SWOT to assess strengths, challenges, opportunities and risks in each flow, cell and entity

The Enterprise Canvas will also work well with other techniques for SOA (service-oriented architecture) and any other cross-enterprise concerns such as quality, security, safety and environment.

There’s a lot more to it than just the above, of course, but I hope this ‘really simple summary’ will give you enough to get started?