COMPANY
Our Vision
Managing organizations in the “Information Age”
At the heart of our company’s operating principles and service offerings is a belief that Enterprise Architecture is the best approach for managing large and complex organizations in the “information age”. This belief is predicated by the fact that technology is no longer just a tool for business; it has become a business environment. Nearly every operational aspect at all levels of modern businesses and governments is dependent on some form of technology. In order for those organizations to remain viable, competitive and satisfy the needs of their clients and constituents they must master their technology environments. Technology enabled data and information should not only flow seamlessly between machines, but between machine and human in order to facilitate the organizational processes (how business is done) that accomplish the organization’s goals and strategies. This is no simple task given the complexities of modern corporate entities.
There are many variations of corporate operating models including conglomerates segmented into multiple lines of business each under autonomous business management. They can be geographically dispersed and even culturally disparate with unique business processes and data standards; their own suppliers, distribution, customers, etc. The only thing that binds such business groups together is common ownership and corporate management, which often must find a way to operate and manage them as a whole. Frequently such organizations (corporate and government) have no centrally mandated IT services. In time and without central coordination, most organizations accumulate layer upon layer of heterogeneous and inherently incompatible legacy systems technology; and continue to add new technology as it becomes available. The cumulative effect is usually corporate operating environments with redundant systems and non-interoperable information silos with vital data trapped inside. Such environments reliably mirror the organizational configurations and over-lapping business processes that they were designed to serve; and together they are often inefficient and expensive to maintain. This evolutionary process is not the result of neglect or incompetence, it’s the way organic growth typically occurs in most organizations, and will continue to occur, unless managed otherwise. Such organizational states can eventually become like a proverbial Gordian knot; difficult to unravel or understand, which is why it’s common to see organizations struggle with unclear and conflicting options for orderly and effective future growth.
In order to succeed, modern organizations must manage their people, processes and technology assets in an efficient and cost effective manner and find a planned, repeatable and sustainable evolutionary path forward. “Getting a handle” on such problems and knowing where to start, has not always been easy. For years the industry has searched for answers, but comprehensive and reliable solutions have been elusive.
Enter Enterprise Architecture
There have been numerous methodological approaches and technological solutions proposed to address such issues throughout the years. Some have resulted in varying degrees of success while others have been costly and time consuming diversions. Many provided narrowly focused technical solutions that were adequate for parts of an organization, only to create problems elsewhere; other enterprise level solutions designed to address corporate wide requirements often fell short of expectations by either being too generic or too tailored (customized) becoming difficult and expensive to maintain. Methodological approaches followed similar paths by not addressing the needs of the entire enterprise. None of these approaches were really designed to tackle the challenges of modern organizations (which have only grown in complexity over time) in a holistic and comprehensive manner; that is, until the introduction of EA. Enterprise Architecture got its start in 1987 when an IBM executive named John Zachman coined the term while developing his ground-breaking framework. Zachman’s framework organized all the piece parts of the “enterprise” into a 6x6 matrix consisting of columns of basic interrogatives (What, How, Where, Who, When and Why) and rows of perspectives ranging from that of the business owner to the systems developer (from top to bottom). This produced “viewpoints” of information, in ever increasing levels of detail (i.e., contextual, conceptual, logical, physical), relevant to these various organizational actors. By doing this, Zachman created a very simple classification system that provided an ordered approach for understanding each element (or primitive) of the organization that is represented in each cell, and their relationships or combinations with one another, by examining the intersection of cells (composites). His method opened up new ways of thinking about and evolving the modern organization by looking at it as a system of many interconnected, interdependent and interactive elements. The Zachman framework paved the way for the subsequent development of other frameworks, some of which provided more detail and guidance on artifact development or the EA implementation process, but his approach has never been eclipsed, in fact remains the core concept upon which these other approaches are based.
The lineage of EA can actually be traced to many other sciences and practices that preceded it dating back to the Industrial Age (i.e., Time and Motion Studies, Scientific Management, Industrial & Organizational Psychology, etc). Interestingly it doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel, but rather incorporates many of those influences into a practical management approach. Similarly it effectively leverages, complements and plays a coordinating role between most contemporary management and computer science practices (i.e., project management, governance & portfolio management, process and data management, systems implementation, SDLC, etc). Its real contribution is in bringing a sense of order to the predictably chaotic intersection between people, processes and technology. EA has been an evolving practice and discipline ever since its inception and is reaching a level of maturity. It is finding its way into the under- and post-grad curriculums and programs of leading universities, has become widely recognized as an indispensable best practice approach for managing large and complex organizations in the information age and is being practiced with great success by leading corporations and government organizations all over the world.
EA Management Solutions – Making it work
We believe that EA provides the most value when it’s integrated into business and IT decision making lifecycles, applied properly and targeted to achieve specific outcomes. To its practitioners and supporters EA is quite simply “the best thing since sliced bread” but we architects sometimes don’t do the best job in explaining why that’s so. Since its value proposition is not always intuitive to those who haven’t studied it, the practical benefits of EA often remain a missed opportunity for many organizations. EA programs are commonly situated between two sometimes divergent groups of stakeholders: business (executives and management) on one hand, and technology (CIOs, corporate IT) on the other; often with neither side fully appreciating its real function or organizational value. It is frequently considered an academic or esoteric practice area that is either to be tolerated, used sparingly or even circumvented. Sometimes EA teams exacerbate these misperceptions by engaging in continuous cycles of documentation, by focusing on compliance, or by producing models, diagrams and other information that business and IT does not quite know how to interpret or use.
We think that one of the immediate missions of EA is to become an indispensable partner to both sides (business and IT) and serve as a bridge between them. This is best accomplished by positioning EA to address specific business and technology challenges in an agile and targeted manner; a “just enough architecture” approach (i.e., segment and solution architectures, etc.) that achieves measurable results in rapid and iterative lifecycles. To do this EA must have the proper tools and use them to develop and maintain an up-to-date repository of vital corporate information on every layer of the enterprise – business, data, processes, applications, technology, networks, etc. These architectural “components” are then linked to show their interrelationships and dependencies. An important and often missing ingredient in this process is the underpinning of those components and connections with properties or metrics on cost, performance, reliability, etc., to enable advanced quantitative analytics and simulations. When done properly, the EA team can apply various methods of “architecture-based analytics” and simulations such as discrete event and Monte Carlo to give business and IT stakeholders valuable insights into how well, or how poorly, the business, and its technology investments are performing and their costs. By using such static and predictive analytical techniques the EA team can look deep into how the organization works today and then to peer over the business and technology investment horizon to help guide the enterprise to a better operating state; all while finding significant opportunities for cost savings and cost avoidance. Having such information and analytics facilitates decisions on where and how to make improvements and presents choices for the optimal path(s) forward on proposed changes or investments all before the business actually commits to them. Once a path is chosen, it can be compared with the current state (As-is) and used to conduct a “gap analysis” to identify required steps for execution which becomes part of an overall business improvement “roadmap” to be followed to reach a desired future operating state (To-be). These are but a few examples of how EA can be used to support business and IT objectives.
A key success factor in this process is good communication. The EA team should provide functional output that is immediately understandable and useful to business stakeholders, i.e., graphs, charts, reports, or metrics as input to executive dashboards, etc. It should reserve the intricate diagrams and models that it produces for more appropriate audiences (see the Zachman concept of “viewpoints”). Most importantly when the EA team engages business stakeholders it should communicate with them clearly and concisely, in the language of the business, and not in the “tech-talk” or “architecture-speak” we’re so comfortable using
Many businesses and IT organizations either respond too fast or too slowly to perceived market changes and opportunities. They often rely on gut instinct and are sometimes influenced by vendor claims or industry hype for decisions on changes to their business operating models and underlying technologies. When corporate decision makers are armed with better information (i.e., empirical data, trusted metrics, etc) it puts their decision making process on firmer footing. As the EA team consistently delivers such valuable guidance and information to its stakeholders it will earn a well deserved “seat at the table” for corporate business decisions and IT strategy and planning.
This, we believe, should be the goal of all successful EA programs, and helping them to achieve it is our goal and the focus of our service offerings. We make EA work better so that corporations and government agencies can extract maximum benefit from this important and timely practice and discipline.
The Sky’s the Limit
Taking our logic a bit further, we believe EA has an even higher calling. As it continues to be adopted as a best practice approach across government and industry EA has the potential to significantly impact US productivity and competitiveness. Organizations using EA management solutions can work smarter and cut the costs of operations and maintenance sooner, freeing more dollars for innovation. These organizations can take advantage of emerging technologies to develop more efficient and streamlined operations which provide increased business agility and quicker response time to new opportunities, as well as greater adaptability to changing market conditions. This will improve their products and services, enhance their competitive postures and allow them to expand market share against increasingly tough international (and domestic) competition (see Friedman: “The World is Flat”). The cumulative effect could be improved performance across entire industrial sectors – as more firms recognize EA as a best practice necessity for maintaining a competitive edge. There can be similar improvements made across public sector operations as well.
Are these over-reaching and/or simplistic scenarios? We don’t think so. How often have we’ve heard about US corporations being saddled with inefficient processes, outdated technologies, lacking agility, being challenged successfully by foreign competition in their own markets, etc? Not to single it out, but a good example of that is the US automotive industry. Doubtless to say that industry and many others could benefit from a top to bottom revamping of business operating models, processes, and technology of the sort that can be accomplished through EA. Whether it’s a matter of competitiveness or business survival, firms need a structured and targeted approach, and not guesswork, to chart their future courses.
Could this contribute to a US economic recovery and boost the GDP? We believe it can. Obviously EA isn’t the only solution, but it can play an important role. When (leaner, meaner) businesses achieve market success it encourages them to seek greater market share; that expanding demand requires greater supply leading to more production which in turn creates jobs, and creates opportunities for other services, and/or the flow of raw materials; all of which feed economic growth. Sounds a bit like the domino effect doesn’t it? Yes, and it all starts with the basics and that’s what EA is really all about.
Please let us know what you think
Pretty big talk from a small consulting firm, right? Perhaps so, but we’re that confident in the possibilities of the EA management approach. We urge you to find out for yourself if you haven’t already.
Thank you for visiting our website and for taking time to learn more about our company and our vision. We hope it has given you a better picture of who we are, and what we believe and our approach to EA, IT and business. We love what we do, and think EA is one of the most exciting and interesting professions in the information age. Please let us know what you think. Whether you’re an individual seeking more information or you represent a company or government agency that wants to make the most of EA, we’d love to hear from you.
