Enterprise Architecture Trends 2015

I’m looking forward to speaking about trends in enterprise architecture at the EA2015 conference on 4 November in Copenhagen. Having spoken at this annual conference over the past several years, it is my annual “state-of-the-union” address to the Danish EA community.

This year, I will talk about several trends and issues. The outline of the lecture looks like this:

  1. The current state of #EntArch
  2. So, is there a problem?
  3. “The only thing that’s changed, is everything”
  4. EA scholary analysis
  5. EA scope creep
  6. Gartnertology
  7. We’re not in Kansas anymore
  8. Enterprise Investment
  9. Enterprise Design
  10. Suggestions

You can get my slides here, but most of them are not very informative on their own.

Although I use different evidence, many of my points are also expressed in my crossroads blog post and article. But I will also bring up several other points. I’ve even invented a new word: Gartnertology. This I use to describe how Gartner is becoming something akin to a religious cult.

I will of course here refer to Kuno Brodersen’s recent blog post about Gartner’s tool assessment practice, but will focus more on Gartner’s recent messages about digital business, and discuss these. And then rather quickly move on to something more interesting, including enterprise investment and enterprise design.

All in all, a lot of content for a 45 minutes lecture. So participants will be told to fasten their seat-belts.

Enterprise Architecture at the Crossroads

Enterprise Architecture is facing several challenges as a discipline and a practice. In this blog post, John Gøtze outlines four central challenges, and discusses what should be done. He suggests that enterprise architecture management must focus on enterprise collaboration.

The Challenges

The discipline Enterprise Architecture (EA) is at a crossroads, facing four challenges:

  • The first challenge is to overcome the narrowness of scope of present practice in EA, and re-gain the coverage of the entire business on all levels of management, and a holistic and systemic coverage of the enterprise as an economic entity in its social and ecological environment.
  • The second challenge is how to face the problems caused by complexity that limit the controllability and manageability of the enterprise as a system.
  • The third challenge is connected with the complexity problem, and describes fundamental issues of sustainability and viability.
  • Following from the third, the fourth challenge is to identify modes of survival for systems, and dynamic system architectures that evolve and are resilient to changes of the environment in which they live.

A recent (in-press) peer-reviewed article, Enterprise Engineering and Management at the Crossroads – the result of a collaborative effort between eleven authors from four continents – discusses these four challenges and the state of the art of the discipline of Enterprise Architecture, with emphasis on the challenges and future development opportunities of the underlying information system, and its IT implementation, the Enterprise Information System (EIS).

Responses

The article provides pointers to possible radical changes to models, methodologies, theories and tools in EIS design and implementation, with the potential to solve these grand challenges:

bernusetal-fig1

Towards Solutions

The article argues that EA needs to embrace full or broad views of the enterprise as per the original vision of the discipline’s mission that originated in manufacturing (e.g. computer integrated manufacturing systems), and the parallel developments in information systems and software development. This division between information systems, system science, and manufacturing & industrial engineering needs to be resolved as it is still felt today and hampers the discipline of EA as a whole. Any credible development of the discipline must equally cover and explain deliberate change and evolutionary change in a system of socio-technical systems, the production & service to the customer, and the management & control of the enterprise, the technical resources (logistics, manufacturing machinery, communication systems, computer systems), human resources, financial resources, and assets of all other kind (knowledge & information assets, buildings and grounds, and various intangibles).

As EA is moving up the hierarchy from technical to management levels, the language and skill set of its practitioners has to change to better reflect the specific needs and language of the management community. This needs to be reflective in terms of not only language, but also culture. The focus must be on views of the organisation that management science is interested in (People, Capability, Place, Role, Relationships and Trust, Risk, Finance, Brand Strategy, Knowledge Management) rather than detailed, possibly local technical views of the organisation.

A central concern in EA is the development of the information system that implements a coherent, aware behaviour of the enterprise on any scale. It is acceptable (even desirable) that the implementation of these properties should not have a single locus, so that the system should display these properties without a single subsystem or system component being responsible for them. If awareness and coherency are emergent properties of the enterprise, it is likely that the enterprise (and its information system) would be more resilient in terms of being able to maintain these systemic properties.

A New Paradigm for EA

The article suggests a new paradigm for EA:

It is clear that the future is not in EA reinventing the complete gamut of management models, but it is in providing a unifying platform through which the multiple models used in the various life cycle phases and in the various stages of the enterprise’s life history can be combined. The combination needs a new paradigm though, as current EA methodologies struggle with the reality of complex relationships among models present at different abstraction levels. In essence, guided evolution of the enterprise requires that enterprise modelling not be seen as a top-down or bottom up process, but as a powerful problem finding and problem solving tool that supports transformational activities both on the strategic and operational levels.

In my article from 2013, The Changing Role of the Enterprise Architect, I argue that in facing ‘wicked problems’, enterprise architects must focus more on problem-finding than problem-solving; true craftsmen look at situations in a problem-finding manner, rather than blindly applying the same method and tool every time to what may be a new and interesting challenge.

Enterprise architecture practice must be collaborative, and enterprise architects should be cooperative in character, able to engage in many kinds of communication and collaboration. I argue that enterprise architects must have both:

  1. dialectic skills and competencies in resolving conflicts, creating consensus, synthesis and common understanding, detecting what might establish that common ground, and the skill of seeking the intent rather than just reading the face value of the words, and
  2. dialogic skills including listening well, behaving tactfully, finding points of agreement, managing disagreement, and avoiding frustration in a difficult discussion.

Jason Uppal picks up on this in his lecture at a recent EA conference.

The dialectic/dialogic distinction is of course a classic discourse in educational research (see for example Rupert WegerifRichard Paul, and Andrew Ravenscroft) and generally throughout the critical social sciences (“Bakhtinian dialogic and Vygotsky’s dialectic”) ever since Hegel.

In Together: The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Cooperation sociologist Richard Sennett states that the distinction between dialogic and dialectic is fundamental to understanding human communication. Sennett says that dialectic deals with the explicit meaning of statements, and tends to lead to closure and resolution. Whereas dialogic processes, especially those involved with regular spoken conversation, involve a type of listening that attends to the implicit intentions behind the speaker’s actual words. Unlike a dialectic process, dialogics often do not lead to closure and remain unresolved. Compared to dialectics, a dialogic exchange can be less competitive, and more suitable for facilitating cooperation. Sennett explains further in a lecture at Harvard: The Architecture of Cooperation.

The Importance of Enterprise Collaboration

Cooperation and collaboration are closely related concepts, and often thought of as synonymous. In fact, they are quite different.

Oscar Berg‘s Collaboration Pyramid may explain the difference:

Collaboration Pyramid

Berg distinguishes between the three layers in this way:

  • The community is the enterprise seen as a group of individuals that share the same purpose, vision and values. It is about shared attitudes and behaviors within the enterprise, or the culture if you like. It is also about the individual’s ability to be seen, participate and be recognized, all of which are fundamental for developing a sense of belonging, identity, and self-confidence.
  • Cooperation is about people enabling each other to do something, for example by providing a person with information or other resources that make the person more able to perform a task. Cooperation can be seen as the opposite of selfishness and competition. People help each other out for some mutual benefit.
  • Collaboration is about a team of people that work closely together to achieve a certain goal. It can be a permanent team, like a production unit at an assembly line, or temporary team, like a project team. The team would most likely have a formally appointed leader, someone who is responsible for the planning, coordination, follow-up, and communication within the team as well as the world outside the team.

Enterprise collaboration is a term that covers all these three all-important concepts of the “social” enterprise. The term is often mistakenly used to cover social networking tools and intranet, but should be seen as a wider concept and a more comprehensive platform for the enterprise, wherefrom strategic alignment and viable process and information flows are tangible outcomes.

In our Collaboration whitepaper, we explain further how QualiWare is enabling our customers to work with collaboration in their enterprise architecture work.

Enterprise Architecture Management IS Collaboration – Gartner Doesn’t Get It

qwgartner

More and more QualiWare users consider a consensus-driven management philosophy and enterprise collaboration to be a key driver for business agility and innovation. This has always been essential for QualiWare when we design our products and services.

For several years, we have been surprised and disappointed that Gartner sticks to a rather traditional view on EA Tools, when they evaluate a vendor. For us, collaboration is such a central prerequisite for an enabling and outcome-driven enterprise design platform. For Gartner, collaboration is hardly mentioned in the criteria for evaluation and is completely lacking in several important areas.

QualiWare delivers a platform for Enterprise Architecture Management and several other management systems. For us, and for all of our customers, the collaboration features are core functions in the implemented information system. Further details on this can be found in our whitepaper Collaboration: The Key to Successful Enterprise Architecture.

Gartner’s evaluation criteria are not available in the public domain, so we cannot go into details in this blog. But suffice to say that Gartner ranks stuff like “print hardcopy” higher than the total sum of collaboration features in an EA tool.

It is particularly striking that the evaluation criteria neglect collaboration when Gartner in much of their research over the past five years have – like other analysts – argued that collaboration is key to the success of enterprise architecture. Perhaps the “magic” in the Magic Quadrant is a five-year delay? It certainly seems so.

Over the past year, QualiWare has doubled the number of users on our collaboration platform, which now has hundreds of thousands of users across enterprises around the globe. See our whitepaper for more evidence and customer examples.

The shift in EA towards collaboration is a response to several challenges. EA is at a crossroads, and should be regarded as a powerful problem finding and problem solving tool that supports transformational activities both on the strategic and operational levels. Read John Gøtze’s blog post about this.

QualiWare strongly recommends Gartner to include collaboration relevant criteria in future EA tool evaluations. We also encourage Gartner to make their evaluation criteria public and accessible to all, and engage in a public dialogue about these. QualiWare is very keen on engaging in such open dialogues, and open all our social platforms for that purpose: Make comments to this blog, or on our Linkedin page, to our Twitter handle, or on Facebook.

As a vendor, QualiWare has an obligatory relation with analyst firms. Gartner include QualiWare in their Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Architecture Tools. QualiWare is also included in the Forrester Wave for Enterprise Architecture Management Suites.

BPM Professional Certification Training

Launch in Denmark: 2-6 November 2015 in Farum.

bptrendsSmLogoBPM Professional Certificate

Complete 40 hours of coursework (3 courses, 5 days) to earn your business process management professional certificate and gain the practical tools and background required to work on a team of BPM Process professionals.

IIBA Endorsment The BPTA Professional Certificate Program is aligned with the International Association of Business Analysis (IIBA®) Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK® V2.0) and is endorsed by the IIBA. 

 

Strategic Enterprise Design seminar in Denmark

Join the Strategic Enterprise Design seminar and workshop with Milan Guenther and Benjamin Falke on 26-27 October 2015 in Denmark.

Enterprise/Business Architects and other change agents in the enterprise are challenged to deliver increased impact and value. This intense two day seminar and workshop prepares delegates to go beyond mapping current complexity and taking incremental steps ahead.

The Enterprise Design Framework allows bridging strategic intent with tangible results, and making strategic design thinking and practice work with the complexity and ambiguity of enterprise environments.

Read more about the Strategic Enterprise Design seminar and workshop with Milan Guenther and Benjamin Falke in Farum on 26-27 October 2015.

2nd Enterprise Design Retreat

On 5-7 October 2015, eda.c and QualiWare will arrange the 2nd Enterprise Design Retreat at Héraðsskólinn in Iceland. Following our first edition two years ago in Barcelona, we will continue to jointly shape the emerging field of Enterprise Design and exchange among leading practitioners of Enterprise and Business Architecture, Customer and User Experience, and Design Thinking and practice.

The retreat is open for registration, but has a limited number of seats.

Day 1: Enterprise Transformation
Transforming complex organizations is a shared challenge among Enterprise Design practitioners. We will explore how to develop a holistic view on the enterprise as an intertwined entity of social dynamics, hard and soft structures, and employee experience. Topics include:

  • Employee Experience
  • Political-Cultural Change Initiatives
  • Top Activities, Tasks and Tools
  • Digital Workplace and Social Enterprise

Day 2: Enterprise Modelling
In order to look at enterprise ecosystems including internal and external perspectives, we need to create multiple models from different viewpoints, looking at a variety of aspects. On day 2 we will look into modelling techniques and activities, addressing topics such as:

  • The Modelling Journey
  • Killer Models and Techniques
  • Modelling Languages and Standards
  • Complexity and Systems Thinking

Day 3: Enterprise Innovation
To have impact on the future of enterprises and their interactions with key actors, Enterprise Design must go beyond mere optimization of the already existing. On the last day we will focus on enterprise innovation, rapid and entrepreneurial design, and reshaping brands and customer experiences through dynamic approaches:

  • Brand and Customer Experience
  • Design Sprints, Lean+Agile Design Thinking and practice
  • Entre-/Intrapreneurship
  • Generative/Algorithmic Systems and Platforms

Included in the program is a sightseeing tour of The Golden Circle.

hera2

The cost of participation is € 400 which includes the complete 3 day program, lunches, dinners, sightseeing tour and airport transport. Accommodation on site costs about € 70/night. Make your reservation with us for best rates. Get in touch with Edward Hansen from QualiWare for more information.

European Interoperability Reference Architecture

European Interoperability Reference Architecture

The European Interoperability Reference Architecture (EIRA) is

an architecture content metamodel defining the most salient architectural building blocks (ABBs) needed to build interoperable e-Government systems.

On 8 June 2015, release 0.9.0 beta of the EIRA entered an eight-week public review period. Stakeholders working for public administrations in the field of architecture and interoperability were invited to provide feedback.

What is EIRA?
The EIRA provides a common terminology that “can be used by people working for public administrations in various architecture and system development tasks“. The EIRA initiative is part of Action 2.1 of the ISA Programme.

The EIRA is a four-view reference architecture for delivering interoperable digital public services across borders and sectors. It defines the required capabilities for promoting interoperability as a set of architecture building blocks (ABBs). The EIRA has four main characteristics:

  • Common terminology to achieve a minimum level of coordination: It provides a set of well-defined ABBs that provide a minimal common understanding of the most important building blocks needed to build interoperable public services.
  • Reference architecture for delivering digital public services: It offers a framework to categorise (re)usable solution building blocks (SBBs) of an e-Government solution. It allows portfolio managers to rationalise, manage and document their portfolio of solutions.
  • Technology- and product-neutral and a service-oriented architecture (SOA) style: The EIRA adopts a service-oriented architecture style and promotes ArchiMate as a modelling notation. In fact, the EIRA ABBs can be seen as an extension of the model concepts in ArchiMate.
  • Alignment with EIF and TOGAF: The EIRA is aligned with the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) and complies with the context given in the European Interoperability Strategy (EIS) . The views of the EIRA correspond to the interoperability levels in the EIF: legal, organisational, semantic and technical interoperability. Within TOGAF and the Enterprise Architecture Continuum, EIRA focuses on the architecture continuum. It re-uses terminology and paradigms from TOGAF such as architecture patterns, building blocks and views.

EIRA in one picture
The figure below provides a high-level overview of the four views in EIRA. Each of the four views consists of a set of Architecture Building Blocks (ABBs) and relations pertaining to the legal, organisational, semantic and technical domain of an Interoperable European Architecture. Each view has entry and exit points from one view to another.

eira-highlevel

The legal, organisational, semantic and technical domains are the classic European interoperability concerns. The EIRA defines building blocks for each view.

The views

eira-legal
Legal interoperability View
eira-org
Organisational interoperability view

eira-semantic
Semantic interoperability view
eira-tech-appl
Technology interoperability view – applications

eira-tech-infra
Technology interoperability view – infrastructure

In addition, a new Interoperability specification underpinning view has been added as an additional view, depicting architecture building blocks of the different views as a taxonomy of interoperability specifications:

eira-interop
The “metaview” detailing and specifying interoperability.

EIRAs raison d’etre?

The key concepts of the EIRA and their relationships are described here:

eira-overview

The following list explains the different relationships:

A. The EIRA is derived from the European Interoperability Framework (EIF);

B. The EIRA has one view for each EIF interoperability level;

C. Each EIRA view contains several EIRA ABBs;

D. EIRA ABBs can be used to create reference architectures;

E. A SAT addresses a certain interoperability need. It consists of a sub-set of the most important EIRA ABBs and is derived from a reference architecture;

F. An EIRA SBB realizes one or more EIRA ABB;

G. A (interoperable) solution consists of one or more SBBs;

H. A (interoperable) solution realizes a solution architecture;

I. A solution architecture can be derived from a SAT or directly from a reference architecture;

J. As the EIRA focuses only on the most important ABBs needed for interoperability, other ABBs (= non-EIRA ABBs) can exist;

K. Similar to ABBs, non-EIRA SBBs can exist next to EIRA SBBs.

Release 0.9 of the EIRA does not provide as much detail about the SBBs as it does on the ABBs. This will be done in another project. Also see the SBB template document.

Further information about the EIRA can be obtained in the document ‘An introduction to the European Interoperability Reference Architecture v0.9.0’ (EIRA_v0.9.0_beta_overview.pdf). The release consists of the following release components:

  1. EIRA_v0.9.0_beta.archimate: Archi file containing the EIRA ArchiMate model.
  2. EIRA_v0.9.0_beta.html: HTML version of the EIRA ArchiMate model.
  3. EIRA_v0.9.0_beta_overview.pdf: PDF document containing an introduction to the EIRA, including its key concepts, used ArchiMate notation, tool support, and views.
  4. EIRA_v0.9.0_beta_ABBs: An HTML file containing the definitions of the architecture building blocks.
  5. EIRA_v0.9.0_beta_release_notes.pdf: PDF document containing the release notes.
  6. EIRA_v0.9.0_beta_release_document_set.zip: Zip file containing each of the above mentioned files.

Quick analysis of EIRA

EIRA lists 161 architecture building blocks. Of these, more than half are technical:

  • 82 Technical View (27 Application and 55 Infrastructure)
  • 26 Organisational View
  • 19 Semantic View
  • 18 Legal View
  • 6 Interoperability View
  • 10 Deprecated (11 if ABB59 Logging Service included – not marked in View:Deprecated but in Status).

The building blocks are described via selected archimate model concepts, of which four are used a lot:

  • 40 archimate:ApplicationService
  • 34 archimate:BusinessObject
  • 26 archimate:ApplicationComponent
  • 18 archimate:DataObject

Other model concepts are also used:

  • 6 archimate:BusinessProcess
  • 5 archimate:Contract
  • 4 archimate:BusinessActor
  • 3 archimate:BusinessRole
  • 3 archimate:InfrastructureService
  • 3 archimate:Network
  • 3 archimate:Node
  • 2 archimate:ApplicationInterface
  • 1 archimate:BusinessFunction
  • 1 archimate:BusinessInteraction
  • 1 archimate:BusinessInterface
  • 1 archimate:BusinessService

So, looking at the big picture, EIRA is perhaps a bit “heavy” on the technology side of interoperability, but does cover the four layers. In particular, EIRA establishes a set of views across the four layers. In doing so, it has to “embrace and extend” ArchiMate.

EIRA and ArchiMate

EIRAs commitment to ArchiMate is somewhat courageous. And somewhat creative, for example:

  • EIRAs Business Capability is covered by archimate:BusinessFunction
  • EIRAs Business Information Exchange is covered by archimate:BusinessInteraction

A Business Capability is the expression or the articulation of the capacity, materials and expertise an organization needs in order to perform core functions. Enterprise architects use business capabilities to illustrate the over-arching needs of the business in order to better strategize IT solutions that meet those business needs.

A Business Information Exchange is a piece of business data or a group of pieces of business data with a unique business semantics definition in a specific business context [ISO15000-5, UN/CEFACT CCTS].

These are work-arounds to two well-known ArchiMate limitations.

The archimate:BusinessObject is also quite busy, and for example covers these ABBs:

  • Business Rule
  • Business Information
  • Organisational Procedure
  • Organisational Structure

Again, work-arounds to current ArchiMate limitations.

EIRAs ABBs have changed with each release. Deprecated ABBs in the 0.9 beta include:

  • Business Process
  • Business Process Model
  • Business Transaction
  • Licensing and Charging Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Metadata Management Policy
  • Data Routing Service
  • Data Routing Component
  • Information Security Policy
  • Data Quality Policy
  • Logging Service?

So, Business Process and Business Process Model are deprecated, but the archimate:BusinessProcess model concept is used several times, namely for these ABBs:

  • Public Policy Cycle
  • Definition of Public Policy Objectives
  • Formulation of Public Policy Scenarios
  • Impact Assessment
  • Public Policy Implementation
  • Public Policy Evaluation

ArchiMate of course allows for a certain amount of flexibility (ArchiMate 2.1, Chapter 9 Language Extension Mechanisms), but the creativity can be dangerous, expecially in an interoperability context.

EIRA is an many ways ahead of ArchiMate. The challenge is that ArchiMate is under continuous development, and is likely to change on exactly these areas in future versions (see chapter 12.1 in the ArchiMate 2.1 spec). So EIRAs current notation standard should be seen as a temporary “fix”.

A note of caution

EIRA has obviously selected a winner of the longstanding Process vs Capability Debate. Eradicating processes is rather bold, and contrary to advice from experts like Roger Burlton, Paul Harmon, Alan Ramias and Andrew Spanyi, and Keith Swenson. While it is laudable to focus on capabilities, the use of capabilities should not be seen as an alternative to using processes and business process models. Both are needed.

EIRA and Open Data

The EIRA model is available as an Archi file. The data is also available in Archi-produced HTML and images.

From a maturity standpoint, this is only just acceptable. Even an Excel sheet version would be better, but better would be “raw data” available in a range of formats, possible as an api.

Of course, The Open Group is working on an ArchiMate Model Exchange File Format, and has sponsored the development of an Archi plugin for exporting to that format.

Apart from listing a few generic and rather useless Dublin Core metatags (in the HTML table), the current EIRA model is weak on metadata provision. EIRA could, for example, have used Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT) and Asset Description Metadata Schema (ADMS), and the team may want to check out this guide.

Interoperable frameworks?

EIRA does not have any mapping to any other framework.

The Legal and the Organisational views are less conventional as architecture views go. The Semantic, Application (Technical) amd Infrastructure (Technical) views are classic architecture views in many EA frameworks. A comparison with established frameworks seems to be a good idea.

A key part of the US Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework Version 2 (FEAF-II) is the Consolidated Reference Model, which equips the US Federal Government and its Federal agencies with a common language and framework to describe and analyze investments. It consists of a set of interrelated reference models that describe the six sub-architecture domains in the framework:crm

  • Strategy
  • Business
  • Data
  • Applications
  • Infrastructure
  • Security

EIRAs Legal view is roughly equivalent to FEAF-IIs Strategy (Performance Reference Model), and EIRAs Organisational view roughly equivalent to FEAF-IIs Business Reference Model.

Contentwise, EIRA and FEAF-II use these two layers in different ways:


prm
US FEAF-II Performance Reference Model
eira-legal
EU EIRA Legal Interoperability view

eira-org
EIRAs organisational view
brm
US FEAF-II Business Reference Model

EIRAs model scope is wider than FEAF-IIs, but FEAF-II is more comprehensive as a classification scheme.

EIRA should consider taking inspiration from FEAF-II, and at least add a security view. If anything, such view should become mandatory for all European governments.

Towards EIRA 1.0

The 0.9 release of EIRA is a big step forward for reference architecture work in European governments.

QualiWare proposes a rapid consolidation and documentation process, and then releasing Version 1.0. EIRA should not await the next version of ArchiMate, but rather run with well-documented revision control.

QualiWare is committed to supporting international governments in their interoperability work. QualiWare fully supports using ArchiMate 2.1. If customer demand requires it, the “EIRA ArchiMate” approach can easily be supported.

 

Become a Certified Enterprise Architect

cmuThe Carnegie Mellon University Certified Enterprise Architect Program is one of QualiWare Academy‘s core certification  offerings.

Currently offerings include:

Denmark

Norway

  • EA Fundamentals, tba
  • EA Applied, tba
  • EA Advanced, tba

 

 

Enterprise Architecture Conference Europe 2015

 

QualiWare will be at the Enterprise Architecture Conference Europe 2015 in London on 15-18 June 2015.

Kuno Brodersen participates in a panel session about How Practitioners and Vendors can Co-create Value from the Succesful Application of EA Tools.

John Gøtze will speak together with Milan Guenther about Models that Matter.

Our customer Statoil will speak about A Fit for Purpose Approach to Enterprise Architecture – EA in Statoil.