I’ve been pondering this simple question “what do I do?”. Not the simple what do I do question, but the really hard what do I do with a super capital “I“. It’s so easy to throw out something saying I’m an enterprise architect, or I work in IT and information architecture or I map processes and strategy so I must be a business architect with an IT twist. Sure I hold certificates in the fields of IT-architecture and business architecture, I’ve served under good and bad leadership and I’ve created great and not so great architectures. But does all this put me in any special architect role and is this what I do.
Most of the time I function as a pathfinder, scouting out the best strategy, the most suitable method or a really great service. How does that tie in to being in the field of Enterprise architecture? Am I an architect or have I become an Internet native, a nomad roaming the fields of the web looking for greatness. It sure sounds more exciting being a pathfinder, an ea-nomad an internet native. Maybe I’ll get to put pathfinder on my next business card instead of enterprise architect.
The art of architecture #6 simply says: To make sure the success of an entreprise architecture effort one should strive to express the heart of it in a “one liner”.
Others have written about the importance of one liners, not in the common understanding of what EA is but from the stance of strategy. Remember that my stance on EA is an EA focused on strategy where descriptive activities is just one part of the whole effort.
Kenichi Ohmae wrote in his classical work The mind of the strategist, “Inability to articulate a strategy in a single incisive, natural-sounding sentence is a sure sign that there is something wrong in the strategy itself”. More recently W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne wrote in the now famous book Blue Ocean Strategy, “a good way to test the effectiveness and strength of a strategy is to look at whether it contains a strong and authentic tagline”.
For years I’ve been fascinated by the usage of EA as a means to document and structure all aspects of an enterprise. There are many good sources of information out there today that will show you how to do that. But what about reasoning about the enterprise, what models exists to do that. I’ve put together a presentation (see below) which may awake some to the issue of modeling just enough of the enterprise for documentation. Perhaps we can move our EA focus towards using models for reasoning and strategizing. This would enable EA to act as a guide towards understanding the emerging strategy within the organization and its value network.
