A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE ON ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE

A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE
Tom Graves
Tetradian Consulting
KONFERENCE ENTERPRISE ARCHITEKTURA 2017

Hi.
(maybe I should update
my profile-photo...?)
I’m Tom.
I’ve been around
the EA scene
for a while now.

These days
I’d describe myself as
a maker of tools for change
– all sorts of tools...

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).
To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Tetradian www.tetradian.com
Project By Date
VersionHolomap
shared-enterprise / indirect-context
includes community, government, non-clients, anticlients, others
includes investors, beneficiaries
market / direct-context
includes competitors, regulators, recruiters, trainers, journals, others
transactional-context
includes suppliers / providers, customers / consumers, transactional partners
prospect prospectsupplier / provider
partner
client / consumer
partner
organisation
service-in-focus
…such as this…

Sales-
pitch!
https://leanpub.com/tb-changes/
New
book!

…enough of an intro?
Okay, let’s get on with the show!

To make sense of this...
© Josef Lada
...we’ll need
some advice
from someone
you might know

As Švejk himself might ask:
What’s the point?
What’s the purpose?
What are we striving for?
(well, he might say something like that, anyway…)

Why architecture?
What is its real purpose?

The aim of all architecture...
Things work better
when they work together,
on purpose.
(It’s about effectiveness.)

What are the keys to
architecture?

The Architect’s Mantra…
I don’t know…
(but I know someone who does, or how to find out)
It depends…
(and I know what it depends on, and why)
Just enough detail…
(and I know what the right level of detail would be)

Everyone wants to sell us
ready-made answers...
...yet the real challenge is
to find the right questions
...“solutions!”

Finding the right questions
can be even more important
than finding the right answers
(in part because questions
tend to stay the same,
whereas answers will change
with time and context)

Architecture and its ‘experts’
© Josef Lada
Anglo-dominated, IT-centric, hidden assumptions...

A matter of perspective
...in reality, the BDAT-stack is an arbitrary special-case

...further confused by misframed ‘Business Architecture’

...and even worse at whole-enterprise scope

In short, it’s a mess...
...which may be why management keep yelling at us?
© Josef Lada

So how do we
get out of this mess?

Expose the assumptions...
If we change the perspective,
we can expose, explore and highlight
the hidden assumptions

Let’s ask Švejk for some help here?
© Josef Lada (?)

Different cultures, different choices

in which case…
What would EA look like
if it were Czech?

© The Open Group
EA as the adventures of Švejk?
© Josef Lada

© The Open Group
EA as procedure? or poetry(sort-of)?
© Dušan Klein et al.

© The Open Group
EA as metamorphosis?
© Norton Books

© The Open Group
EA as a trial?
© Penguin

Trials indeed for Švejk...
© Josef Lada
...carrying everyone’s load, under fire...

People,
Process,
Technology!
Maybe the real problem
is our usual approach:

Technology
CC-BY-SA xdxd_vs_xdxd via Flickr
Process
People
The usual architecture view

…“can I go to sleep now, please?”

No fun at all...
© Josef Lada
Could we just kick it all out?

So how do we find these
‘missing perspectives’?
- and maybe have some fun doing it, too…

Short answer:
Raid the kids’ toy-box!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Viga-Wooden-Train-Set-49-Piece/dp/B00486QD0S/

Toy-train as
service-metaphor…

…who or what are the various
uses / users of the service?

…how do those uses intersect?

…how might those uses conflict?

…what decisions
need to be made?

…what scheduling /
prioritisation do you need?

…what infrastructure
tolerances do you need?

…how does it interconnect
with other services?

…what disruptions
could careless
users cause?

…what disruptions could the
service cause for others?

…how, where, with what must it
intersect without connecting?

…how might others impact
your infrastructure?

…what impacts could that
have on service-delivery?

…what are the hazards,
potential sources of disruption?

…what happens
when
external risks
eventuate?

…what happens when
the service itself fails?

…what disruptions
could failures cause?

Maybe we’ll give Švejk a medal...
© Josef Lada

…which brings us back to…
a matter
of perspective!
- yeah, which way we look at things does kinda matter here…

Perspectives and journeys
Service-delivery is a journey of interactions
where ‘inside-out’ (the organisation’s perspective)
touches ‘outside-in’ (the customer’s / supplier’s perspective)

Outside-in…
CC-BY Fretro via Flickr
“Customers
do not appear
in our processes,
we appear in
their experiences”
Chris Potts, recrEAtion, Technics, 2010

Every service has its own myriad of stakeholders
Whose story?

A stakeholder
is anyone
who can wield
a sharp-pointed
stake
in our direction…
CC-BY-NC-SA evilpeacock via Flickr
Who are the stakeholders?
(Hint: there are a lot
more of them than we
might at first think…)

And as Švejk would remind us...
© Josef Lada
...what connects people together is a story

All kinds of stories...
SCRIPTED
(simple rules and checklists)
CC-BY The-Vikkodamus via Flickr CC-BY-SA seeminglee via Flickr
IMPROVISED
(guidelines and principles)
ANALYSED
(complicated algorithms)
ADAPTED
(complex patterns)
PREDICTABLE UNPREDICTABLE

“All the world’s a stage”…
Stories underpin every action…

Stories are fractal…
…each story contains stories within stories
CC-BY-NC-SA gjshepherd via Flickr

Stories within stories, everywhere…

…but to make this work...
we’ll need a different approach
to our architecture
- a more story-oriented approach…

Stage
CC-BY-SA xdxd_vs_xdxd via Flickr
Scene
Actor
ActorStage
Stage
Stage
A narrative-oriented view
Scene
Scene
Stage

So how to explore this
with execs and others?

Short answer:
Back to the toy-box!

http://www.pollocks-coventgarden.co.uk/index.php/pantomime-theatre-with-cinderella.html

Let’s use
a visual cheat-sheet
to help us…
- you could call it a Canvas, if you like…

Project By Date
Version
theatre-context
theatre management
stage / setting
front-of-stage
backstage
audience
scene
actor / agent
“Actor, scene, stage...”

Who are your actors? – everyone!
Machines too can be actors (‘agents’)
- though remember that your users
are people, not machines!

…and also, why these actors?

…what changes if we change actor?

Project By Date
Version
theatre-context
theatre management
stage / setting
front-of-stage
backstage
audience
scene
actor / agent / extras

Extras are kind of
‘active scenery’…
- they’re not part of the story as such,
but the scene won’t work well
without them…

…what do extras add to the scene?

Each segment of a story
is a scene…
- each scene should have
a distinct begin, middle, end
and outcome…

…what’s the story in the scene?

Process as story
Tom Graves, The Enterprise As Story, Tetradian, 2012
“Each traverse through
a business-process
is a self-contained story
with its own actors,
actions and events”

Scenes in the story
Process-story as identifiable scenes, with begin, middle, end

Remember the screenwriters’ mantra:
Show, don’t tell
- each line of action
must drive the story onward

Project By Date
Version
theatre-context
theatre management
stage / setting
front-of-stage
backstage
audience
scene / props
actor / agent

The role of props:
Each item has a place in the story,
and drives the story onward
(In a business context,
another term for ‘prop’ is ‘asset’)

Scenery provides a backdrop
for the story…
- if we change the scenery
or the lighting,
we may change the ‘feel’
or the sense of the whole story…

…what difference with scenery?

…what difference with lighting?

Staging the story:
infrastructure, systems etc as the stage
Setting the mood:
how does stage-set itself drive story forward?
People have feelings:
how does stage-set support the mood we need?
Framing the action:
in what ways does frame itself constrain the story?

Framing the stage:
What do people see
that surrounds the stage?
What support is there for other senses?
- sound, scent, texture, taste?

…what music should play? – to what effect?

‘Backstage’:
the invisible infrastructure
that supports the story…
…what state is that infrastructure in,
behind the curtain?

Visible and invisible
…what state is that infrastructure in, behind the curtain?
CC-BY Princess Theatre via Flickr

…what state is that infrastructure in, behind the curtain?
CC-BY-SA LanSmash via Flickr

The audience observe the story
- they are not in the story...
…that’s an important distinction!

…what are audience expectations?

We need management to guide:
running (operation) of the story
changing the story
overall purpose of the story

How will you promote your identity?
How will others find your story?
Who would you want
(or not-want) as clientele?
How will you keep it busy?
How will you keep it running?

What risks exist beyond the theatre?
- activities of anticlients?
- changes in social context?
- what else?
And also: what opportunities exist out there?

…who is an anticlient for theatre?

Project By Date
Version
theatre-context
theatre management
stage / setting
front-of-stage
backstage
audience
scene / props
actor / agent / extras

In short…
…we must pay attention
to the story as a whole!
- not just the easy bits…
Context, context, context…

“The world* is made of stories”
• The enterprise is a story – an overarching theme
• Enterprise as an ongoing story of relations
between people – the actors of the story
• Enterprise-story comprised of many smaller stories
– the scenes or story-lines (aka ‘processes’)
• Enterprise-story takes place in a setting – the stage
and its context, location, props etc
• Stories thrive on tension, conflict and uncertainty
– whereas machines generally don’t…
*‘the world’ including – perhaps especially – the business-world…

It’s easier to engage people
in exploring perspectives
of the architecture
if they can have fun
whilst they’re doing it!
The real punchline for this story:

Contact: Tom Graves
Company: Tetradian Consulting
Email: tom@tetradian.com
Twitter: @tetradian ( http://twitter.com/tetradian )
Weblog: http://weblog.tetradian.com
Slidedecks: http://www.slideshare.net/tetradian
Publications: http://tetradianbooks.com and http://leanpub.com/u/tetradian
Books: • The enterprise as story: the role of narrative in enterprise-
architecture (2012)
• Mapping the enterprise: modelling the enterprise as services
with the Enterprise Canvas (2010)
• Everyday enterprise-architecture: sensemaking, strategy,
structures and solutions (2010)
• Doing enterprise-architecture: process and practice in the real
enterprise (2009)
Further information:
Support our work! – become a patron on Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/tetradian

A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE ON ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Was ist angesagt?

Was ist angesagt? (20)

Andere mochten auch

Andere mochten auch (16)

Ähnlich wie A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE ON ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE

Ähnlich wie A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE ON ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE (20)

Mehr von Tetradian Consulting

Mehr von Tetradian Consulting (8)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

A MATTER OF PERSPECTIVE ON ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE