Alignment Architecture strategy
An enterprise change constantly, it is futile to design the entire alligment architecture in a big bang approach. The CEA alignment architecture learn experiences from the wisdom of traditional city planning []. A city establish their master plan in the beginning and evolve the city continuously and incrementally in different city segment based on business and population demand. For example: The City of Washington DC was planed in 1870 by Mr. Len font in 1870. The city outlines the city without great detail. It is a high level and notional plan. It has been the guideline of the city. CEA take the same strategy as shown in the following figure:Service Oriented Alignment Strategy
A city establish the city infrastructure and provide the common services without desing all the building in the city. It is up to business owner and residents to design their own building and houses based on their unique need. Information technology has also evolved to Service Oriented Culture, the challenge of Serivce Oriented approach is to define the right services. A service oriented alignment architecture serve the purpose to address SOA's need on selecting the right services.
Notional Target Architecture as the master plan
• Establish a holistic, high level and notional enterprise master plan similar the city plan or the constitution of a country to contain the enterprise as a whole;
• Identify the line of business from the holistic enterprise plan;
• Adopt the common foundation and building blocks from the same line of business to enable agility
Segment Architecture to deliver architecture value in time of business need with segment architecture
Segment Architecture for implementation
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The Alignment Architecture - The vertical architecture approach
3. WHAT IS ALIGNMENT ARCHITECTUREThe alignment architecture concept enable a light EA approach. It facilitate the business community on how to take advantage of engineering discipline and technology evolution. The outcome of alignment architecture is a notional target architecture which is a master plan on taking advantage of technology evolution.
Alignment Architecture serve as the base to classify the technology category on reference model
Alignment architecture from the business aspect
Enable a light Enterprise Architecture approach
The light EA is light because of the alignment architecture. The alignment architecture serve the business community on how to take advantage of technology evolution rather than designing the enterprise blueprint. It is light in comparing to traditional EA approach to design the enterprise architecture blueprint.
Distinguish EA from an enterprise wide solution architecture
The notional target architecture
Enterprise wide alignment architecture is considered as the master plan for enterprise to take advantage of technology evolution. It is a notional target architecture rather then a target architecture blueprint. The light EA does not design the target enterprise architecture blueprint, it only plan for a high level notional target architecture in a alignment architecture approach. It serve as the master plan for the enterprise. It which is a mile wide but a few inches deep and does not requires significant time and resources to plan the enterprise wide alignment architecture.
Alignment architecture in top down and vertical approach
The Alignment Architecture is the vertical architecture in the Light EA concept which include the vertical alignment architecture, horizontal agility architecture and circular coherent architecture. It adopt NIT Enterprise Architecture model to align technology with business need as shown in the following figure. It was developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 1989, became in the 1990s widely accepted and promoted within the U.S. federal government as an Enterprise Architecture management tool. This model is basically a top down alignment architecture in vertical direction.
Definition
The Alignment architecture facilitate the business community on taking advantage of technology evolution. It is an orderly arrangement between the parts of business need and the parts of technology services. The Alignment Architecture is a vertical architecture approach to align application, data and technology solutions to the holistic business architecture.
3.1 Align to the business architecture The Alignment architecture aligns to the holistic business architecture to constitute and enterprise alignment architecture. To be practical and manageable, The enterprise alignment architecture should be wide and thin.
3.2 Facilitate business community in taking advantage of technology evolution Alignment architecture provide a great value to serve as the bridge between business community and engineering community. EA as an enterprise wide solution architecture is an opportunity and challenge to architecture but have limit value to the business community. It contribute to the lack of buy-in from business community.
3.3 Alignment architecture serve both the business community and the technology community. It should be intuitive and comprehensive to the business managers. The Alignment architecture facilitate the business community on how to leverage on engineering solution such as business process engineering, human resources engineering, technology engineering and security engineering to win the edge of competition.
3.4 Alignment architecture does not requires significant initial investment The Alignment architecture does not requires significant time and resources because it is notional instead of an target enterprise architecture blueprint.
4. ALIGNMENT ARCHITECTURE MODEL AND FRAMEWORK
4.1 Alignment Architecture model
4.2 ALIGNMENT ARCHITECTURE FRAMEWORK
Alignment Architecture framework (Business/Technology) is vertical architecture to align solution to business. The alignment architecture is considerd as the notional Target architecture which serve as the master plan. It consist of the business process alignment, application alignment, data alignment, security alignment and technology alignment.
5. THE ALIGNMENT ARCHITECTURE APPROACH
The alignment architecture adopt the most familiar EA practice to identify the As-is environment and the Target alignment environment as shown on the Alignment Architecture model. However, Organic EA do not recommend to conduct gap analysis and plan for transtion at enterprise level.
5.1 A human centric alignment architecture
To facilitate the business community, the organic EA take an enterprise mapping approach to map automation service on the holistic business architecture map described in the Holistic Business Architecture section.
5.2 The As-is Alignment Architecture
The As-is alignment architecture identify the automation tools used by the business community in business operation. It describe how business community use the automation and other solution to achiever their goal rather than documenting the detail of automation systems. The first generation EA refer this effort to document as-is and frequently evolved to become an inventory and asset management exercise. Many EA projects have bog down at the stage to document as-is without the opportunity to design for the future.
.As-is Application Alignment Architecture - Defines what applications are in place to manage the data and support the business functions (i.e., application models).
.As-is Data Alignment Architecture - Defines what data is in place to support the business (i.e., data models).
. As-is Technology Alignment Architecture - Defines what supporting technology is in place to provide an environment for applications that manage the data and support the business functions (i.e., technology models).
5.3 The Target Alignment Architecture
The target alignment architecture serve as the enterprise master plan. It facilitate the business community to take advantage of technology evolution by aligning automation systems to support business operation. A Target Alignment Architecture should be intuitive and comprehensive to the business community.
. Target Applications alignment Architecture - Defines the applications needed to manage the data and support the business functions (i.e., applications models).
. Target Data Alignment Architecture - Defines the data needed to support the business (i.e., data models).
. Target Technology alignment Architecture - Defines the supporting technology needed to provide an environment for applications that manage the data and support the business functions
5.4 Alignment Architecture not for transition plan
The high level alignment architecture is not recommended for making transition plan by analyzing the gap between the As-is and Target Alignment. The light EA approach, suggest to plan for transition architecture at the segment architecture level rather than at the enterprise level because most of EA transition plan at the enterprise level has been overwhelming and not practical.
6. ALIGNMENT ARCHITECTURE IS NOT ONLY ABOUT TECHNOLOGY
An organization does not relies on technology solution but also on alignment of business processes, human resources and security as shown in the Organic EA model
. The Business process alignment architecture
. The Human resoruces allignment architecture.
. Technology
. The Security Alignment
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EA beyond business proceses
1. THE MYTH OF BUSINESS PROCESS CENTRIC EAEnterprise architecture is not business process centric as many EA practitioners believed. Frequently, the first thing of EA is to model enterprise processes. The enterprise architects are asked to model all enterprise wide business processes to know the business. The business process centric approach has frequently resulted to the EA “paralysis by analysis” because business process modeling are the sequential combination of function components and process engineers are trained to enumerate all the combination in an exhaustive approach. As a result, the architects have delivered enormous amount of business process charts to become expensive wall paper.
1.1 Business processes is not part of enterprise definition
Business processes are the solution to achieve the enterprise mission rather than as part of enterprise definition. Business Architecture is the effort to know the enterprise definition and understand its high level business processes. Enterprise definition describes the enterprise from the aspect of mission, function, information, organization, location and workload.
1.2 The two role of business processes in EA
The confusing of business process due the fact that Business processes serves two roles in Enterprise Architecture. From business architecture point of view, business process serve as the tool to achieve business excellence Business processes. From software development view, business processes serve as the requirements for business process automation.
2. BUSINESS PROCESS MUST BE REENGINEERING BEFORE AUTOMATION
Business process must be reengineered before automation
Business processes are the tool which must be reengineering before automation to avoid “Paving the cow path”.
2.1 Business processes are a function of technology evolution
3. BPR by subject experts
Instead of becoming an business process engineering expert, EA professionl relies on BPR professional for business processs reengineering in the business architecture optimization effort. BPR has been a established paradigm since 1990 after Michael Hammer, a former p
BPR has being a establish paradigm Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), published an article in the Harvard Business Review. In the same year as Hammer published his paper, A similar idea was advocated by Thomas H. Davenport and J. Short (1990), at that time a member of the Ernst & Young research center, in a paper published in the Sloan Management Review.
EA ENABALE BUSINESS PROCESS REUSE VIA STANDARDIZATION
EA is the effort to enable agile and simple business process engineering via business process standardization effort to create the business process building blocks.
BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING AT LOCAL LEVEL
2. Business Process Reengineering occurs incrementally in segment architecture.
Business process must be reengineered before automation to avoid the situation to “Pave the cow path”. However, instead of a “Big Bang” approach, business processes reengineering will be better off to occur at the segment architecture level rather than at the business architecture level.
Business process engineering design the optimize business process based on local culture and available technologies. It is considered as the process solution to support the enterprise mission rather as part the enterprise definition. It similar to roads in a city to take the stakeholders from one point to the other. There are many ways to take one from point A to point B. Business process reengineering is the effort to optimize the path depends on where you are and what vehicle you have. Business definition describes the enterprise strategic vision and business processes describe the business tactic. Business processes are a function of technologies evolution and it subject to localizes business processes reengineering. Enterprise definition describe the business vision and strategic direction for competition, it is not a function of business processes and technology.
Business processes must be redesign before automation to avoid the situation of “Paving the cow path”, however, instead of conduct business process engineering in a “Big Bang” approach to design business process for the entire enterprise, business process reengineering occurs at segment architecture because Business process subject to localization and it is a function of technology evolution.
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EA beyond IT
EA is not only about how business take advantage of IT technology but also the holistic planning activity on the holistic plan of human resource, financing and security. ^ TOPHow business utilize resources?
Althouh EA was initiated in the information age to overcome the challenge of information islands and silo systems. EA is not only about information technology. The phenominon of Silo system does not only occured in Information system, it occured in all area of business managment. It has been the big challenge science industrial age and posing more obstacle in information age. The light EA approach suggest that EA is the holistic method to overcome the challenge of silo system in the following area.1. business process.
2. Information resources.
3. human resources
4. Financial resoruces
5. security resources.
6. Execution.
7. Change managment.
as illustrated on the Process Classification Framework. It is a high-level, generic enterprise model that will encourage businesses and other organizations to see their activities from a cross-industry process viewpoint instead of a narrow functional viewpoint. It has been developed over the past three years by the APQC International Benchmarking Clearinghouse, with the assistance of several major international corporations, and in close partnership with Arthur Andersen & Co.
Many organizations now have used the Process Classification Framework in practical ways to better understand their processes, to reach out across industry boundaries to communicate and share information, and to classify information in various forms.
LEA is light, it only plan the notional Target Architecture as a holistic enterprise architecture plan. The notional target architecture is high level architecture plan, it can be described as a mile wide with inches of depth. The notional target architecture is only a plan instead a blueprint for construction. It include:
1. The master plan
2. The notional business architecture
3. The notional Application Architecture.
4. The notional Data Architecture.
Notice that the technology architecture is not part of the Notional Architecture because LEA is about how business utilize resources. It is about how to use a car rather than how to make a car.
A Master Plan is a comprehensive long range plan intended
development of a community or region. It includes analysis,proposals for the community’s population, economy, housing, facilities, and land use. It is based on public input, surveys, development, physical characteristics, and social and economic.
LEA prepare the notional target architecture in architecture drawing sets which is easy for stakeholder comprehension.
Notional Architecture is static guide line
Enterprise Architecture is about how the business can take advantage of automation system rather than how to design the technology. It is a matter of using the vehicles rather than on how to make the vehicle. In the mean time the business process must also be reengineered to take advantage technology evolution.
Business reengineering
1. INTRODUCTION
Light EA is light because it does not requiresthe signifincat investment of time and resource to architect the enterprsie blueprint. Instead of the heavy approach to architect the enterprise blueprint, LEA take a light approach to conduct holistic, and high level master plan to align technology with business need. An important reason for this approach is due to the fact that Enterprise is organic, it is futile to architect the enterprise blueprint which become obsolete before ink dry.
The master plan is based the enterprise big picture to align a high level business architectrue with business vision and strategy first. an furhter to plan how business take advantage of technology evolution. It is a matter of how business use technology rather than how to make technology. Business community want to take advange of technology evolution rather than how to make technology evolution.
The master plan does not only align technology to business but also but human resource, financing and all area of business management as shown in the LEA model.
Alignment Architecture is very different from solution architecture. It is a matter of how business take advantage of information technology solution rather then how to develop the automation solution. In analogy of a automobile, alignment architecture is how to use the right car rather than how to design a car. The Alignment Architecture facilitate the business community to take advantage of technology evolution. It is an orderly arrangement between the parts of business need and the parts of technology services. It focused on the EA goal to overcome the challenge of stovepipe system. This section introduce Alignment architecture from the aspect of
. Why Alignment Architecture
. What is Alignment architecture
. Alignment Architecture model and framework
2. WHY ALIGNMENT ARCHITECTURE
EA has not evolved as expected because the enterprise wide solution architecture approach does not particular appeal to the business community and also post a great change to the engineering community. The business community are indifferent on making the solution. They only concern about how to use the solution. EA as an enterprise wide solution is not in favor by the engineering community either. The complexity to architect the enterprise post a great challenge to the engineering community. It requires significant time and resource and only for an large organization with big money. Buy-in from the stakeholders is even a bigger challenge, after the hard work to architect the enterprise, the architects discovered that buy-in from the stakeholder is not warranted.
EA was not initiated to architect the enterprise from the beginning. According to John Zachman, he said:
“ Based on the Framework for Enterprise Architecture, I would suggest that Enterprise Architecture is the set of primitive, descriptive artifacts that constitute the knowledge infrastructure of the Enterprise. …Reuse or interoperabitliy does not happen by accident. It is the result of engineering “ [15].
However, It is difficult for the IT community to make transition from the stovepipe culture. The IT community answer the EA call to overcome the challenge of stovepipe with a bigger stovepipe approach. Most of the popular EA approaches such as the US DOD approach and the Open Group TOGAF approach lead EA into this direction. It may satisfy the architects desire of complexity and profundity but does not serve well for the business community. The reason for suggesting the alignment architecture is further elaborated in the following :
2.1 Alignment Architecture serves as the bridge between business and engineering community, On of the major EA goal is to be the bridge between business and engineering community. The gap between business and engineering community has been the major obstacle for business optimization.
2.2 EA for both large and small organization Alignment architecture to keep EA simple and light. The complexity of enterprise wide solution architecture increase exponentially which can only afford by large organization with big money. The complicate analysis frequently become "paralysis by analysis".
2.3 Distinguish EA from enterprise wide solution architecture Under the EA as an enterprise wide solution architecture. EA is no longer an emerging paradigm, because EA look like a solution architecture and sounds like an solution architecture therefor they conclude the EA is nothing new but the same good old solution architecture but bigger in size.
2.4 Enterprise architecture blueprint become obsolete before in dry Enterprise is a living thing. an enterprise wide solution architecture blueprint become obsolete before the ink dry. The biggest challenge of EA is lack of buy-in from the stake holder because it take significant investment of time and resources; it has value during the design; the design become obsoleted before the ink dry and an large size solution architecture project has a high risk to fail.
2.0 DISTINGUISH ALIGNMENT ARCHITECTURE FROM DESIGN ARCHITECTURE
Alignment Architecture is very different from design architecture. It is a matter of how business take advantage of information technology solution rather then how to develop the automation solution. In analogy of a automobile, alignment architecture is how to use the right car rather than how to design a car. The traditional EA approach, evolved from application development, frequently jump into the complexity of how to design the applicaiton rather than analyz how business take advantage of the evolution of technology. The confusion has resulted EA situation of “paralysis by analysis”. Many EA project confused EA as an enterprise scale application development. EA has turn out to be the effort to design the enterprise. It turns out to become a complicate project and end up with “paralysis by analysis”.
Enterprise Architects must make their own transition from application development to EA concept. From the aspect of EA, the application architecture, the data architecture and technology architecture is the effort to align the architecture solution to business need and establish the relation between the different architecture to support management decision making via impact analysis. From the aspect of Application Development, the application architecture, the data architecture and the technology architecture is the effort to design the structure of the application systems.
The Alignment Architecture Section elaborate the approach to enable alignment architecture.
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