Learn experience of the others
1.0 INTRODUCTIONBusiness Oriented reuse approach is to learn the experience of the others from the similar line of business. It is an architecture reuse approach rather than the traditional software components reuse. This article suggest the business oriented reuse pattern concept, justify the bottom up solution by prediction the common foundation from the similar lines of business and suggest the thin top down approach.
2.0 BUSINESS ORIENTED REUSE
Based on the definition of Line of Business and the assumption that for each LOB , there is a set of solution patterns , an enterprise architects can establish the common foundation based on the LOBs in the enterprise without conducting redundant pattern recognition effort under the waterfall approach.
The effort of EA becomes to find the experience from the others under the same LOB rather than conducting patter recognition. In the beginning, most of the patterns are not documented and required certain level of effort to learn from the others. When the industry become mature , similar the traditional engineering, the solution patterns will be documented in the industry similar the engineering handbooks, the level of effort to find the documented patterns from the others will be minimized.
2.1 Benefit
The ideal is to predict the common IT foundations, services and building blocks based on the similar line of business. For example: IBM have successful establish the IT solution patterns for banking and insurance industry.
2.2 Eliminate the redundant architecture analysis over the same line of business
2.3 Bypass the delay of waterfall analysis
2.4 Justify the bottom up solution
2.5 Predict the building blocks and Services
3.0 BUSINESS ORIENTED REUSE INITITIVES
3.1 Business oriented reuse patterns
The business oriented reuse approach is based on the IBM patterns for e-Gov. The thin top down approach is based on concept of “ business alignment patterns” that each LOB have an associated IT solution patterns and It is not necessary to reinvent wheel to conduct pattern recognition within the enterprise in a waterfall approach. The business alignment pattern is not a new concept. The industry , such as the IBM pattern analysis, has established the reuse their solution patterns base on Line of Business for example: banking and insurance industry to illustrate business pattern and the application patterns and integration patterns.
The IBM patterns for e-business which introduced in the IBM Redbooks as “ a collective set of proven architecture that have been compiled for more than 20,000 successful Internet-based engagements. This repository of assets can be used by companies to facilitate the development of Web-based applications. They help an organization understand and analyze complex business problems and break them down into smaller, more manageable functions that can be implemented using low-level design patterns. “
The IBM patterns for e-business also stated :
“A line-of-business (LOB) executive who understand the business aspects and requirements of a solution can use business patterns to develop a high-level structure for a solution. Business patterns represent common business problems. An LOB executive can match their requirements (IT and business drivers) to Business patterns that have already been documented. The patterns provide tangible solutions to the most frequently encountered business challenge by identifying common interactions among users, business and data.
Senior technical executives can utilize Application patterns to make critical decisions related to the structure and architecture of the proposed solution. Application patterns help refine Business patterns so that they can be implemented as computer-based solutions. Technical executives can use these patterns to identify and describe the structure (tiers of the application) , placement of the data, and the integration (loosely or tightly coupled) of the systems involved.
Finally, solution architects and system designers can develop a technical architecture by using Runtime patterns to realize the application patterns. Runtime patterns describe the logical architecture that is required to implement an application pattern. Solution architects can match Runtime patterns to existing environment and business needs. The Runtime patterns they implement establishes the components needed to support the chosen Application pattern. It defines the logical middleware nodes., their roles and the interfaces among these nodes in order to meet business requirements. The Runtime pattern documents what must be in place to complete the application but does not specify product brands. Determination of actual products is made in the Product mapping phase of the patterns. “
3.2 FEAPMO Consolidate reference models
The Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) Consolidate Reference Models (CRM) is the effort to enable the IT community to communicate and locate common reusable resources rather than a EA guide or a framework for Enterprise Architecture design. Without making transition from application development culture to EA culture, most of the IT community are looking into the different reference model for Enterprise Architecture guidance. To their dismay, they have conclude that OMB is on the wrong direction.
The FEAPMO consist of Business Reference Model (BRM), Performance Reference Model (PRM,) Service Reference Model (SRM) , Data Reference Model (DRM) and Technical Reference Model (TRM) as shown in the follow figure
Figure 2 FEA CRM reference model
The first version of FEA CRM was released on May 2005, and the FEA CRM version 2 has been just released in June, 2006. The BRM introduce the business areas and line of business (LOB). The SRM describe the category of service components. The DRM describe the business subject area , data patterns and standardization. The TRM describe the technology domain, and technology patterns.
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Learn from the same line of businss
To avoid learning from the wrong experience, the enterprise learning experience from the same line of business which is defined in the business reference model.EA can establish the common foundation and building block from the same line of business instead of relies on waterfall solution to derive the common element in a stovepipe approach. There is nothing new under the sky, instead of reinventing the wheel in a stovepipe and water fall solution, Enterprise Architecture is the effort to learn experiences from the same line of business. Although every business are unique, the same line of business shares significant amout of common building blocks.
Indentify the Line of business from business architecture
Enterprise Architects identify the Line of Business based on the definition in the Business Reference Model.
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Learning experiences of the others
1.0 INTRODUCTIONLevitt and March Organizational Learning
Barbara Levitt and James G. March
Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 14, (1988), pp. 319-340 (article consists of 22 pages)
specify two different types of organizational learning: learning from one's. own experience and learning from the experience of others.
"Only the foolish learn from experience — the wise learn from the experience of others." — Attributed to Romanian folk wisdom by Rolf Hochhuth
It is not a human nature to learn from the other’s experience. The wisdom from king Solomon in the Bible said that “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun “ (Ecclesiastes 1:9-14 NIV).
It is particularly true in the area of common foundation and building blocks. The notion of "There is nothing new under the sun" is that whatever your changes are, it is very unlikely that it is first challenge of this type in the human history, there must be someone else have the similar challenge before. Therefore, It is much easier to overcome the challenge by learning from similar experience instead of take on the challenge as if no one else have done it before.
Past experience points the way to the future. A quote from Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of the German empire in the latter part of the 19th century, provides the best motivation for learning from historical patterns: "Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit from the experience of others."
Eric Clemons [] suggest "not simply learning from your own experience but learning from the experience of others, no matter how remote in time or space, so long as it provides a good set of patterns for interpreting your own experience."
Although the wisdom of learning experience of the others has be part of civilization, Yet, It appears to be a culture transition effort in the information age which is evolving from the stovepipe culture to EA culture.
At the early part of information age, there is not much experinece to learn from the others, every one have to develop their onw solution in a stovepipe approach. Inforamtion age is evolving to a become more mature and there are more experiences to learn from the other people, EA become the practice to learn experinece of the others.
Under the traditional waterfall application development approach, IT community in stovepipe oriented culture develop application from scratch as if no one else have do it before. The introduction of reference models in EA has most of the IT community very confused because there is no need to learn experiences of the others in the stovepipe oriented culture. Therefore, there is little desire of the reference models. When it comes about reuse, the traditional EA approach design the entire enterprise architecture and conduct pattern analysis from their enterprise architecture without thinking about learning experience.
Enterprise Architecture , which is a matter of learning experience of the others, introduce the concept of reference models as the common languages upon which they can communicate with the same line of business and learn their experiences. The common taxonomy in the reference assures that they are learning from the right experiences under the same context.
Engineering of reuse is the discipline to explore the unique human capability to learn experience from the other. Human being have the unique capability to learn experience of other , but it is also the human nature in declining to learn experience of others.
Past experience points the way to the future. A quote from Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of the German empire in the latter part of the 19th century, provides the best motivation for learning from historical patterns: “Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit from the experience of others.” Eric Clemons [] suggest “not simply learning from your own experience but learning from the experience of others, no matter how remote in time or space, so long as it provides a good set of patterns for interpreting your own experience.”
3.0 TRADITIONAL EA CONDUCT PATTERN RECOGNITION
Traditional EA approach conduct pattern recognition within the enterprise. In the waterfall EA approach, the architecture conduct the top down analysis to design every application systems and conduct pattern recognition by looking for commonality between the application to establish common resources.
3.1 Conduct pattern recognition
3.2 Redundant effort
3.3 Waterfall approach
Under the waterfall concept in the traditional EA approach, most EA effort resolve the challenge of stove pipe system by conducting patter recognition effort to find the common component. To conduct pattern recognition, it requires significant effort to lay out the entire architect artifacts on the table. It is a redundant effort because many other organization have conduct pattern recognition before and there are similar patterns under the same line of business.
3.4 Not in time for practical use
3.5 Crate a larger stove pipe
4.0 SUGGEST TO LEARN EXPERIENCE OF OTHERS
4.1 Do not reinvent the wheel
4.2 In time for practical use
4.3 Enable bottom up solution
5.0 THE COMPARISON
Traditional EA establishes common resources by conducting pattern recognition within the enterprise. LEA suggest to learn experiences from similar lines of business . The following table illustrate the difference between c the two alternatives.
Pattern recognition within the enterprise Reuse the common patterns from similar business segment
Close mind within the enterprise Open mind to reuse automation experience of similar business segments
No need to learn industrial patterns Need knowledge of industrial patterns
Requires the initial significant investment of time and money to design enterprise-wide application systems Do not require significant initial investment.
Place the art of BPR in the critical path of EA Alleviate the bottleneck of upfront enterprise-wide BPR effort
Specific patterns within the enterprise to solve the challenge of stovepiped system with a stovepiped enterprise General patterns from industrial sample set
Passively recognize patterns from each individual application system design Proactively specify the standard patterns to enable agility
6.0 THE DISCIPLINE OF LEARNING EXPERIENCE OF THE OTHERS
EA is the discipline to establish the knowledge of reusable resources. EA professionals are trained in reference models to established the knowledge to learn experience of others. Learning experience from the others is not a trivial.
6.1 Overcome the human nature of declining to learn from the other
6.2 The knowledge of available resources
6.3 The selection of learning from the others
6.4 The establishment of reusable directories or the broker,
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Business Agility
CEA suggest to enable Business agility via:Commonality
Business process standard
Business process consolidation
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