Adopt the traditional architecture drawing approach
Coherent EA approach adopt the traditional architecture/engineering drawing approach to develope, communicate, certify and deliver EA artifacts. The CEA architecture has developed the following Enterprise Architecture drawing sets :Why EA architecture drawing
. EA is known to be stealth due to lack of practical communication mechanism.
. Significant EA work become hidden treasure in the repository.
. Communicate Enterprise Architecture design with architecture drawings instead of volumes of document.
. Architecture drawing has been the proven architecture communication mechanism.
Architecture drawings serve as a communication package
The architecture drawings serves as the EA communication package to contain defined EA artificats.
The Utilization of EA architectrure drawings :
. To know the enterprise via architecture drawings.
. Develope EA via architecrure drawing.
. Communicate EA via architecture drawings.
. Certify EA via architecture drawings.
. Deliver EA via architecrure drawing.
Drawing oriented EA approach
The CEA method adopt the traditional architecture by developing EA from the drawing board in the follow approach:
. Step 1: To see the big picture and know the enterprise via EA Map which analogy to geographical survey. I have developed this method from the swim-lane model for more than ten years. This is version 3, please review the method in the EA Map blog.
. Step 2: To analyze the Enterprise Business Architecture with business architecture drawing room the aspect of Mission (Why), Function (How), Information (What), Organization (Who), Location (Where) and Performance requirement (When). The drawings are backed up with much architecture analysis.
. Step 3. To analyze the application architecture with the application architecture drawing which align application system to support business.
. Step 4. To analyze the data architecture with the data architecture drawings which align data resources to support business.
. Step 5. Establish Enterprise technology architecture baseline with the technology architecture baseline drawings, which illustrate the enterprise technology baseline environment.
3.0 ADOPT THE ARCHITECTURE DRAWINGS APPROACH
Civil engineers and architects use blueprints to communicate with stakeholders rather than write many volumes of books to describe a city or a building. John Zachman suggests that EA artifacts must be graphically presented . He writes that :
“I would further suggest that ultimately, the Enterprise will require that these artifacts must necessarily be graphically presented because at the point in time when you will need the artifacts, you won’t have the time to read through a thousand pages of text to attempt to discern their implications “ [15]
EA communication must take human factor into account.
Architecture drawings are developed base on nature human limitation
Communication to people subject to the nature hunman limitation in comprehending information. It is very different to device and device communication where the communication technology evolved rapidly. In the design of EA communication to stakeholders, It is important to understand human limitation in comprehending overwhelming information.
The information overload bibliography from Humboldt state university library
Richards, C.E. (1987). Roles: A Strategy to Avoid Information Overload. Central Issues in Anthropology, 7(1), 9-12.
"The research makes it clear that (a) the human brain is limited in its ability to process data, (b) the limitation is not susceptible to training, and (c) it is approximately the same for all humans."
Given the above, Richards states that human interaction would place an information overload on individuals without the templates provided by roles based on gender, age, kinship, and compartative power. As societies increase in population, the number of recognized roles decreases due to this inherent processing limitation.
Miller, G.A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63, 81-97. (Full text of this article at The Magical Number Seven.)
Human beings have severe limitations on the amount of information they are able to receive, process, and remember. Their "span of immediate memory" or "channel capacity" is limited to approximately 7--plus or minus two-- items. Through recoding items so that information to be remembered is placed in larger "chunks," it is possible to expand this channel capacity somewhat.
The amount of information human able to recieve, process and comprehend is a constant volume as shown on following figure. The Enterprsie Target Architecture The Enterprise target architecture, at very high level, is more a plan rather than architecture design to fit in the human comprehensive limitation. The segment architecture have more depth than enterprise target architectrure but in narrow scope to fit in the human limitation. The solution architecture address specific problem with in depth solution.
Architecrture drawing serve as a container
The challenge of EA communication is due to lack of basic EA communication protocol which is the communication packages to deliver EA information similar to the package concept s in any communication model. EA professional communicate with stakeholder with volumes of documents and the deep information ocean of EA repository. The notion is that it all here and you figure it out. Or, communicate with stakeholder with power point presentations which may sound good but enveloped after the presentation. Or endless computer generated business process models which fail to connect with people and only serve as an expensive wall paper.
EA must feed the stakeholder in bitable size of EA information for digestion. Graphic presentation along without a container does not serve well for EA communication, the key for EA communication is the package of EA artifact. Traditional architects use architecture drawings as the basic container which focus on a subject and can be certified to deliver architecture artifacts to the stakeholders. Standardized architecture drawings have been an old trick which has work well to communicate architecture information to the stakeholder. It works for the industrial age and will also work for the information age. It is essential to have a container which can pass the EA information around both in paper and in electronic form. I have put my two cents in the EA drawing lab. To create business architecture drawing sets, Application architecture drawing sets, data architecture drawing set and technology architecture drawing sets leveraging on my previous life as a Professional Engineer. The drawing sets are far from a finish product but it conveys the ideal.
Traditional architects and engineers use architecture drawing go accomondate the human factor.
LEA adopts the traditional architecture approach to communicate architecture artifact with architecture drawing sets. Architecture drawings, although an old practice, serve as the container to convey defined architecture information to stakeholders. The challenge of EA communication is due to lack of proper containers to convey information to the stakeholders. The current EA communication via volumes of documents does not sever well to convey EA artifact in time of need.
The LEA approach adopts the architecture and engineering drawings approach to communicate with stakeholders. The author have created drawing set on business architecture, data architecture and technology architecture using the traditional engineering drawing technique acquired in his civil engineering discipline.
LEA recommend hand-drawn diagrams in addition to mechanically generate drawings. A hand-drawn sketch today can often be far more valuable then a fully documented and validated document several months from now [2]. Hand-drawings capture the architecture thinking on the paper, the hand drawings actually facilitate the thinking process in group architecture design. Hand drawing carry the human touch which is essential to the communication between the architects and stakeholders in the design process. Mechanically generate drawings which document the architecture design can not replace the hand drawing , it serve the purpose to document the architecture after the fact of the designing process.
LEA suggest to use architecture drawings to illustrate the high level big picture rather than a blueprint for design and build as it is in the traditional engineering approach. EA in architecture drawing approach is not new, some EA approach take architecture drawings as a blueprint for design and build and created many drawings only good for use as wall paper. Architecture drawings is very effective on presenting the high level holistic big picture but do not serve well in describing business logic in detail. PEA architecture drawings are particularly useful to communication architecture concept with non-technical stakeholders. The high level architecture drawings , similar to the plan view in a house blueprint, illustrate enterprise architecture concept in explicit pictures to connect the non-technical stakeholder to the enterprise big picture as shown in the following example crated by the author. A hand-drawn sketch today can often be far more valuable then a fully documented and validated document several months from now [2]. Machine produced architecture drawing is valuable to document the architecture artifact after it is designed. The machine produce drawings are complicate and difficult to comprehend with special technology background. The architecture drawings can be presented on both electronically and on traditional paper print hard copy. The electronic versions are easy to distribute to the stakeholders. However, the hard copies of architecture drawings serve better during the communication to the non-technical stakeholders during the discussion. PEA suggest high level architecture drawing sets to illustrate the business architecture, the application architecture, the technology architecture similar to the traditional architecture drawings. The author have created proto type enterprise architecture drawing sets and have been very useful to communicate enterprise architecture with stakeholder
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The challenge of EA communication
Stealth EAEA is known to be stealth where only a few people are able to comprehand the EA artifact. To comprehend the EA information, the stakeholders need to dig out the EA artifact from volumes of document. Or listen to high level presentation. For example: Every organization with EA effort must already establish their standads by now. The problem, the standards information is deeply embeded in documents.
As a result, without proper communication, EA face the major challenge of buy-in from the stakeholder. Instead of complaining of lack of buy-in from the stakeholders, the EA community should review their EA communication approach.
In traditional architecture communication, architects and engineers use architecture drawing to communicate architecture artifact rather than volums of documents. EA communication, in one hand of basic , still relies on volumes of documents and written reports. On the other hand of high tech, using EA portal and dashboard.
Communication does not happen by accident, it must be engineered with reference to who to communicate, what to communication and when do they need . The old priciple of delivering the right information to the right person in the right time still applies to EA communicatin. LEA suggest to establish a communication framework and design the communication architecture accordingly.
Power Point Presentation
Lack of communucation packages
The challenge of EA communication is due to lack of basic EA communication protocol which is the communication packages to deliver EA information similar to the package concept s in any communication model. EA professional communicate with stakeholder with volumes of documents and the deep information ocean of EA repository. The notion is that it all here and you figure it out. Or, communicate with stakeholder with power point presentations which may sound good but enveloped after the presentation. Or endless computer generated business process models which fail to connect with people and only serve as an expensive wall paper.
EA must feed the stakeholder in bitable size of EA information for digestion. Graphic presentation along without a container does not serve well for EA communication, the key for EA communication is the package of EA artifact. Traditional architects use architecture drawings as the basic container which focus on a subject and can be certified to deliver architecture artifacts to the stakeholders. Standardized architecture drawings have been an old trick which has work well to communicate architecture information to the stakeholder. It works for the industrial age and will also work for the information age. It is essential to have a container which can pass the EA information around both in paper and in electronic form. I have put my two cents in the EA drawing lab. To create business architecture drawing sets, Application architecture drawing sets, data architecture drawing set and technology architecture drawing sets leveraging on my previous life as a Professional Engineer. The drawing sets are far from a finish product but it conveys the ideal.
On EA communication, it carries the notion that the Enterprise Architects must poses the talent in writing volumes of documents and reports because EA has become a tech writing practice. Also the EA architects must be good on presentation because many EA efforts deliver EA artifacts via power point presentation.
EA is stealth due to lack of effective communication. Most of the volumes of EA document end up as shelfware which is only good for exhibition. Power Point presentation sounds good but disappears soon after the presentation.
The traditional Architecture practice has long figure out that writing volumes of documents does not serve well to deliver architecture artifacts. Just imaging that the architects give you volumes of documentation to describe your new house instead of a few sheets of architecture drawings. On the other hand, EA under the name of architecture still relies on volumes of documents.
The truth of EA communication relies on EA architecture drawing, the tested architecture communication method with human been. Enterprise architects must have the discipline to prepare EA architecture drawings for practical EA communication. EA is an architecture practice rather than a tech writing practice or the show business in presentation.
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The human factor in communication
EA communication must take human factor into account.The human factor
Communication to people subject to the nature human limitation in comprehending information. It is very different to device and device communication where the communication technology evolved rapidly. In the design of EA communication to stakeholders, It is important to understand human limitation in comprehending overwhelming information.
The information overload bibliography from Humboldt state university library
Richards, C.E. (1987). Roles: A Strategy to Avoid Information Overload. Central Issues in Anthropology, 7(1), 9-12.
"The research makes it clear that (a) the human brain is limited in its ability to process data, (b) the limitation is not susceptible to training, and (c) it is approximately the same for all humans."
Given the above, Richards states that human interaction would place an information overload on individuals without the templates provided by roles based on gender, age, kinship, and compartative power. As societies increase in population, the number of recognized roles decreases due to this inherent processing limitation.
Miller, G.A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63, 81-97. (Full text of this article at The Magical Number Seven.)
Human beings have severe limitations on the amount of information they are able to receive, process, and remember. Their "span of immediate memory" or "channel capacity" is limited to approximately 7--plus or minus two-- items. Through recoding items so that information to be remembered is placed in larger "chunks," it is possible to expand this channel capacity somewhat.
The amount of information human able to recieve, process and comprehend is a constant volume as shown on following figure. The Enterprsie Target Architecture The Enterprise target architecture, at very high level, is more a plan rather than architecture design to fit in the human comprehensive limitation. The segment architecture have more depth than enterprise target architectrure but in narrow scope to fit in the human limitation. The solution architecture address specific problem with in depth solution.
The right brain and left brain
Scientist and business man thinks differently.
Accommodate the human factor with architecture drawings
Traditional architects and engineers use architecture drawing go accomodate the human factor.
LEA adopts the traditional architecture approach to communicate architecture artifact with architecture drawing sets. Architecture drawings, although an old practice, serve as the container to convey defined architecture information to stakeholders. The challenge of EA communication is due to lack of proper containers to convey information to the stakeholders. The current EA communication via volumes of documents does not sever well to convey EA artifact in time of need.
LEA developped the
Enterprise Architecture map.
The Enterprise Architecture Analysis.
The Architecture Standards drawings
to commondate user need.
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Interactive web products
The LEA portal
The LEA portal is the gateway to access the Light Enterprise Architecture artifacts. It is designed based on LEA approach framework to know the existing environment, the governance structure, the architecture design, the governance and compliance processes , the stake holder and the performance .Each area in the following framework links for more detail. The following framework is interactive, please click on the area to access the desired information.
The LEA portal
The interactive framework
The Zachman framework has been the best known EA framework to the EA community but is is a thinking tool and requires explicit modeling to be practical. LEA suggests an explicit framework leverage on Zachman framework concept with some adjustment. The LEA artifact framework describes the enterprise in the areas of business architecture, data architecture, application architecture, and technology architecture from the attributes of why, what, how, who, where, when. LEA describes the enterprise based on this framework to see the enterprise as a whole and describe how it works. It is similar to the anatomy in the medical paradigm. Business transformation without EA effort to know the enterprise is similar to the ancient medical practice without anatomy.
The framework serves as a checklist of a comprehensive EA efforts. Many EA projects, thinking inside the box of application development, have devoted most effort on function decomposition and business process modeling and overlook the effort on defining the enterprise due to lack of an explicit enterprise architecture framework.
The framework serves as the EA portal to access the EA world. LEA has prototype an interactive LEA framework to demonstrate the practical use of the LEA framework. This framework is interactive and allows drill down.
LEA artifact framework
The framework does not suggest an EA approach. It is only a EA artifact framework to address what is in EA but not how to design EA. For more detail on the category of framework please read this LEA Book
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Communication to different role
Communicate EA knowledge to different role in the enterprise .Owner
Customer
Planer
Developer
Operation staff
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