EA products
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Most of EA communication has emphasized on the communication between EA community with documents, models, framework, reference models and business models. However, EA has not become popular knowledge in the enterprise due to lack of EA awareness. It is very difficult to comply and take advantage of EA without knowing what it is.
2.0 THE C4ISR PRODUCTS
3.0 Bernies product
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]
The PEA 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.
PEA 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.
PEA 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
3.1 Lack of The communication token
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.
3.2 Enterprise map drawing set
3.3 Business architecture drawing set
3.4 Pattern and standards drawing set
3.5 Application Architecture drawing set
3.6 Data architecture drawing set
3.7 Technology architecture drawing set
4.0 DELIVERY
4.1 Paper
4.2 EA portal
PEA suggest to use web technology as a web application with database repository rather than as a web publishing tool. Many organizations use web technology as web publishing tool to deliver architecture documents rather than as a facilitating tool to establish enterprise architecture with the participation from the stakeholders. As a web publishing tool, web technology is not a part of enterprise architecture development until it is completely designed with finish touched after years of effort. PEA suggest to use web technology as part of the enterprise architecture development process from the beginning to deliver EA information as soon as it is available to the stakeholders such as the current environment, standard profile and who are the stakeholders.
PEA suggest use simple and open repository application rather than a complicate and expensive systems. Most of commercial EA repository today offer a variety of complicate modeling tools for business process reengineering, data modeling and application system design to support enterprise architecture as the central planned enterprise architecture blueprint . Traditional EA has been complicate from the beginning to select the proper EA tools. PEA approach keep it simple to look at the commonality rather than analyze the differences, the major requirements of a PEA repository is straight forward to store EA information in a open database. The key to manage EA information is the data standard rather acquiring a complicate EA repository and modeling application. Establishing EA data standard in beginning of EA enable future integration to the other EA tools and IT management tools. PEA suggest to establish the data standard based on the enterprise architecture frameworks. Organize the EA standards in enterprise architecture frame work serve as the chain to link all IT management application such as document library, configuration management, project management, meta data repository , requirement management and asset management together instead of looking for a all inclusive EA repository,
4.3 E-mail
4.4 Presentation
4.5 Architecture Liaison
4.6 EA portal
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