Light Enterprise Architecture Web

LEA propose t the direction for EA to faciliate enterprise collaboration. Industry lack of the power of collaboration to win the competitive edge and do not have a systematic approach to do so. From the title of "Enterprise Architecture", talking about EA to facilitate collaboration seems off topic. However, from the purpose of EA to overcome the challenge of stovepipe system, EA is definitly tightly couple with faciliating collaboration. EA faciliate collaboration in a systematic approach where architecture method is the mean not the end. Faciliating collaboration is a unique value of EA to become a emerging paradigm. It is unique compare to all the other business improvement initiative. Light EA suggest that enterprise architects are the "glue" for every one to work together. It is very different from the "Guru" concept to architect the enterprise in a command and control approach. The "Guru" approach only create bigger stovepipe rather resolving stovepipe system. The benifit include:

. Overome the challenge of stovepipe system at business process, information, application, human resources and security management.
. EA for total participation rather than just supporting strategic planning for the senior executives.
. Facilitating collaboration is human centric and does not requires complicate EA tools.
. Facilitating collabortion is a unique value for EA to become emerging paradigm.

EA must provide unique value to become an emerging paradigm. LEA suggest that EA was initiated to overcome stovepipe systems in business processes, application system, data and technology solutions where architecture is the mean not the end, The ultimate goal is to close the gap between strategy and execution. The unique value of EA is to facilitate enterprise collaboration.

The EA community is moving away from the IT centric EA and leading in to direction of supporting business strategic planning. The only concern is that supporting strategic planning is not a unique EA capability. although EA serves well in supporting strategic planning via modeling and impact analysis, but it is not a unique capability of EA. There a numerous strategic planning support initiative and business community always demanding new ways for strategic planning and decision making support. The problem is that strategic planning is more art than science and methods to support strategic planning also change continuously. EA, as a method to support strategic planning will also subject to the fate of come and go as the other business improvement initiatives did.

On the other hand, facilitating collaboration is a unique EA capability. EA was initiated to overcome the challenge of stovepipe systems at business processes, data, application and technologies. It is a cross cutting architecture approach which requires total participation. The EA professional serve as the glue for support the cross cutting architecture approach.

Facilitating collaboration is unique to EA because EA professionals serve as the "Glue" not the "Guru". They are the glue to facilitate enterprise collaboration rather than the "Guru" to architect the enterprise blueprint for every one to follow in a "command and control" approach. It only create a larger stovepipe system.

It is a unique EA capability because the EA profound community enjoy the self satisfaction to be the "Guru" than be the "Glue". They like to define EA based on the title to architect the enterprise rather base on the goal to overcome stovepipe systems. It is also very difficult for people to agree on the definition of EA for the same reason.

For EA to become an emerging paradigm, it is essential for EA professional to adjust the "Guru" mind set into the "Glue" mind set. Without changing the basic mind set, the EA community will never come up an common EA definition. The problem is changing our mind set rather than how well EA is defined.

An important value of Enterprise Architecture is to facilitate enterprise collaborative culture. The power of collaboration is something that can be overstated. However, collaboration is a human gift but not a human nature. Although the power of collaboration is well recognized, but it is a human nature to create stovepipe system at every level from IT solution, business processes to human resources. A collaborative culture must be cultivated and It is a big challenge.

EA is similar to a iceberg, looking at the tip, on the visible part, the value of EA appears to support enterprise strategic planning. However, EA can not stay afloat without a collaborative environment in the bottom which is not visible and frequently overlooked. While the EA community have focused on EA value to support strategic planning, LEA recognize the EA value to facilitate enterprise collaboration environment.

Enterprise is organic, it consist not only the enterprise mechanic but also the enterprise field of collaboration. The EA community has devoted most for their effort to the enterprise mechanic, The LEA approach add the unique value to facilitate collaboration.

LEA takes a systematical approach to facilitate collaborative culture with a collaborative framework. The column of the framework is composed of the attributes of visualization, communication, consensus, human psychology, politic and technology. The row of framework include the owner, planner, designer and executors. EA professionals divide and conquer the complex system of collaboration by each cell in the framework.




In additional to the framework, LEA facilitate collaborative culture by actual practice. All the LEA approaches such as see the big picture, master planning, knowledge management and cross cutting architecture method are based on collaborative concept. This practice does not only achieve these goal of see the big picture, master planning and knowledge management but also resulted a collaborative environment.

For more information please visit the presentation in slideshare

The challenge of stovepipe phenomenon is not unique to IT, it occurred on every aspects of enterprise operation. Although EA was initiated to overcome the challenge of stovepipe system. it is also an generic process to overcome all aspect of stovepipe system. It applies not only the vertical alignment but also the horizontal and crosscut architecture solution. Most importantly it recognize that enterprise is organic and capable to adapt organic change in a coherent approach. This EA approach also applied to resolve the challenge of stovepipe system in the business process, data, human resources, security, financing and supply chain. In 2012, LEA suggest the extended EA model. In this model, under a holistic approach. the key is to see the enterprise big picture and analyze the enterprise business function from the aspect of function structure, connectivity and influence. Along the business function, it also analyze the enterprise information which include data, records, documents, information, knowledge. The business function and information very much constitute the business definition. Under this holistic enterprise definition, the EA professional can overcome all aspect of stovepipe system which include business process, IT, human resources, security, financing as shown in the follow:

Let get beyond the not very constructive debate of IT or not IT. From business point of view, What the enterprise need is an architecture approach to close the gaps between strategy and execution, facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing.

EA is really a matter of stovepipe and holistic rather than a IT or not IT. EA was initiated to overcome the challenge of stovepipe system in the information age, as we should respect the origin. It is easy to have the perception the EA is all about IT in the analogy that a chicken, hatched and raised in by a duck, will think it is a duck.

EA is really a matter of planning or solution rather than a matter of IT or not IT. Enterprise Architecture is a planing effort rather than a solution effort as many EA approach is leading to. The concept of EA as an enterprise solution provide a lot of self satisfaction of for one person to take on the entire enterprise but serve limited value because the enterprise blueprint become obsolete before ink dry in the changing world. The other challenge is lack of buy-in from stakeholders due to the notion of Not Invent Here.

The EA method provides more value to as the enterprise master planning in a architecture approach rather than a piece of out of date enterprise architecture blueprint. The enterprise master planing in architecture method is not only in IT but also on human resources, financing.

How EA related to collaboration and knowledge sharingcollaboration and knowledge sharing? Most of EA community only focused on the enterprise mechnical architecture. Under the mechanical Enterprise Architecture culture, faciliate collaboration and knowledg managment is not in the EA job discription.

However, the Modern physics recognize that classical descriptions of phenomena are lacking, and that an accurate, "modern", description of reality requires theories to incorporate elements of quantum mechanics and field theory.



In the same token, LEA does not architect the enterprise mechanical architecture but also faciliate collaboration and knowledge sharing as the dynamic energy fields. Enterprise is organic which does not only composed of the mechanical structure but also contain the dynamic energy fields.The classical mechanic architecture alone is not sufficient to accurately describe the enteprise reality, it must take collaboration and knowledge sharing into consideration. And EA is highly related to enterprise collaboration and knowledge management.

As a matter of fact, facilitating enterprise collaboration, knowledge sharing and bridging the gaps between business strategy and execution serve better as the selling points for the future of EA.
How EA related to collaboration and knowledge sharing collaboration and knowledge sharing? Most of EA community only focused on the enterprise mechanical architecture. Under the mechanical Enterprise Architecture culture, facilitate collaboration and knowledge management is not in the EA job description.

Light Enterprise Architecture is a light weight EA approach by establishing the Enterprise Primitives instead of a heavy approach to design the entire enterprise blueprint. The reason is that It is futile to design a frozen Enterprise print which become obsolete before the ink dry due to constant change. To be practical, the goal of LEA is addapting to change by bridging the gaps between strategy and execution via the foundation of Enterprise Agility. The Light EA approach provide value from the begining by faciliating collabortion, see the unseen enterprsie, presering enterprsie knowledge, conducting Enterprise Master planning like a city planner and enable agility as shown on the follwoing value chain.

John Wu presented the Enterprise Map approach for the Association of Enterprise Architects DC on May 4th, 2011. The enterprise map offer an tangible enterprise map to keep every one on the same page.

1. The presentation

2. The Step by step approach


There are many follow up after the presentation. The following comment serve as a good summary.

"Thank you for a very informative seminar on the merits of the enterprise map. I can see now how the Enterprise Map can put the enterprise on paper in a holistic view and how you can use the strawman technique to engage the various stakeholders to fill out the map. It is very interesting your approach to use the PDF version to fill out the map and it’s various stages of development."

The light EA focus on the goal to bridge strategy and execution it is very different to the heavy duty EA approach focus on designing the enterprise blue print. It is futile to design a frozen enterprise blueprint as if it is an gigantic machine like an air craft carrier or a jumbo jet and try to implement EA in a command and control manner. A frozen enterprise blueprint become obsolete before ink dry because enterprise is organic and change constantly. The results that EA has not provide significant value to an enterprise in the past twenty years prompt us to reconsider EA direction on designing the enterprise blueprint. After all, architecture is only the mean rather than the end.

LEA takes the following approaches to achieve this goal.

. Facilitate enterprise collaboration,
. See the enterprise big picture,
. Preserving enterprise knowledge,
. Conduct high level master planning like a city planner,
. Identify enterprise primitives to enable enterprise agility via service oriented architecture
. Upon the foundation of the above capabilities, the enterprise is able to adapt to change in time of need.

In this approach, Enterprise Architects can find the clear identity with unique value to distinguish EA with other disciplines. EA is an emerging paradigm rather than a redundant direction with the system engineering discipline

Enterprise Architect is the glue to faciliate enteprise collaboration rather than the guru to design a freezed enterprise blueprint. Most of people have considered Enterprise Architects as a guru with broad knowledge to architect the enterprise. LEA suggest that Enterprise Architects are the glue to faciliate collaboration and bridging strategy and execution.

EA practice has being architecture centric where EA professional acting like a solution architect to design an enterprise wide large scale application system. They have dedicate their effort solely on architecture design. In a sense, EA is not an emerging paradigm but a large scale solution architecture practice. The guru approach work well for EA professional's self satisfaction but have litte value for the enterprise because enterprise is organic and architecture blueprint become obsolete before ink dry.

What the enterprie need is not a freezed enterprise architecture blueprint, they want to konw how to faciliate colloboration and briding the gaps between strategy and execution. Enterprise Architecture is the process and the tool to enable enterprise communication, faciliate collaboration, see the unseen enterprise big picture, preserve institutional knowledge, master plan to take advantage of technology evolution, establish agile enterprise and change managment to adapting change,