The Enterprise Topology Methodology
The Enterprise Topology MethodEnterprise topolgy see the big enterprise big picture, the major effort is to describe the enterprise business environment and how business take advantage of technology evolution. It serve both business and engineering community.
1. THE ENTERPRISE TOPOLOGY FRAMEWORK
EA community must establish a repeatable method to stake out Enterprise topology. Composing EA map to see the true big picture is a unique discipline for Enterprise Architects. The EA professional must be able to put down the big picture in every one's mind on a large page of drwing to make it meaningful for every one. To become a disciplint, it is paramount to establish a repeatable approach for EA map to become a architecture practice rather than artistic work.
The following Enterprise Topology framework describe the approach.
It describe that enterprise topology is composed in five stages:
.Archaology
.Straw man
.Colaboration
.reconcileation
. buy-in
Enterprise Topology is composed in the following layers.
. Enterprise overview which include concept of operation, value chain, organization chart and geographical map.
. Enterprise floor plan
. Business activity
. Business Application
. Enterprise Context
The following paragraphes elaborate the stages of enterprise topology and the Enterprise topology layers.
2. ENTERPRISE TOPOLOGY STAGES
Enterprise topology is a complicate puzzle without the picture on the cover and the pieces in the box. It is not possible to compose the Enterprise Topology without collaboration and reconciliation to transfor institutional knowledge and see the trure Enterprise big picture. It takes four phases to compose the Enterprise topology with total participation, collaboration and reconciliation.
2.1 Archaeology
Apply Archeology skill to dig out existing documents can save significant redundant effort. Existing architecture documents are the low hanging fruit to pick. During the practice of software engineering in the past two decades, organization have written tons of architecture documents. But it is also true that all these documents have disappeared as the time have past. However, very likely it is buried somewhere in the organization and it take archeology skill to rediscover the treasure of existing documents.
2.2. Rendering
The ideal is to intrigue their curiosity first by preparing the draft EA map. The Enterprise Architect most do their home work to prepare the draft EA map to show demonstrate their sincerity in knowing the Enterprise. Do not worry about making mistake in the draft. It is a human psychology that people start to dump out their hidden knowledge when people think they know better than you do.
2.3 The Collaboration
The collaboration phase collecting institutional knowledge from each individual. Institutional knowledge is not explicit, most of enterprise knowledge reside deeply in each individual and the knowledge varnished with their departure, the challenge is how to retrieve the hidden knowledge for every one to share;
Print the draft copy prepared for collaboration.
Despite the technology evolution, the human specie has not evolved much in the last couple thousand years, the hard copy still the best for human interaction to compose the big picture, induce the hidden institutional knowledge and enable reconciliation over the true enterprise topology. As much as we want to get rid of paper in the information age, the Enterprise Topology approach has found that hard copy still serve as the practical instrument to compose the Enterprise topology because human is still human.
Business liaisons to communicate with business community
The collaboration meeting
Posting for public review
Post the drawing in traffic area and request to mark up on the drawing.
2.4 THE RECONCILIATION STAGE
Establish partnership and ownership
With the total participation approach, the stakeholder take the ownership to present the Enterprise Topology to their colleges.
3. ENTERPRISE TOPOLOGY LAYERS
3.1 Enterprise topology overview
Enterprise topology describe the enterprise from the aspect of mission, function, processes, organization, location and demand as shown in the following business architecture model.
3.2 Enterprise floor plan
The enterprise topology describe the enterprise automation environment to show the application systems used in business processes, the data associate to the applications and the technology used by the application systems as shown in the following EA model.
3.3 Enterprise activities
3.4 Enterprise activities
3.5 Technology alignment
The Alignment Architecture
The alignment architecture is the effort to align solution to business need. The summary from Enterprise Architecture Alignment Heuristics by Pedro Sousa in Microsoft Architect Journal says:
3.6 Enterprise context
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