Enterprise Aliens

Picture credit: watz

Are aliens watching your enterprise? If not, I suggest that you get some pdq;  because every organization can benefit from regularly looking at its operation through the eyes of “the man from Mars.”

This isn’t a plug for external consultancy, it’s just an honest belief that an effective enterprise should routinely evaluate itself, by asking the questions that would be put by an alien, unfamiliar with the organization.

Many organizations would be better placed if every board meeting had an agenda item to consider the latest alien intelligence  report on their business. Ideally this would be completely anonymous, to preserve the integrity of contributors who might otherwise be constrained by natural concerns about maintaining their own corporate credibility and position.

This is not so crazy as it sounds.  Every culture has age-old tales about rulers disguising themselves to pass among their subjects, often learning vital lessons about policy and behaviours that otherwise go unreported.

So what’s this got to do with Enterprise Architecture? Well this article was spurred by a recent dialogue on Twitter about the role of EA. One of the main participants, Richard Veryard, in his subsequent blog piece asked two very good questions:

• What is EA all about, what is the (emerging, changing) identity of EA?
• What is the value proposition for EA?

In response to the second question, Richard discussed two common perspectives: EA-as-IT planning; EA-as-business-strategy.

These may be widely held views of the role of EA but I genuinely think that the Enterprise Architecture function is neither about IT planning, nor about business strategy. Both are red herrings.

In my worldview, EA is all about organizational integrity – making sure that the enterprise is internally and externally congruent and coherent. We need more joined-up management in a joined-up world and EA can facilitate effective systems integration.

I subscribe to the view of the enterprise as a system of systems and EA can be a vital cog in achieving an effective enterprise, by acting as the aliens in our midst. To do this properly, EA should not be embroiled in the devilish detail of IT architecture, or business strategy.

Perhaps the acronym EA should translate to Enterprise Aliens.

EA could be the natural successors of the Organization and Methods function, sadly absent from many undertakings and not really catered for by the scattergun approach to Business Process.

So rather than disappear into the bowels of the IT department, or fade away entirely, the future of EA could be so bright that people would fight to get on board. The alternative is probably to wait until the real aliens turn up in the parking lot.

For some unfortunate organizations, a failure to ask the alien questions will bring them a very unwelcome encounter of the business failure kind.

Do you have aliens watching and reporting on you? Or do you think that I need a new jacket with longer arms and buckles?

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• Operational Utopia – Does your IT culture work with your business? – webcast