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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?
Possibly related posts:
Thanks for the mention.
But not Mars I think. In my piece “Enterprise Architect – Joke or Joker” I argued that according to the traditional symbolism of the planets, EAs are from Pluto.
http://rvsoapbox.blogspot.com/2008/07/enterprise-architect-joke-or-joker.html
I suspect you may well need ‘a jacket with longer arms and buckles’ but if this is the case, so do I. I think you’re spot on about “making sure that the enterprise is internally and externally congruent and coherent” and seeing the enterprise through a different lens. I have referred to this as ‘Organisational Therapy’ in the past(tongue-in-cheek – I continue to use as it winds-up Dave Snowden which is always fun!
(Sorry Dave – love you really!))
m.
Hi Colin,
I am repeating myself, but, again, a great insight!
You don’t need a new “jacket with long arms”, maybe it will be better suited to avoid the large hands of some people get in their large pockets, plenty of our money (tax payers)…
Returning to EA, absolutely EA is strategy and must be aligned with the business strategy.
Nowadays, we have a lot of specialists of every thing, the “old fashion” generalist is an “in extinction species”, and in my humble opinion, to get the big picture and truly understand all implications of IT, you need to have a broad vision of business, technology, trends, market, HR, and so on.
“Out of the box” (thinking) is a common expression, but who truly knows, and is able to do it? Only aliens… like us… (I take the liberty to include you…)
Cheers,
Mario
[...] ‘tweet’ on Twitter pointed me to Colin Beveridge’s post ‘Enterprise Aliens‘, on his “Trillion Dollar Bonfire” website. (Colin estimates that over the past [...]
As defined by the originators of enterprise architecture over 25 years ago, EA is a business management process, communicating the strategy and coordinating the derived business initiative across functional organization and business unit boundaries. EA provides oversight to all the business initiatives within the enterprise.
In the government, the equivalent position is Chief of Staff to the President.
In the Military, the equivalent is the XO to the commanding officer.
In commercial business, EA used to be a staff role to the COO / President – at least until IT co-opted the title and the role, turning EA into a technical design discipline.