Everyday Enterprise Architecture

Discover what needs to happen in enterprise-architecture practice—and not just its outcomes, but also the activities from which those outcomes would arise. This book reveals how business and enterprise architects can deliver fast solutions to an always-on-the-go business world.

To begin, you'll review a new technique called "context-space mapping," which provides a structured method for sense-making across the entire context of an enterprise. Throughout the book, you'll concentrate on the routine practices_ _that underpin each of the architecture disciplines.

Working step-by-step through a real 10-day architecture project, this book explores the activities that underpin the strategy, structures and solutions in the real-time turmoil of an enterprise architect’s everyday work. You'll explore how and why and when the various documents, artefacts and items of ‘theory-stuff’ come into the practice – all those mainstream methods, frameworks, models, metamodels and other information sources.

In the end, Everyday Enterprise Architecture will help you develop the skills, judgment, and awareness to keep enhancing the value of your architectural projects.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

* Work on architectures at "business-speed"
* Adapt architectures for different tasks
* Gather, use, and manage architectural information
WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

Enterprise and business architects.

Tom Graves has been an independent consultant for more than four decades, in business transformation, enterprise architecture and knowledge management. His clients in Europe, Australasia and the Americas cover a broad range of industries including banking, utilities, manufacturing, logistics, engineering, media telecoms, research, defence and government. He has a special interest in architectures beyond IT, and integration between IT-based and non-IT-based services.

Chapter 1: Introduction

CHAPTER GOAL: DESCRIBE THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK, HOW TO USE IT, AND WHAT THE VARIOUS ELEMENTS ARE

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SUB -TOPICS

1. Main project: How to use architecture ideas and activities to describe what actually happens in a real enterprise-architecture project, and the business-reasons and business-value for each of those activities

2. Secondary project: Worked-example

3. Application: How to adapt each chapter’s content to our own work

Chapter 2: Day 1: Get Started

CHAPTER GOAL: SHOW HOW TO GET STARTED ON A PROJECT, AND SUMMARISE HOW THE ALLOCATED TEN DAYS WILL BE USED

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SUB -TOPICS

1 Do an initial assessment

2 Show how to use the project-diary and other tools

3 Show how to do an initial assessment

4 Show how to apply any ‘lessons-learned’ in our own projects

Chapter 3: Day 2: Purpose, scope and context

CHAPTER GOAL: SET UP AND START THE MAIN AND SECONDARY PROJECTS

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SUB - TOPICS

1 Introduce the main project as exploring ‘the architecture of architecture’

2 Show how to use the step-by-step action-task sequence

3 Introduce the secondary project: customer-breakdown at a bank

4 Show how to use the same step-by-step-step sequence for the bank content

Chapter 4: Day 3: What’s going on?

CHAPTER GOAL: LEARN HOW TO DO AN ARCHITECTURE-ASSESSMENT

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SUB - TOPICS:

1 Explore how to do a ‘to-be’ (futures) assessment

2 Explore how to do an ‘as-was’ (past) assessment

3 Explore how to identify issues that need to be addressed

4 Learn how to cope with the challenges and stresses of the work

Chapter 5: Day 4: What do we want?

CHAPTER GOAL: LEARN HOW TO ESTABLISH A BASELINE

NO OF PAGES: 12

SUB - TOPICS:

1 Explore how to do an ‘as-is’ (present) assessment

2 How to do social-enquiry with stakeholders

3 How to tackle the politics of architecture

4 Architecture as decision-support for stakeholders, not decision-making

Chapter 6: Day 5: What’s the difference?

CHAPTER GOAL: HOW TO IDENTIFY GAPS WHERE CHANGE IS NEEDED

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SUB -TOPICS

1 Identify and build the skillsets needed for comparison-assessments

2 How to do comparisons to identify gaps (including hidden-gaps)

3 How to prioritise gaps and derive requirements

4 How and why to avoid the temptation to rush to ‘solutions’

Chapter 7: Day 6: How do we get from here to there?

CHAPTER GOAL: GUIDING THE TRANSITION TO SOLUTION-DESIGN

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SUB -TOPICS

1 How to identify the roles and specialisms needed for solution-design

2 How to identify, work with and hand over to the change-team

3 How to refine and simplify change-requirements

4 Politics reminder: architecture is decision-support, not decision-making

Chapter 8: Day 7: Step-by-step details

CHAPTER GOAL: LEARN THE RELATIVE ROLES AND RELATIONS BETWEEN ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

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SUB -TOPICS

1 Role of architect as generalist, to connect specialists together

2 How to develop and use sense-making skills

3 Role of architect to assist in finding missing-detail

4 How to identify common missing-detail (system-failure, timescale, decommission)

Chapter 9: Day 8: Putting it into practice

CHAPTER GOAL: WHAT TO DO WHEN THE STAKEHOLDERS THEMSELVES ARE THE SOLUTIONS

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SUB -TOPICS

1 How to design a change-programme for stakeholders

2 How to deliver and guide a change-programme for stakeholders

3 How to guide stakeholders in sensemaking and decision-making

4 Introduce sense-making tools such as context-space mapping

Chapter 10: Day 9: What did we achieve?

CHAPTER GOAL: HOW TO DO AND USE AN AFTER-ACTION REVIEW

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SUB -TOPICS

1 Purpose and value of an after-action review

2 Elements of an after-action review

3 How to do and document an after-action review

4 How to derive new change-tasks from an after-action review

Chapter 11: Day 10: How To Review and Learn

CHAPTER GOAL: HOW TO REVIEW AND LEARN FROM OUR OWN PROJECTS

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SUB -TOPICS

1 Reprise on how to do and assess an after-action review

2 How to derive our own insights from work done with others

3 How to apply and test those insights for our own architecture-practice

4 How to derive and enact change-tasks for our own continuous-improvement

Appendix 1: The architecture information-stores

CHAPTER GOAL: HOW TO CAPTURE, RETRIEVE AND REUSE ARCHITECTURAL INFORMATION

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SUB -TOPICS

1 Identify types, roles and uses of architecture-information

2 Identify how and why to store each type of architectural information

3 Identify how to retrieve and reuse each type of architectural information

4 Identify how and when to delete architectural information

Appendix 2: More on context-space mapping

CHAPTER GOAL: PRESENT CONTEXT-SPACE MAPPING AS A SENSEMAKING TOOL FOR ARCHITECTURE

NO OF PAGES 18

SUB -TOPICS

1 Describe purpose and underlying principles for context-space mapping

2 Explore how context-space mapping works as a sensemaking method

3 Provide detailed worked-examples of context-space mapping

4 Show outcomes and value of context-space mapping in sensemaking

Appendix 3: Resources

CHAPTER GOAL: PROVIDE ADDITIONAL SUPPORT FOR THE PRACTICES IN THIS BOOK

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SUB -TOPICS

1 Example books and other publications

2 Websites and other online resources