A 'mini-workshop' on insights from current developments and practice in enterprise-architecture (BCS-EA conference, London, October 2012) The main part of the presentation is split into eight 'chunks', each tackling a single 'lesson-learnt' from trying to explain EA themes to others in real-world EA practice. Each 'chunk' is timed as around two minutes of background and overview (the bulk of the slides, between the respective 'Challenge' and 'Practice'), and then four minutes pair-discussion around the questions summarised on the respective 'Practice' slide. With two minutes at the start for overall lead-in, and ten minutes at the end for general discussion about what came up for participants during the Practice sections, this fits exactly into a one-hour time-slot. (See http://www.slideshare.net/tetradian/lessonslearnt-in-ea-articulation-worksheet for the associated worksheet.)

1. the futures of business
Lessons learnt in EA articulation
strategies, services, senses and story
Tom Graves, Tetradian Consulting
BCS EA Conference, London, October 2012

2. Inviting insight:
Eight real-world challenges
from EA practice

3. #1
“It’s all about service”

4. Challenge:
Change business focus
from product
to service

5. Product
Product is static…
CC-BY Kiran Kodoru via Flickr

6. Service
Service
implies
action… …action
implies
service
CC-BY Igor Schwarzmann via Flickr

7. It’s always about people…
…‘service’ means that
someone’s needs are served
CC-BY AllBrazilian via Wikimedia

8. Practice: Service
Products always imply a service…
• Whom do you serve, and how?
• How will you know you’ve served?
• How will you know you’ve served well?
• Who decides?
How do you move from product to service?

9. #2
“Which point of view?”

10. Challenge:
Use the architecture
to help strategists
to break out of
the self-centric box

11. always
Inside-in… at risk of
drowning in
the detail…
CC-BY Myrmi via Flickr

12. Inside-out…
We create an architecture
for an organisation,
but about a broader enterprise.
CC-BY – Paul – via Flickr

13. Outside-in…
“Customers
do not appear
in our processes,
we appear in
their experiences.”
Chris Potts, recrEAtion, Technics, 2010
CC-BY Fretro via Flickr

14. Outside-out…
There’s always a larger scope…
CC-BY Matt Brown via Flickr

15. Practice: Perspective
What changes as you change perspective?
• Inside-in
• Inside-out
• Outside-in
• Outside-out
What do these differences imply? To whom?

16. #3
“It depends…”

17. Challenge:
Create consistency
and awareness of
interdependence
across the architecture

18. Interdependence
In an ecosystem of services,
everything depends on everything else
For ecosystem viability,
everything needs to support everything else
CC-BY codiferous via Flickr

19. (which is where this guy comes into the picture…)

20. Everything’s a service
(focus on some service in a chosen value-flow)

21. Everything’s a service
(interactions occur before and after the main transactions)

22. Everything’s a service
(identify subsidiary services to manage interactions)

23. Everything’s a service
(identify inbound and outbound partners for the interactions)

24. Everything’s a service
(include links with services to direct, coordinate and validate)

25. Everything’s a service
(include relationships with investors and beneficiaries)

26. Everything’s a service
(this ‘robot’ is the Enterprise Canvas service-template)

27. Keep it simple…
…build the (human) story

28. Practice: Interdependence
How do the services serve each other?
• Service-consumption (before, during, after)
• Service-provision (before, during, after)
• Direction, coordination, validation
• Investor, beneficiary, governance
How do the services talk with each other?
What stories do they exchange? And why?

29. #4
“Everything changes”

30. Challenge:
Expect change
in the architecture

31. There is no ‘state’…
- no certain ‘as-is’ or ‘to-be’…
…there
is only
everything’s moving… the ‘now’
CC-BY Webb Zahn via Flickr

32. …and when we get there…
CC-BY Miguel Vieira via Flickr
…it’s not the ‘there’ we expected.

33. What stays the same on the journey?
CC-BY Gordon Hunter via Flickr
…how will we know we’ve arrived?

34. Practice: Change
If everything’s changing,
how can you know
that you’ve arrived?
What map can you use
if ‘there’ isn’t there
when you get there?

35. #5
“Where are we headed?”

36. Challenge:
Create a stable anchor-direction
for the architecture

37. A myriad of ‘guiding stars’ out there…
…choose one that looks right to you.
Example (TED conferences): “Ideas worth spreading”
Use it as your guiding-star. Everywhere.

38. “Ideas worth
spreading”
Concern: the focus of
interest to everyone in
the shared-enterprise CC-BY UK DFID via Flickr

39. Action: what is being
done to
or with or about
the concern
“Ideas worth spreading”
CC-BY US Army Africa via Flickr

40. Qualifier: “Ideas worth
the emotive spreading”
driver for action
on the concern
CC-BY HDTPCAR via Flickr

41. Practice: Direction
What guiding-star for the enterprise?
• Focus
• Action
• Qualifier
How to link organisation with enterprise?
How to use it as your guiding-star?

42. #6
“Share the story”

43. Challenge:
Create awareness
of architecture
as a shared responsibility
for and of everyone

44. Nice view of structure, but…

45. …where are the people?

46. …where’s the story?

47. So start with a structure…

48. …include the human story

49. Practice: Engagement
How can you include people in the story?
• Engage everyone in building the story
• Make it personal: anecdotes, images, photos
• Support conversation and communication
• Make it their story
What else can you do to share the story?

50. #7
“Embrace the senses”

51. Challenge:
Create stronger engagement
in the architecture

52. Texture…
CC-BY Mike Baird via Flickr

53. Shape…
CC-BY Franco Follini via Flickr

54. Sound…
CC-BY Angelo Cesare via Flickr

55. Aroma…
CC-BY Andy Tyler via Flickr

56. Taste…
CC-BY Ian Armstrong via Flickr

57. Tangibility…

58. Practice: Senses
What can you do to engage the senses?
• Texture
• Shape
• Sound
• Scent
• Taste
How to make the architecture tangible?

59. #8
“Architecture as story”

60. Challenge:
Describe relationships between
structure and story,
organisation and enterprise,
the human aspects of architecture,
to enterprise-architects and others
from the defence-industry

61. Here’s part of a text-based version,
nicely generic, nicely abstract –
the usual way we’d do this…

62. Whose architecture?
“An architecture
describes structure
to support a shared-story.”
Tom Graves, The Enterprise As Story, Tetradian, 2012
Organisation aligns with structure, enterprise with story.
We need a balance of both for the architecture to work.

63. Whose architecture?
“An organisation is bounded by
rules, roles and responsibilities;
an enterprise is bounded by
vision, values and commitments.”
Tom Graves, Mapping the Enterprise, Tetradian, 2010
Organisation aligns with structure, enterprise with story.
We need a balance of both for the architecture to work.

64. (yawn…)

65. Here’s another way to do it,
for that specific audience…

66. Current EA emphasises structure...
So, here’s a structure...

67. It’s called the Sambadromo...
Which doesn’t really tell us anything.
To make sense of a structure,
we need the story here...
CC-BY Avodrocc via Flickr

68. …the story of Carnaval.
CC-BY Boban021 via Flickr

69. Here, in Rio, a huge shared-story...
CC-BY sfmission via Flickr

70. Full of colour, sound, spectacle...
CC-BY sfmission via Flickr

71. ...and occasional extremes...
CC-BY sfmission via Flickr

72. But it’s more about
exuberance,
and pride...
CC-BY sfmission via Flickr

73. The young(er)...
CC-BY sfmission via Flickr

74. The old(er)...
CC-BY sfmission via Flickr

75. The whole community…
CC-BY sfmission via Flickr

76. And if a line-up like this...
CC-BY sfmission via Flickr

77. might remind you of this...
CC-BY bobaliciouslondon via Flickr

78. do remember
to keep track
of the story!
CC-BY sfmission via Flickr

79. Yet when the party’s over,
and it’s time to head home...
CC-BY sfmission via Flickr

80. Someone must be there to clean up...
- because that’s part of the story too.
CC-BY otubo via Flickr

81. Process, assets, data, locations....
- all the usual structure-stuff...
...all those necessary details
of organisation.
CC-BY jorgeBRAZIL via Flickr

82. Organisation focusses on structure…
CC-BY Avodrocc via Flickr

83. yet the enterprise is the story.
CC-BY Boban021 via Flickr

84. The structure happens
because of the story.

85. A key task of enterprise-architecture
is to remember
and design for that fact,
maintaining the balance
between structure and story.
Architecture is about structure.
Architecture is also about story.
We need both, to make it all happen.
CC-BY SheilaTostes via Flickr

86. Practice: Story
Use a story to explain an abstract idea
• Make it visual, vibrant, engaging
• Make it personal, human, ‘real-world’
• Include all of the senses
• Make it their story – their terms, their jokes
What else to engage your audience in the story?

87. “What’s the story?”
“What next?”

88. Practice: Your insights
What did you discover in doing this?
• Service • Perspective
• Interdependence • Change
• Direction • Engagement
• Senses • Story
What will you do different on Monday morning?

89. the futures of business
Thank you!

90. Further information:
Contact: Tom Graves
Company: Tetradian Consulting
Email: tom@tetradian.com
Twitter: @tetradian ( http://twitter.com/tetradian )
Weblog: http://weblog.tetradian.com
Slidedecks: http://www.slideshare.net/tetradian
Publications: http://tetradianbooks.com and http://leanpub.com/u/tetradian
Books: • The enterprise as story: the role of narrative in enterprise-architecture
(2012)
• Mapping the enterprise: modelling the enterprise as services with the
Enterprise Canvas (2010)
• Everyday enterprise-architecture: sensemaking, strategy, structures and
solutions (2010)
• Doing enterprise-architecture: process and practice in the real
enterprise (2009)