EA Quick Start Guide (Part 1): How to Set Up an EA Practice

This article is the first in a sequence providing an introduction to Enterprise Architecture suitable for those starting out in the profession, or for those outside the architecture profession interested in what the fuss is all about.

In this first article I would like to address an issue that has particularly bothered me recently; the setting up of an EA practice. Much is made of the activities required to establish such a practice, but in my opinion, the advice given is at the heart of why others are frustrated with the lack of value delivered by Enterprise Architecture in the early stages of its adoption.

What Not to Do
Firstly, let me address what not to do. Common “wisdom” seems to believe that the initial steps should be as follows:

1. Identify the fundamental principles that the architecture will support.
2. Establish the governance framework that will ensure compliance with the architecture.
3. Establish the architecture framework that the EA practice will adopt.
4. Start to engage with projects.

“What's wrong with that?” you might ask. It sounds reasonable enough at face value, but this approach is unlikely to result in quick acceptance of EA as a valuable activity.

Firstly, of what use are principles to anyone? They are usually a re-articulation of the obvious, and stating them (or more importantly, wasting time word-smithing them) will simply establish right from the outset that your so-called EA practice has every intention of being a talking shop that makes a profession out of navel gazing. What is more, what exactly is anyone else supposed to do with these principles? They can try with all their might to conform to them, but at the end of the day, they are simply words with many possible interpretations.

Principles may be useful in guiding your architects in the development of the architecture, but they are no more use to the recipients of that architect than a set of coding standards (without any code) are to a tester. In reality, principles in isolation are simply ambiguous tools that self proclaimed architects can use to impose their opinions on others.

…And this brings me to the second step. What are you doing establishing a governance framework when (a) you have nothing against which to measure compliance, and (b) you have not yet established the credibility or respect to demand that others do as you say. Establishing a governance framework at this stage also sends out a very strong message that the primary intent of your practice is to block progress, rather than enable it.

The third step is not so contentious, but I would consider it to be too burdensome to undertake during the emergent phase of your practice. In my opinion, frameworks are useful sources of reference information that can be dipped into and cherry-picked as work progresses on your architecture. Use them as you would a dictionary or encyclopaedia. As for the fourth step; engaging with projects at this stage will simply destroy any credibility you may have had, as you will simply be exposing your lack of real deliverables to a sceptical audience. What is more, you will be dragged into the day-to-day point solution world of the project, and become just one more design resource. This will take your architects away from the bigger picture, and prevent your EA from being developed.

What to Do
So what should we do? The hint is in the previous paragraph. The one thing that the organisation needs you to do as an EA practice is develop your Enterprise Architecture. Until this starts to happen, you cannot provide any real guidance or value, and you certainly cannot justify what you are saying if it is not clearly recorded. You will, instead, always appear to be “making it up as you go along”.

For me, the ideal first steps in establishing an EA practice are:

1. Ensure you have the right people.
2. Establish basic working practices.
3. Start building your architecture!

Those are the basic steps. The following sections give some guidance on how best to perform them.

What Makes a Good Architect?
Enterprise Architecture is a skilled, specialised activity, to be performed by a small number of people. One weak link could fundamentally undermine your effectiveness. (This should be obvious, but for some inexplicable reason EA practices more than any other area of business are set up from a random selection of people, rather than those selected for their previous experience, or potential to be architects. Some key attributes required by an architect are:

1. Ability to communicate verbally, visually and textually.
   Architecture is (roughly) 80% communication. Bad communication will frustrate others and negate the effectiveness of your architecture.
2. Ability to listen and quickly assimilate new information.
   Architects are always dealing with the future and thus the ability to learn fast and think fast is essential. What you know today will almost certainly be out of date with respect to a true “to-be” architecture.
3. Ability to influence and enthuse.
   For your architecture to be successful it must be followed, and for this to happen others must be bought into, and enthusiastic about your architecture. This will only happen if your team have the presence and ability to make it happen.
4. Credibility.
   Some people have it, some do not, and worse still, some have at some point in the past lost it. There is no point in starting with a disadvantage.
5. Ability to see the big picture.
   An architect must be able to consider the organisation as an entire system. Those who prefer to focus on point solutions or drill down into the detail of one thing at the expense of the rest are not suited to architecture.
6. A natural preference for simplicity.
   The best architecture is the simplest possible one that can fulfil the business vision. Those who gravitate towards, and enjoy complexity do not make good architects. Those who abhor complexity and take please from finding the simplest possible solution to a problem are the ones you want.

But what about specific business or technical knowledge? For me, it is not specific knowledge that matters, but a demonstrable ability to adapt to new situations, and understand new ways of working, and new enabling technologies at the drop of a hat. Those with specific in-depth knowledge generally measure their own value in terms of the relevance of that knowledge. As a result these people often fear change, as it may negate that value, and thus negate their importance. They are not best placed to view the future from an unbiased point of view. Unfortunately, businesses too often focus on finding people with the specific knowledge to support their current position, and then wonder why these people bring nothing new to the table.

What are the Right Working Practices?
When setting up an EA team, the best working practices are those that will allow you to both engage with projects and continue to build your architecture, without the demands of one impeding progress on the other. You need to quickly establish who will support projects, and who will build architecture, and then you need to ensure that these two groups retain a close working relationship as each will feed the other.

Your working practices need to support a proactive approach where the build activity seeks information regarding the future strategy, (and in turn helps to guide future strategy) and quickly articulates this information as future architecture.

You also need to support a reactive approach that allows the architecture to engage with projects at an early stage and either feed them with information already recorded in the architecture, or re-prioritise build activities to focus on the areas of the architecture that will fulfil the needs of the project.

How Should We Build It?
Build it? That’s the scary bit, isn't it? This brings us to the heart of the problem. So many EA practices spend time avoiding the really important bit because they are frightened of it. I strongly believe this is why so many processes for establishing an EA practice start with a sequence of what I feel are little more that prevaricating steps. In a consultancy led world, an outside “specialist” can use this approach to provide a significant amount of content without actually having to get involved in building anything.

In the early stages you need to recognise that initial demand will come fast, and will come from two sources; above and below. From above, you will need to engage with the business to articulate the future vision in the form of a Business Architecture. From below, in-flight projects will start to demand guidance relating to low level implementation decisions. You will need to have the courage to make some decisions relating to future technologies with very little guiding information, and articulate these decisions in your Technology Architecture. Some of these decisions may turn out to be wrong, and you must be willing to accept this, adapt your Technology Architecture accordingly, and help projects to absorb these changes in a pragmatic manner. Remember, that sometimes the simple act of making a decision and sticking to it is what makes that decision the right one.

(I will cover what goes into an Enterprise Architecture in terms of levelling and content in later posts in this series).

It is this build focused activity that guides your engagement with projects, and more importantly with those who set the vision and strategy of the organisation as a whole (and yes, that does include you as an architect).

And the Rest?
Let’s now return to the original steps that I declared to be the wrong ones. They were:

1. Identify the fundamental principles that the architecture will support.
2. Establish the governance framework that will ensure compliance with the architecture.
3. Establish the architecture framework that the EA practice will adopt.
4. Start to engage with projects.

Am I suggesting that these are not important, or can be ignored? Of course not, but what I am stating is that these are not the very first things you need to do. Once you are up and running and developing the architecture (and thus hopefully providing some real value) you can address these other areas on an as-needs basis.

Principles can be recorded if you like, but remember that your architects, if properly selected, will already naturally apply sensible principles to everything they do. Do not expect others to act on these principles however. They need you to act on them and provide an architecture that fulfils these principles.

A governance framework will be important as your architecture develops, but you must start in a spirit of cooperation and assistance to win support and credibility. Once this has been established and you have some content in your architecture you can start to introduce more formal governance mechanisms based on this content and the trust you have already established.

An EA framework is also important, but it should be your own, and it should be adapted to and derived from the unique circumstances that exist within your own organisation. Once again, attack this on a just-in-time basis, cherry picking from the various reference frameworks those features and details that you find you have a need for, and always consider carefully whether it really adds value to what you are doing. (Roger sessions wrote a good article on EA framework comparison available for download at http://www.objectwatch.com/whitepapers/4EAComparison.pdf).

Is This the Only Way?
Of course this is not the only way. You are an architect, and you are in charge of your own approach. If you cannot set your own direction of travel, then you need to question whether you can set the direction for others to follow. The intent, however, should always remain the same:

To start producing an Enterprise Architecture and to become a useful addition to the organisation in as short a time as possible.

The longer you take to do this, the more likely it is that someone will decide (correctly) that you are surplus to requirements, before you even get started.

Regards
The Enterprising Architect

I Don’t Like Architects

The title of this article may seem strange, coming as it does from someone who declares himself to be an Enterprise Architect (EA). Let me explain...

Bad EA = EA Bad?
One of the greatest frustrations as an EA is that my first meeting with most people in the work environment is one of distrust and open criticism. Before I can make any progress, I first have to answer one or more of the following questions:

1. What is EA?
2. What's in it for me?
3. Why is it going to work this time when it hasn’t before?
4. Why waste time with EA when we could be getting on with the real work?
5. Why do you architects insist on slowing things down?

The first two questions are no problem at all. They get to the heart of the issue, as the questioner is recognising (1) that they need to understand EA before they can judge it, and (2) that EA should be contributing to what they are doing and I as an EA should be able to justify what that contribution is.

It is the remaining questions that frustrate me; not because they are being asked, but because the person I am speaking to has had to experience EA in a way that leads them to ask these questions.

Is EA fundamentally flawed as an approach, and if so does it need to be rethought or renamed? Absolutely not.

Is EA an academic concept that is simply not pragmatic enough, in the day-to-day pressures of modern business, to be of practical use? Again, absolutely not.

Good EA is a simple and effective tool that forms an essential step in the journey, and what is more it accelerates the journey rather than slowing it down. Why then is EA viewed with such scepticism and disrespect?

Seeing is Believing
For me, this is a people problem, not a process problem, and it is the same problem that “Big IT” suffers from.

People have a tendency to gravitate towards “the next big thing” and for a while this was IT. (In my father’s day it was the newly emerging field of electronics). Everyone and their dog was suddenly in (or trying to be in) IT regardless of aptitude or experience. This in itself was not a problem, but companies then employed these people in the bizarre belief that it was something anyone could do (an attitude they would never apply to their own profession).

The result was runaway inefficiency, with the many who claimed to be able to do IT getting in the way of the few who could really do it. Management then looked at the resulting decrease in productivity and decided that more people were required. Finding the necessary resource to be scarce they became even more sure that the solution was to hire even more non-IT people in the hope that they would become effective over time.

When increased resource didn’t help, the focus then shifted to greater analysis and design, increased testing, and increased release management to try to overcome the poor quality of the systems being produced. The result? Even greater inefficiency, and the widespread (and mistaken) belief that IT was by nature big, expensive and time consuming.

Then came EA and architecture in general. Jobs advertised under the name of architecture carried higher price tags than the traditional designer, developer & analyst roles seemed to carry. Naturally everyone started to call themselves architects, regardless of activity or ability...

...and this is why I don’t like architects (or to be more accurate bad architects). The majority of people who claim to be architects are quite simply no good at it. They may be excellent at what they used to do, but what they are now doing is not architecture. By claiming to be architects they simply devalue it by either doing it badly and making it look bad, or by doing something that is already being done elsewhere and making it look redundant.

These are the people I do not like. They make my job twice as hard, and force me to start from a position of disrespect in my interactions with new contacts. I dislike them as much as I dislike bad leaders, bad public speakers, bad programmers and bad politicians.

The Moral of this Story
In conclusion, when you discuss the problems of architecture, think carefully about whether what you are really discussing is the problem with the people claiming to be architects. After all, the fact that you have experience of one or more bad plumbers, does not imply you can live without plumbing.

A Message to Architects: Consider the five questions at the start of this article. If you cannot answer all five to at least the partial satisfaction of the questioner, then perhaps you are one of those Architects to whom I am less than enamoured.

A Message to Leaders: You select your architects. If they prove to be ineffective, consider the possibility that the problem lies in your selection of architect rather than the validity of the activity itself.

A Message to Innovators: Defend your ground. Given the current (justified) enthusiasm for innovation, I am sure you will soon find yourself surrounded by would-be innovators keen to jump on the bandwagon, and devalue the perception of your expertise and value.

Regards
The Enterprising Architect

The EA Identity Crisis

As business architecture gains a foothold as a tool for enabling the delivery of business change, Enterprise Architecture (and more specifically the Chief Architect) is experiencing an identity crisis.

IT’s Coming Home
With the fairly recent and somewhat belated recognition that Enterprise Architecture is not a purely IT focused activity (the clue is in the name), architects are finding themselves more involved with the alignment of IT architecture with business strategy. In some organisations, there may even be the recognition that Business Architecture is key to this transition.

Why this is considered to be something new is beyond me. Why IT would consider alignment with the business to be an add-on or a refinement to what they currently do is extremely worrying. The history of how IT became something separate, and how the need to “align IT to the business” arose as a task that people needed to be reminded of is a vague one that I will not discuss in this post.

I need to stress at this point that I do not accept that an amorphous reference library containing all the compartmentalised business information and design in any way represents a true Business Architecture; no matter how many times people try to call it one.

The emergence of Business Architecture as a formal activity should not be in an issue in itself. It is a fairly simple matter to realign architecture to the business needs, and use existing Enterprise Architecture skills to articulate the Business Strategy as architecture, and then derive the technology oriented elements of the architect from this...

...but it is an issue.

Get your Filthy Hands off my Business!
Despite the addition of the “enterprise” qualifier, architecture is still considered in many organisations to be purely the domain of the IT department, whilst business strategy is considered to be something that IT may be interested in, but should not interfere with. It is here that the dilemma exists.

The main cause of the confusion is the alignment of many Chief Architects to the IT Department coupled with a reporting line up to the CIO. It is difficult for such an architect to be considered as anything other than an IT focused individual, and it is then even more challenging for this individual to get a seat at the business table. However, for many problems, IT forms a major part of the solution, and in developing an enterprise architecture, the Chief Architect will need to have a working knowledge of the emerging technologies that so dictate the art of the possible in the modern world.

Now we need to address another misconception. Apparently, IT people don’t understand the business. This is as unreasonable and offensive as saying women can’t drive or white men can’t dance (and more seriously, it is a form of discrimination that can damage careers). Of course, some IT people do not have the business savvy to become enterprise architects, but similarly some non-IT people do not have the engineering mentality that is core to the development of a simple, well structured architecture (and vice-versa).

However, this discriminatory belief that IT people aren’t fit for business matters, often excludes architects who have grown up through the technical ranks from contributing to, or guiding the development of Business Architecture. (I have seen job adverts for Business Architects that explicitly request that candidates must not come from a technical background).

So we have two questions to answer. Firstly, who is the Chief Architect for the enterprise as a whole, and secondly, who does this person report to?

Who Am I?
I am aware from my conversations on twitter that some people have come to the conclusion that the CEO is the Chief Architect. In my opinion this conclusion is not a practical one; despite the fact that it is supported by more than one person whose opinion I respect. For me, the CEO is chief visionary (or strategist) and of course has control over the architecture, much as he or she has control over all elements of the Business.

But the CEO is no more Chief Enterprise Architect than he or she is COO or CFO. Architecture is the next step in the process that takes the CEO’s vision and formulates it in an unambiguous and concise manner to guide the “doers”. (See my previous article What’s in a Name?). In any organisation large enough to need an enterprise architecture, for practical reasons the role of Chief Architect needs to be a delegated post.

Where Am I?
If the Chief Architect is aligned to IT through a reporting line to the CIO, then discrimination may prevent them from including Business Architecture in their remit. If the Chief Architect is outside the IT domain reporting directly to the CEO, then there is a danger that they become separated from a core function that will be involved in a large element of each business change (the IT part).

For me, there is no ideal solution, but in the current climate of business discrimination against the technically minded, I believe may be necessary for the Chief Architect to be recognised as a direct report to the CEO.

If the discrimination can be overcome, and if the business has a strong technical element within its solutions, then there is no reason why the Chief Architect should not report to the CIO, and the role of CIO be recognised as more than just an IT centric one.

What Am I?
As far as hard skills go, the Chief Architect must have a broad range of practical experience, aligned to the typical proportions found in the business solutions. Inevitably, where businesses are adopting highly technical approaches to their problems, the implication is that the Chief Architect should have a rich technical understanding, and if this means they come from the ranks of IT then this should not be seen to be a problem. As far as soft skills are concerned, here is a brief (but not complete) list of those that I feel are important:

1. The ability to communicate at all levels and to a variety of audiences in a variety of ways.
2. The ability to influence by recognising the needs and motivations of others.
3. The ability to see the big picture quickly and intuitively.
4. The ability to work with uncertainty and create certainty for others to work with.
5. The ability to rapidly assimilate new information (no-one knows everything, but an Architect needs to know everything that is relevant).
6. The ability to make decisions (a surprisingly rare skill).
7. The ability to solve a problem in a manner that is beneficial to the needs of all parties.
8. The ability to recognise simplicity at an aesthetic (instinctive) level and avoid complexity.

“But techies don’t have the necessary soft skills!” I hear you cry. There we have the generalised and unacceptable discrimination again. Of course, the Chief Architect does need many soft skills, and these skills may not be abundant in the technical community...

...but that is because as a set they are not abundant in any community. What is more, close inspection of the list should reveal that all apart from the first two skills in my list would be recognised by most engineers, technologists, and IT practitioners as core to their profession.

In Conclusion
Get rid of the anti-tech discrimination (techism?) and the problem goes away. Changing reporting lines will not solve it. Perpetuate the discrimination and you prevent a significant number of excellent candidates from contributing to a key business focused activity in your organisation.

Place all your architecture activities under one single Chief Architect and thus centralise and coordinate one of the key activities you have at your disposal to transform your business. Allow this architect to embrace all elements of the Business (IT included) to develop a truly enterprise wide, fully inclusive architecture.

Before you can truly decide who the Chief Architect reports to you need to fully understand what the true role of the CIO is (and that, my friends, is a whole new topic).

Regards
The Enterprising Architect

Is it All Just Smoke and Mirrors?

Where does enterprise architecture sit in the grand scheme of organisational change?

I Have Nothing up My Sleeves
One of the most common criticisms levelled at architecture is that it resides in an ivory tower obscured by clouds. Another is that architects are just “making it up as they go along”.

I feel we can quickly dismiss this second criticism, as this is exactly what architects should be doing (or to put a more positive slant on it, making key decisions, and defining strategy in concrete terms). They should, however, ensure that they are “making things up” before people need those things to do their job. Just-in-time architecture is a good thing, but it is only a small step towards just-too-late architecture, which by definition is too late.

There are More Questions than Answers
The first criticism, however, is less easy to dismiss, primarily because in many organisations it is very much the truth, and it is this issue that is key to understanding where architecture sits in the organisation. The activity that is referred to as architecture frequently fails to deliver the key things that it must provide to be of real value, and those things are answers. And now, some brief reminders:

1. Principles are not answers.
2. Guidelines are not answers.
3. Option papers are not answers.
4. Concepts are not answers.
5. Answers that have no basis in reality are not answers.

Real architecture is not about vague concepts; it is about concrete reality. It converts the vagaries of strategy into clearly articulated and unambiguous answers that allow the doers to get on and do. One of the key goals of architecture should be to get to the answer as quickly and as simply as is possible.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Real architecture sits firmly between strategy and projects and is essential in bridging the gap. If architecture looks only towards strategy it fails to drive delivery. If architecture looks only towards projects, it fails to inform and challenge strategy. In essence:

1. Strategy tells you what you need to do.
2. Architecture tells you how to do it.
3. Projects have the hardest job of all; doing it.

It is for this final reason that architecture must ensure that it makes this incredibly difficult job just a little easier by removing much of the uncertainty of strategy before a project encounters it. This leads me to my concluding list:

1. By refining strategy, architecture challenges and refines that strategy, removing the conflicts and ambiguities. It turns ideas into answers.
2. The to-be architecture allows the business to identify the largest gaps in the delivery of its vision, and this in turn helps to inform priorities.
3. Architecture is a revitalisation of the age old skill of back-of-a-beer-mat design. If you can’t draw it, it isn’t real.

If architecture does not do these things then it is not worth doing.

Regards
The Enterprising Architect

Simplicity: Art or Architecture?

Is it useful to think of simplicity as an instinct and Enterprise Architecture as an art form?

The "Wisdom" of Crowds
There seems to be a popular "wisdom" that systems (business and/or technical) develop through a process of evolution, and evolution inevitably leads to complexity. Proponents of this wisdom use nature as an example in all its glorious variety. This in turn leads to a fatalism that accepts complexity as a necessary evil, and attempts to manage it and cater for its existence.

Well, in my opinion, wisdom is rarely common, and never more so than in this case.

Natural Selection
Evolution involves two key processes. The first is change, and the second is selection. In nature, the selection process acts purely on survivability, and takes no account of cost or complexity (why should it?). In nature there is no dominant competitive advantage that encourages simplicity. In business we have the power to create the model, and the selection criteria are under our control.

So when is the best time to remove complexity? At the point of creation, of course. We need to create a force of natural selection that weeds out complexity at source.

Architecture is the first point at which visionary statements start to be converted into realisable decisions, and so architecture should be that force of natural selection. Certainly complexity cannot always be avoided. It will always be lurking in the background waiting to sneak in as soon as we take our eye off the ball, and any complexity within the architecture will only breed increasing complexity in its delivery.

If the “to-be” architecture lays out a simple future and we ensure that delivery efforts are always directed towards that destination then it will be simplicity that will evolve instead of complexity. Essentially prime responsibility lies with the Enterprise Architect to ensure that simplicity is achieved in everything the Business does.

Simplicity should therefore be one of the key quality criteria for enterprise architects to focus on, but how should we measure this simplicity?

It’s all in the Mind
Most human beings are driven by an innate sense of aesthetics. They are drawn to that which they find pleasing to the eye. Most architects are no different, and try as they might to claim a logical basis for each of their decisions; this aesthetic drive underpins much that they do.

Do not fight this.

Aesthetics is an important factor in any architecture as it allows you to use your innate skills to produce answers far more rapidly than might otherwise be possible.

Consider as an analogy the act of catching a ball. If you relied on trajectory calculations, and information relating to the launch velocity and angle of the ball, the task would be impossible within the timescales. Instead, through practice, the human brain manages this task in a far more reflexive and responsive manner.

The Eye of the Beholder
Unfortunately beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder. Just as one persons Turner prize winner is another’s childish scribblings, some find beauty in simplicity and will strive for it whilst others are attracted to complexity, and will revel in it. If you fall into the latter category you probably will not make a very good architect, until you can curb this tendency.

Another form of beauty arises from symmetry, but the case for or against this is not as clear cut. I have experienced situations in which questionable elements of an architecture or design come into being simply to balance the diagram. I have also discovered gaps in an architecture as a result of the asymmetry that their omission creates.

However, assuming that you can tune our aesthetic sense to simplicity, and use symmetry constructively, it should provide you with a powerful tool for accelerating the development of your architecture.

Architecture as an Art Form
So, am I suggesting that Architecture is an art form driven more by creative urges than by raw logic?

Yes, I am.

There are, of course, numerous metrics and processes out there that claim to provide a scientific basis for measuring and controlling complexity, and I am not denying that some of them do actually achieve that goal in theory. In practice, however, such a method driven approach is too laborious to deliver results in the short timescales typically necessary for the resulting architecture to be of value.

We need a more pragmatic, and dare I say it agile approach. It is for this reason that I would encourage all architects to develop and trust in their innate aesthetic ability in order to ensure that their architectures are elegantly simple.

It is only through this development that they will be able to deliver effective architectures within sensible timescales.

Regards
The Enterprising Architect

When is an EA not an EA?

In no particular order:

It Is NOT an Enterprise Architecture if...

1. Your CxOs don't know what it is, and don't care what it says.
2. Your strategic thinkers do not agree with what it says.
3. It covers one area of the Businesss without considering the whole (and yes, IT is one part of the Business).
4. It does not start with a single big picture that can be drawn on one piece of paper (and still be legible).
5. There is more than one of it. (Question: "Do you have an EA?", Answer:"Oh yes! We have lots!").
6. It tells you what the present looks like without telling you what the future is supposed to look like.
7. It tells you how to work out the answer instead of telling you what the answer is.
8. Using it is a burden for your projects instead of a boon.
9. It is easier to ignore it than it is to follow it.
10. What it says has not been agreed with the business leaders.
11. It can be interpreted in many ways to suit many agendas.
12. No one is looking at it and saying "That's it! That's what I wanted!".
13. You cannot implement it in stages.
14. It takes many people and many months to develop before it becomes useful.
15. It is deemed to be complete. (My work here is done *whoosh*).
16. You have to understand all of it before you can deliver a part of it.

Regards
The Enterprising Architect

For Sale – Bijou Architecture in Attractive Location

I have often heard architects complaining about the amount of talking they have to do. They seem to be stuck in an endless round of communication that takes place to sell the concept of architecture to detractors, to describe content of the architecture, and to explain how it should be used.

And for those that are successful in this exercise there is the challenge “Okay! I get it now – so why haven’t you done it yet?”

Architects then hold their hands up and bemoan the obvious catch-22 situation, but are they right to complain?

Put simply, no.

It’s that Pesky 80/20 Rule Again
I firmly believe that architecture is 20% creation and 80% communication. The primary role of architecture is to clearly and unambiguously articulate future strategy, and so the one thing it absolutely must do is communicate! A badly communicated architecture is a failed architecture (no matter how good the concepts within it may be).

So how does that 80% stack up? You might think it sounds like an awful lot of talking, but let us not forget that not all communication is verbal. What is more, not all communication is focussed on selling the architecture; the content has to be communicated as well, and it is in this latter dialogue that the other forms of communication can play an important role.

The Picture on the Box
As far as possible, a good architecture should be self-explanatory, thus freeing up the architect to focus on the act of selling. Communication of content should be visual supported by descriptive text, with verbal backup where necessary to break people in gently.

Clear visual communication requires a solid unambiguous notation. It is not good enough to simply use boxes and lines of your own choosing with no consistency, as you will then fail to perform one of the key tasks of architecture – to remove ambiguity. An off-the-shelf notation is perfectly good enough for most purposes and has the advantage that you then have one less problem to solve yourself.

My preference here is ArchiMate as it is simple, effective, and specifically oriented towards architecture. I feel it also has a reasonable chance of being more widely accepted, given its adoption by the Open Group. If and when a genuine standard emerges, I would recommend its use over all other options, as a widely recognised notation is of enormous value. However, in the absence of such a standard, the actual choice does not matter, as long as the notation is easy to follow, and each symbol means one thing and one thing only.

It’s not an Exam
One of my chief hatesis when reasoning and justification are included within the architecture itself. I dislike having to trawl through reams of text that states why something is the way it is, to finally get to the actual decision.

Remember, you are not trying to pass an exam. It is the answer that should leap out at the reader, not your thought processes. If your selling activities have been successful, then the reader of your architecture should already be receptive to the content. If they are not receptive, then no amount of cajoling at this stage will win them over.

For example, if you have decided that you are going to have one central information store fronted by a set of business focused services then just say that in a simple diagram. An architecture is not a crime novel – you can tell the reader who the killer is on page one without spoiling the surprise.

Selling the Architecture
And so we come to the other element of communication. Selling. Architects generally ask three simple questions at this point:

1. The business has hired me to do this. Why should I have to sell it to anyone?
2. I can’t possibly talk to everyone. Who should I sell it to?
3. I’m pushed for time. How do I get buy in quickly?

The answers are equally as straight forward:

Why? Self Interest
It is essential to remember that if people don’t use your architecture, and people don’t contribute to it, it will fail and so will you.

On a more positive note, most of the people you talk to will remember you. Not many people are offered such a genuine opportunity to network with the movers and shakers within an organisation, so make the most of it.

Who? Leaders and Doers
(This is the bit where I upset various layers of middle management).

The first group of people you need to sell to is at the top of the food chain – the true leaders. If you are lucky enough to have the ear of the CEO or CIO then you have a much smaller (but potentially more challenging) task. In most cases this will not be the case, but I would strongly recommend that you need to target those with real influence. In most large organisations this is at the Director and/or Programme Manager level.

Win over this audience, and they will tell their middle managers to follow suit.

The other group you need to sell to are those who will use your architecture in anger. These are the people who will suffer the pain of a bad architecture (and this is their fear), or more importantly these are the people whose lives a good architecture can improve. Talking to these people will really test whether what you are doing with your architecture really does deliver the benefit you are claiming, so listen to what they have to say, and show that you are reacting to their feedback. The wisdom of crowds is powerful, especially when it is your wisdom.

Win over this audience, and they will carry the torch for you, selling the use of the architecture to their middle management, and engaging with you during their day-to-day activities.

In other words, catch your middle management in an architecture sandwich.

How? It’s all About Me!

There are so many ways you could sell your architecture, and the most common is the one I call “Architecture will save the world”. In this approach architects unveil impressive lists of benefits to the organisation, the customer (and now the environment), bombarding the audience with the undeniable world shattering importance of architecture...

...and get nowhere.

These architects are failing to understand one of the most fundamental elements of human nature and motivation (one I have alluded to earlier in this post) - Self Interest. Even the most generous amongst us will instinctively resist anything that will cause us pain (apart of course for the masochists who are often already architects).

If you tell your audience only one thing, tell them this: what it does for them. Understand their pain points and their motivations, and look for ways in which you can make their lives just a little less painful. Point out how much time your architecture will save them, show them how it will help them to get buy in for their work, point out where the answers to their problems are, and don’t forget to explain how their contribution to it will gain them recognition.

Point out that the decisions in your architecture have already been agreed with senior management, and by using the architecture they will not have to justify every tiny little thing they do. Use actual examples from the architecture to illustrate your points, and better still (if you are far enough down the line), bring along a willing champion who has already used your architecture.

Oops!

What do you mean when you say, “my architecture doesn’t those things”?

Maybe I forgot to mention the first step in selling...

...make sure you have something that people want to buy.

Regards

The Enterprising Architect