Enterprise Architecture in Higher Education

Full Disclosure, A Favourited Tweet Does Not Mean I Read It … Yet

Jan 202012

As many of you know, I am a huge fan of Twitter.

Twitter provides the medium for my tailored news source (I find out about world events on Twitter faster than any of the regular news outlets), my 24×7 global support base (see my post The Evolution of My Global Network) and my notetaker (this attempt failed as it was too verbose for a Twitter feed). Finally, Twitter is a deep mine of refined precious metal harvested by the brilliant people I follow. Here are a few examples of posts I wrote because of Twitter:

All of these posts were triggered by a tweet that I read or a tweet to me about a topic that made me think and then share something with all of you. Powerful stuff for me and hopefully for you too!

I have been getting @replies and mentions for favouriting certain tweets. Twitter recently enabled a notification to the original tweeter if someone favourites a tweet they posted.

In the interest of full transparency to those who thank me, I have a confession. Just because I favourited your tweet does not always mean that I have read the link in your tweet.

I have taken to spending 15 minutes each morning scanning my Twitter feed (mostly to see what went on in the world while I was asleep in Vancouver) and look for interesting tweets (usually ones with links to articles). I favourite them (my Twitter bookmarking method) so that I can look at them at a later date. I do most of this scanning on my Blackberry Mobile Twitter app.

One ask I would have is if you have a website, think about huge shift to the mobile world and enable a mobile theme please! I would be more inclined to browse to the link and read it if the content presented was for a mobile experience (especially now that I am getting middle aged eyes!).

So, it is really me who needs to thank all of you for sharing all the great content. Keep tweeting and sharing because I for one, am listening and learning from you! Thank you!

Enterprise Architecture in Higher Education – Yes!

education, enterprise architecture, higher education 2 Responses »

Jan 152012

Adrian Grigoriu wrote an article in eBizq titled Enterprise Architecture in Higher Education in Nov 2011 – http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/ea_matters/2011/11/enterprise-architecture-and-higher-education.php. I have been meaning to write a supportive post to Adrian and finally have time. In a nutshell, I agree and Adrian’s makes 3 excellent points for why Enterprise Architecture should be taught. Adrian’s short article is worth the read and there is an extensive discussion on LinkedIn about this topic here.

What EA could bring to the MBA:

1. EA may offer generic models or typical architectures for the enterprise. EA comes with the Capability map concept which unfortunately is not standardised or mature enough to be employed yet.

2. May provide the framework that links and integrates all the tiers of the Enterprise together: business process, technology and organization. That is a “true” EA framework. Currently there are a few meta-models that are an expression of the framework rather than the framework itself.

3. Last but not least, EA would provide the method of implementing the target enterprise state in alignment to strategy. Existing EA methods propose various processes to do exactly that.

Over the past month, I had the opportunity to build a new one week module on Enterprise Architecture for a 13 week Technology Management course. The course is targeted at business management students and I ran into exactly what Adrian pointed out:

The EA concept should be taught in any business study. Unfortunately the body of knowledge is too fragmented and incomplete right now to arm the student with a method that delivers results.

I reached out to my Enterprise Architect community on Twitter. My request for guidance started a great Twitter conversation with Nick Malik, Richard Veryard, Martin Howitt and Aleks Buterman about the approach to constructing the module and the elements that should be included. Many thanks to these esteemed Enterprise Architects. I continue to marvel that I am able to connect with all of you with the power of technology and Twitter in particular.

Here are a few choice tweets:

@richardveryard : @leodesousa @nickmalik Do you want your students to passively consume #entarch services or to collaborate effectively with #entarch experts?

@richardveryard : @nickmalik ‘s solution to @leodesousa ‘s requirement assumes the goal is to appreciate the difference between #entarch and its absence.

@nickmalik : @richardveryard @leodesousa Yes, as foundation. Build understanding as first step to empower collaboration between biz and #entarch

@aleksb6 : @leodesousa @richardveryard @nickmalik I’m trying to cope with the idea that #value of a #planned approach needs to be explained. #entarch

@richardveryard : @leodesousa @nickmalik my idea of a learning objective is that the students learn to do something, not that they are persuaded of something. Read more...

Business Analytics Anyone?

enterprise architecture, higher education, strategic planning No Responses »

Jan 112012

Today, I participated in a focus group to help start up the BCIT School of Business Business Analytics Centre of Excellence. The room was full of Business Intelligence/Analytics/Insight leaders from around Vancouver. We were brought together by Ed Bosman and Karen Plesner both instructors in the BCIT School of Business. Karen facilitated a two hour discussion on a series of topics. The group provided advice on the skills expected of graduates in the various business analytic roles – consumers, artisans/analysts and systems technicians. The other major focus was on what a “centre of excellence” for business analytics should provide and deliver to industry.

We were provided with a definition of Business Analytics as the seed for the discussion:

Business Analytics: the skills, technologies, applications and practices for continuous iterative exploration and investigation of past business performance to gain insight and drive business planning (Davenport and Harris, 2007)

This definition generated a very good discussion and the consensus was that this definition was too narrow. It failed to address real-time analytics for operational performance management and web analytics for customer behaviour management.

We had a good discussion about master data management and data standards. One of the great quotes of the day came from an panel member. He was referring to a discussion about how confident and accurate your numbers need to be. I really like this pragmatic approach.

Business Analytics augments your gut

The another panel member introduced the group to a model used by Davenport and Harris. Here is what it looks like:

Davenport and Harris Model	Information	Insight
Past
Present
Future

The model is a measure of where business analytics efforts are focused. This would be a good model for us to look at the maturity of our Business Intelligence/Analytics practices.

This table contains the lists of topics and themes I noted during our focus group. There are many topics and themes below that will warrant future blog posts.

Trends	Tools	BI/BA Type	Audience
Web Analytics	Excel	Operational “Real time”	Consumers
Mobile	Access	Tactical “Just in Time”	Artisans
Bring Your Own Device	Qlikview	Strategic “Points in Time”	Analysts
Security	Tableau	Compliance	Authors
Privacy	SAP	Predictive	Systems Technicians
Predictive	IBM Cognos
MDM	MS Analysis Services
Big Data	SAS
Information Overload	SPSS