Enterprise Architecture in Higher Education

My friend Nick Malik wrote a post - Zachman’s Fatal Flaw: No Row for Customer.  Here is my response …

Do I believe that Zachman’s Framework is fatally flawed?  No. It all depends on your perspective and that to me is defined by your EA maturity.  How we view and evaluate models and frameworks depends on how much time we have spent working on Enterprise Architecture.

Here is a simplistic example of what I mean. Think of our understanding of astronomy that we have at various stages of our education.  As an elementary school student, we learned about the solar system and the main celestial bodies.  As we progressed to secondary school, we learned about gravity and its influence on the solar system.  At a university level, even more depth and understanding of the physics adds to our understanding (and perspective) of the universe.  Would a graduate student use the grade school model to understand the solar system? No, but does that invalidate the elementary model used to introduce astronomy to grade schoolers? No it does not.

What Nick observes is that our view of  the Zachman Framework has changed, due to the growth in our EA maturity.  Most organizations that embarked on establishing Enterprise Architecture practices focused internally first.  We did this to understand what we had and what it cost to deliver the technology services required by our companies.  EA also started primarily in the IT departments and slowly began to grow outwards to assist in business and strategic planning. If we start with an internal view focused on IT what would you expect? An internal focus – think of it as getting our house in order.  This is a very “Inside-Out” perspective and the Zachman Framework served may organizations well over the past decade. That is why so much EA writing uses the “IT” and its relationship to “the Business”  model. Here is Nick’s quote about the flaw:

What is the fatal flaw?  As you can tell from the title of the post, the flaw is an “Inside-Out” perspective on the enterprise.

We are maturing our EA profession from being focused on our internal processes and complexity and moving to a customer centric focus. Now that we have a better handle on our internal house using an EA approach, the next logical place for EA to focus and show value is in strategic planning.  Nick’s quote about the customer is particularly important here:  Read more...

The Center for the Advocacy of the Enterprise Architecture Profession (CAEAP) published a collaborative work called the Enterprise Architecture Professional Practice Guide (EA PPG).  This is the first draft abstract for the EA PPG.

I joined the CAEAP when it was formed in 2009.  I have the honour working with an excellent group of people as a contributor to this work over the past 6 months as a Chapter Lead.  Special mention goes to the leadership of CAEAP for creating the vision for the Professional Practice Guide.  Special mention to my friend, Bob McIlree (@rmcilree) who took over the Project Management reigns and was instrumental in getting this document published.

The statement of purpose of the EA Professional Practice Guide is:

The purpose of the Professional Practice Guide for Enterprise Architects (the Guide) is to clarify the definition of enterprise architecture and establish a basis for enterprise architecture to mature as a profession. The Guide seeks to serve this end by becoming:

• The definitive resource for enterprise architects to use in advancing their own practices;

• The contract between the enterprise architect and the public (e.g., stakeholders, executives, customers, the general public) they serve; and

• A crucial and comprehensive reference set of information for educators.

The Guide identifies professional practices that enterprise architects internalize and diligently use in their work. It also addresses the public’s expectations regarding the enterprise architects as representatives of the profession and their individual ability to answer to the problem space that enterprise architecture fulfills.

Here is the table of contents for the EA PPG:

Section 1: The Profession

1. The Professional Enterprise Architect

2. Standards of Acceptance for ?Professional? Designation

3. Capabilities of the Professional Enterprise Architect

4. Opportunities for Recognition

5. Education and Certification

6. Apprenticeship

Section 2: The Practice

7. Establishing an Enterprise Architecture Practice

8. Growing a Practice

9. Maturing the Practice

10. Branding and Marketing

Section 3: The Public

11. Legal Environment

12. Framework and Methodology Accreditation

13. Education Accreditation

14. Assessment beyond Certification

15. Working with Clients

16. The Enterprise Architecture Community

We (CAEAP) are seeking your constructive feedback on the EA PPG.  You can provide feedback on the CAEAP website at this link.

Do your customers understand how to get service from your organization?

Do your customers understand what to expect from the services you deliver?

Are your customers frustrated and upset when they interact with your Service Desk?

Recently, I was on the customer end of service delivery. It got me thinking about what we could do better in order to deliver quality customer service.  Here is my tale:

My doctor wrote an order for me to get some x-rays.  I arrived at the radiology lab and took a number and waited to be called. After a short period, the receptionist called my number, took my details and asked me wait for my x-ray. There were about 20 people in the waiting area.  As time went by, all the people in the waiting area who were there when I arrived were called in as well as a group of people who arrived after me.  I waited patiently for 30 minutes, then 45 minutes getting more and more agitated. I felt like I was not being treated fairly and that made me angry. Finally, when someone arrived 50 minutes after me and was called in for their procedure, I approached the receptionist and asked if they forgot me. The answer I got blew me away …

No sir, we did not forget you. There are 4 queues and the order that people arrive in is not the order they are served in.

Well, I could have avoided a good half hour of annoyance had someone told me that!! Never in the process (verbally or written) was I informed that once I was registered, that there were multiple queues. All I had to was the information I could see … everyone but me was getting service!  So I happened to be in the slowest queue but what blew me away was how my frustration was reduced once I knew that I was being treated fairly (very slowly but fairly).  I went back to reading my book and my name was called and I got my x-ray.  Read more...