Todd Biske posted a summary of a conversation he had with Mike Rollings,  Brenda Michelson, Chris Bird and others. They were discussing the future of Enterprise Architecture. A theme that emerged from their talks focused on whether your practice is defined by being an archivist (passive) or an activist (active).  Here is the conversation (from Todd’s post) that got the ball rolling:

Near the end of the conversation, Chris asked the question, “Are Enterprise Architects really Enterprise Archivists?” Brenda responded that we really need Enterprise Activists focused on action, delivery, ideation, and evangelism.

Building credibility in your organization by delivering on value will get you to the place where you can be the “enterprise activist”.   Those of us who had very limited budgets and very small teams are well aware that showing value by making a positive contribution to our organizations is the way to earn the right to be “activists”.

Again from Todd’s post, here are Brenda Michelson’s four attributes for an “enterprise activist”:

Action: The action is engagement. Talk to the people that have the ability to make change happen. Using the activism analogy, the EA is the lobbyist. Engage the stakeholders, and make your case.

Delivery: Deliver the strategic architecture, and then work with the project teams to make sure the architecture is realized properly. If you’re only cataloging what other people have done, you’re an archivist.

Ideation: Think about the future. James McGovern (@mcgoverntheory), a fellow EA, had posted once that EA’s need to have time to think. This is where the ideas come from, and then can get turned into the strategic architecture. They’re not the exclusive source of ideas, but EA’s are supposed to be your senior level thinkers, so innovative ideas should be expected of them.

Evangelism: How can you be an activist without being active? Make the cause known. If the cause isn’t heard, work to understand why, and tweak the message accordingly.

I like the broader range of attributes that Brenda presents as they provide guidance for any size, shape or structure of enterprise architecture practices in any organization.  I don’t think I am overstating things by saying these are “timeless” attributes.

I wrote a post in July 2007 titled, Enterprise Architecture Roles or ‘What do you do??.  In the post, I talked about the roles that we fulfill in our EA practice at BCIT.  Read more...

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...

I just read Chris Lockhart’s interesting post “The Right Stuff“.  In the post Chris wrote about his bias for selecting enterprise architects based on his career experience.  The main topics in the post are:

• natural selection of IT architects
• the big picture guy
• the value of a liberal arts education
• experiencing the business

Chris wrote about his strong belief that his liberal arts education was a significant influence on being an enterprise architect.  Here are some great quotes:

On the natural selection of IT architects:

I find it bewildering how, in a field that relies on human interaction, we don’t place more emphasis on people skills.

Architects who cannot effectively interact with other human beings are destined to be out-performed by other, more adaptable species.

There is always a challenge when we take deep technical people who are not communicators and put them into senior roles like an enterprise architect.  I wrote a post on “Enterprise Architects – What attributes do you look for?“  I wrote that ” Talent is significantly more important than Skills.  Skills can be taught, talent is something a person brings with them.  Communication skills are particularly difficult to find and cultivate in combination with IT experience.  In our IT department of 100 people, we struggle to find people who can be Strategic Practitioners.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against smart people. I’m against smart people who take refuge in detail. They don’t make good architects in my experience.

Beware the Enterprise Architect who is better at writing code than your developers.

Chris is bang on here.  Being able to abstract (conceptualize) is a critical talent. When we look for a Strategic Practitioner, here are the talents that we hope to find:

• conceptualization – explaining complex ideas
• enterprise perspective – big picture thinking
• innovation – willing to try and fail
• facilitation – consensus building
• leadership – creating a vision and guiding people
• communication – listening as well as presenting

In Feb 2008, I wrote another post “Being a Teacher works for me …“.  This post has similar themes to Chris’s post and my Strategic Practitioner post.  Using Myers-Briggs indicators can help identify architects in your organization.

Thanks for the post Chris. I will be checking in on your blog regularly.