Enterprise ArchitectureEnterprise Architecture
Note: for references cited in this section see “references ”.
“Competitiveness does not lie in downsizing it lies in design” (Dodds, 1993)
Expertise in organisational design will be a critical skill for future leaders, one that will require considerable technical knowledge about how to analyze, modify, and simulate the behavior of complex human systems. (Stata, 1989; Senge, 1986; Forrester, 1971)
“In designing the organization, the leader should focus on optimizing the response time to changes in the external environment.” (Stata, 1989)
Furthermore the governance model, principles and processes must be integrated into the Enterprise Architecture in order to maintain the links between them and the business processes.
“Coherent behavior must be governed by an enterprise model that codifies the corporation’s intent and ‘how we do things around here”. (Haeckel & Nolan, 1993)
Adopting a manage-by-wire strategy is nothing less than a change in the nature of strategy itself, from a plan to produce specific offerings for specific markets to a structure for sensing and responding to change faster than the competition. (Haeckel & Nolan, 1993)
“The ideal manage-by wire implementation uses an enterprise model to represent the operations of an entire business. Creating a robust model of a large business organization is an extremely challenging undertaking. But the empowered, decentralized teams of the information economy need a unified view of what’s happening within an organization.” (Haeckel & Nolan, 1993)
Figure 2: Forces and Forms - Mintzberg,
1991
“When one force dominates an organization, it is drawn toward a coherent, established form, described as configuration. Configuration refers to any form of organization that is consistent and highly integrated. With configuration, an organization achieves a sense of order, of integration. There is internal consistency, synergy among processes, fit with the external context.” (Mintzberg, 1991)
The degree of synergy, consistency and integration required by a ‘configuration’ would only be achievable in a large complex organisation if there is a high degree of consensual understanding of all the parts of the organisation and their interconnectedness. Such understanding is unlikely in the absence of a rigorously defined model of the business such as an Enterprise Architecture.
A ‘configuration’ is sometimes faced with converting from one dominant form to another. This can be particularly difficult if contamination has occurred; the dominant force has become too dominant, e.g. the quest for efficiency has totally suppressed the capacity for innovation. (Mintzberg, 1991)
A well constructed Enterprise Architecture will ease conversion because it contains much of the information (e.g. processes and data) required by the non-dominant forms. In the absence of an Enterprise Architecture, where contamination has occurred such information is likely to have been lost due to staff attrition.
An organisation where no one force dominates will contain several equally weighted forms. This is called a combination. A threat to combination organisations is cleavage where two or more forces confront each other and eventually paralyze the organisation. (Mintzberg, 1991)
While Enterprise Architecture is powerless against political infighting, it can assist combination organisations, and might even lower the risk of cleavage. It does this by assisting the proponents of each form to understand the other form’s purpose and value. It also clearly maps out the interdependencies between the different forms. This better understanding could help keep the balance between forms, even if only through self-interest in preserving the interdependencies.
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