Focus on the Enterprise not the NotAtion

Which of the two diagrams below do you prefer?

Relax

Its not a test – there is no right answer – as it depends on your purpose and intent

BUT…

For me as EA the first diagram feels a little bit more ‘exciting’ – maybe a lot more exciting than the second one.

• It feels like a group of stakeholders got together to create it
• Maybe it was just IT but it might have had business people there also talking around the whiteboard
• I can imagine someone from business saying “no we need the data from that box” or “that line is where the process bottleneck is and its not even a solution box!!’
• I can see the stakeholders agreeing “that’s much better than the first one I am glad we redrew it and it did not take long”

I am after less of this:

• “Is this a business object or a representation?”
• “Should this be an application function or an application service?”
• “Is this node better modeled as a device, system software, or technology service?”

I am after more of this:

• what the business is trying to achieve,
• which capabilities matter,
• which processes and actors do the work,
• which applications support them,
• which technology runs them,
• which projects are changing them,
• and what risks, constraints, and dependencies exist

Sure then we go and make sure we have got the diagrams right as they provide the critical foundation for common understanding across stakeholders as we move forward.

The icing on the cake is hopefully the resulting modelling work benefits from high value outcomes from initial stakeholder engagement who might just feel a little bit more connected to the next level of validation and less design iterations.

… Sadly, I have been at too many upfront business engagement sessions where precious engagement time was spent by an Architect trying to explain how to read the diagram to perplexed looking Operational Management reps who kind of look like they have turned off on IT ‘value’ at the first step of a process that may lead to the delivery of a solution that may not meet their needs… its an indicator to watch for

MORE?

Much deeper dive here in an excellent article on optimizing ArchiMate usage from Nilus Enterprise Architecture Consulting