Enterprise Change - An architectural view

Enterprises are ubiquitous. The most generic definition of an enterprise could be stated as, “One or more organisations working for a common objective”. Entities such as corporations, government bodies, municipal bodies and small businesses etc. are all enterprises. The benefits they deliver can widely range from shareholder value to the establishment of law and order in a society. Enterprises are legal entities and honour contractual obligations making them key vehicles of commerce. The boundary of an enterprise is not always definite. It constantly evolves both in terms of its composition and in terms of its interaction with its environment. We will discuss some of the common drivers of enterprise change in this article.

Enterprises structure supply and demand. They evolve and adapt according to the environment. Enterprises perform several functions. The larger the scale of operations, the greater is the need for specialised departments performing specific functions.  Departments such as Sales, Marketing, Customer Support, Manufacturing, HR, Finance, Logistics, Legal services, Purchasing, Warehouse and IT are universally common for commercial enterprises across industries.

The structural similarity of enterprises led to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) products which initially claimed to solve all enterprise needs. However, each ERP product specialized only in certain areas that they were well designed for.  Besides, ERPs are expensive to implement. Clearly, one size does not fit all.  On the other hand, custom-built enterprise applications of varying sizes tailored for various workflows and business processes have been common. A typical medium sized enterprise would have a sizable number of applications in their catalogue. Relatively large enterprises would have one or more ERP solutions in addition to a number of enterprise applications. These discrete applications led to information and process silos, which could be unlocked and integrated with integration patterns and solutions such as an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). Moreover, mergers and acquisitions introduce duplicate features. In addition to these challenges, the availability of low cost alternative technologies such as cloud infrastructure would require the entire catalogue of applications to be revisited and re-architected from time to time. Change and complexity are inevitable for enterprises.

Other key change triggers could be:

1. Strategic initiatives resulting in new business processes or change in existing business processes
2. Market conditions or statutory regulations triggering a change in business processes
3. Technological advancements in User Experience (UX) and rendering mediums requiring alternative approaches to achieve the same business goals or even trigger a change in strategy
4. Advancements in big data technologies and analytics resetting business expectations
5. New engineering practices promising faster turnaround triggering a change in implementation and operational mechanisms
6. Addition of a few new locations or external partners
7. Addition of new organizations or modifications to existing ones with new roles
8. Changes in business rules depending on one or more factors
9. Changes to periodicity of well-defined event occurrences or new event occurrences

There are several types of complexity triggers here. Complexity has at least three aspects: interconnectedness, interwoven-ness and composite. While the interconnected and interwoven nature of complexity can be easily understood, the composite aspect is not so obvious. An enterprise is made of several primitives, e.g., data, business processes, organizations and roles, locations, timings and motivations. Every time a primitive undergoes change, its composite relationship with other primitives could also change. So too the operational components that are realized after several transformations may undergo change. The Zachman framework helps make sense of these variables and transformations.

The framework draws inspiration from ancient wisdom and proposes a two-dimensional classification schema. The first dimension consists of the six primitive interrogatives (what, how, where, who, when and why). The six interrogatives translate to:

1. Inventory sets (what),
2. Process flows and application components (how)
3. People, responsibility assignments, organizations and roles (who)
4. Locations and distribution networks (where)
5. Event timings (when)
6. Motivational intentions or business rules (why)

For instance, primitives such as inventory sets (what), roles (who) and process flows (how) lead to composites such as user-activity and user-activity-data. Importantly, these mappings are generic and are not technology or implementation specific. Thus any business rule can be seen as a composite of primitives or a composite of composites.

The second dimension consists of the six levels of reification (identification, definition, representation, specification, implementation and instantiation). Reification essentially means ‘to convert abstract into concrete’. Strategy is at the highest level of abstraction and operational model is its concrete reality. The levels are perspectives from various standpoints.

1. Executive perspective – Strategy (identification)
2. Business management perspective – Business (definition)
3. Architect perspective – System (representation)
4. Engineer perspective – Technology (specification)
5. Technician perspective – (implementation)
6. Enterprise perspective (instantiation and operation)

Each level is a set of models across the six primitives that meet the goals as set by the layer above it and sets expectations for the layer below it. The first three levels are technology agnostic and hence provide immense value for clear communication across various stakeholders.

In terms of architecture, business architecture encompasses identification and definition.  Solution architecture is equivalent to system representation model. Technical architecture is equivalent to specification of technology. Implementation is the realisation of application components. Operational model (instantiation) stands up the components, determines change management, SLA adherence and escalation process etc. Infrastructure architecture pertains to locations and distributions column.

Summary: Enterprises are complex yet made of simple primitives. Vertically, strategies translate to operations. Horizontally, a change in any one primitive can impact the composites it is associated with. It can also impact the operational components in the functioning enterprise. A view of this tractability helps manage change effectively. We strongly recommend enterprises to capture the primitives, their relationships and tractability of their operational components for better IT management.

P.S.

I had written this article for an organisation I had the privilege of working for earlier in my career.

IT4IT™ – An Open Group Standard for Managing the Business of IT

The changing expectations of IT: Information Technology (IT) as a function in an enterprise has always played a supportive role to meet Business goals. In the past decade, the expectation was reset and IT was expected to play a more active role of being a key enabler for Business capability. The new digital age characterized by smart phones, gadgets, social media and an explosive growth of digital content however, has pushed the bar higher. Most segments of the market across geographies are being influenced by this new digital transformation one way or another. Hence IT capability of an organization is now expected to innovate and not merely limit itself to IT operations. This is a new transition that IT is going through.

In addition to raised expectations, there is an ecosystem of apps and platforms for devices and gadgets that is challenging the capabilities of IT in organizations. Stakeholders constantly draw comparisons. Planned down times and long wait times for features are not seen as acceptable anymore. Changes driven by rapid strides in technology and user experience are likely to come in thick and fast. Every eight years, a new generation comes out expressing its own will and having a say on how the digital economy will move forward. Expectations will continue to be reset every time a giant technological stride is made expanding user experience possibilities or in the reduction of operational cost. Whereas on the concrete side of digital technology, the cost of hardware is going down and its quality getting arguably better. Open source is consolidating on its evolutionary spirals providing a canvas for collaborative work across the globe. These open up several possibilities along with their own set of challenges.

IT Response: To handle these, the IT shop needs to see itself as a services provider with innovation prowess. The traditional paradigm of identifying gaps and proposing projects shall give way to a new paradigm of continuous assessment, continuous integration and continuous delivery. There is a need for full-fledged automation with a strong focus on work execution where outcomes are measurable with full transparency and traceability.  To do this, a meta-model along with various functional components need to be identified and agreed upon by practitioners. IT4IT, a prescriptive reference architecture and an operational model from The Open Group, is a major step in this direction. It is an industry neutral, technology agnostic evolving standard designed not only for existing landscapes but also for future IT paradigms.

IT4IT: IT4IT is based on Porter’s ‘Value Chain’ model. Value chain is a classification scheme for the complete set of primary and supporting activities that contribute to the lifecycle of creating net value of a market offering. It is based on a ‘process view’ of organizations. The standard has five levels. The first three levels are vendor neutral and provide generic views. Levels four and five are detailed vendor specific refinements and solution architecture which is not covered by the standard.

IT value chain consists of primary and supporting activities as shown in the figure below.  Primary activities are core to the IT organization. They are classified under four value streams.

1. Strategy to Portfolio (S2P) – Drive IT portfolio to business innovation
2. Requirement to Deploy (R2D) – Build what the business needs when it needs it
3. Request to Fulfill (R2F) – Catalog, fulfil and manage service usage and
4. Detect to Correct (D2C) – Anticipate and resolve production issues

The supporting activities identified are five in number and include Finance & Assets, Sourcing & Vendor selection, Intelligence & Reporting, Resource & Project, Governance, Risk & Compliance.

These operate in parallel and are not sequential and hence open for adoption of agile methods.

Final thoughts: IT4IT coexists with existing standards such as ITIL and COBIT.  Organizations can use their own evolutionary insights and best practices as a launch pad, evaluate against the reference architecture as to which functions are performed and what kind of data is being captured in their current state. In case of gaps if any, evaluate if there is a good enough rationale for non-compliance or choose to implement the missing elements and derive its full value. While choosing process tools from the market, the architecture helps perform due diligence providing visionary guidance on the end state integration model.

This is in brief about IT4IT. This is an evolving standard following a consortium model of development. Organizations are encouraged to join, make use of the standard and help it evolve and reach its intended objective. More can be found here.

P.S.

I had written this article for an organisation I had the privilege of working for earlier in my career.

Mental Muscle

Muscles connect bones together and help coordinate our physical movements. We realize the importance of physical exercise so as to keep muscles strong and flexible.

Mind connects people together and helps coordinate our social movements. We understand physical things quite well.  But we are unaware if there is a mind. Mental activity determines physical activity.  One cannot play cricket if the mind did not bid for it by creating images and imaginary action.

Interestingly, we assume that there exists a mental process or thought process.  Possibly our entire system of education rests squarely on this assumption.

We agree there is 'memory'. Two children born and brought up in the same environment may develop different sequences of memory; thus a different reasoning of cause and effect altogether. We can find many examples of children born in the same family or brought up in similar environment but who have shaped their lives very differently. It can well be argued that fundamentally we have different sequences of memory and thus different interpretation of cause and effect.

Sequence of memory and the resulting interpretation of life's cause and effect impacts the present and future course of action.

Like how physical exercise makes a difference, is there a mental exercise that makes a difference?

Physical exercise is direct experience.  Whereas in the realm of mind, neither the parts that connect nor the connected are known directly.  Hence verification of concepts related to mind are highly subjective. Whatever is known or perceived mentally, is only a shadow of the real which is what we call as memory. We may remember several events that occurred but we do not know what caused them.

The database that the mind relies on is memory.  So exercising one's mind based on memory is equivalent to physical exercise of one's shadow. It is impossible to make the shadow exercise without involving oneself.  Similarly it is impossible to exercise the mind without connecting with other minds.

Hence there can be no mental exercise if one is limited by one's own memory.

Mental exercise is to aggressively feel and digest others experiences and knowledge.  At the same time without any dependence on the other.

Mind is distributed and is not centralized in one's own body.  Mental muscle is the growing awareness of these connections.



  

Habit of Happiness

It seems years of research has found evidence that our brain works better when it is happy.  Some people however trash this whole argument as a figment of imagination.  They argue that those who are not happy even after repeated attempts do not pursue such research to present their story with evidence. Compelling argument.

Abraham Lincoln had said, "You are as happy as you make up your mind to be". One also finds that several scriptures assert that happiness is the innermost core of every individual.

This leads us to an important question. Is it possible that one can be happy regardless of where and to whom they are born? To many, it may appear like a heartless hypothetical question; given the kind of external situations possible.

There are however abstractions such as 'peer group' and 'social group'.  For most people, there exists an interactive group which creates a context for perception. World may be divided into social classes but that does not necessarily interfere in our day to day transactions.  It is the 'group' that matters more. For example, when people compare their own fortunes or achievements with others, they choose from among their 'peer group'. This choice is almost automatic and sub-consciously transmitted. The concept of 'groups' has made social media a powerful force as well - bringing sweeping changes.

Given this phenomenon, does a happy state of mind enable better performance? This is a key question. The answer perhaps is in exploring the 'habit' of happiness. A habit of happiness means every action is an expression of happiness. Outcome does not determine a person's enthusiasm. For such a person, even if the performance remains more or less the same as others, chances are: this person is perceived to have performed better. Author, Edward De Bono opines that about 80% of decisions in life are based on perceptions. The positive effect of such a person in any team is quite evident.

The tricky part however is, habits occur subconsciously.  One can be happy once in a while but a 'habit of happiness' is a tall order.  It may well be claimed that happy people (habitually happy) can be classified differently and they are not the same as other people.  

Whatever be the version of research or scriptures, the whole question for us can be reduced thus: "Can I make happiness my habit and trait?" This may be highly subjective. But worth every attempt! Whether true or false/ works or not, there is a lot to gain in every effort.

A habit of happiness may well be the result of other aspects such as perceived 'meaning of life', 'meaningful goals' and 'self-concept'.

Time and Change

Time is a fascinating phenomenon. Wiki says, "It is a measure of duration of events and the interval between them".  Some scientists say that the drum beat of time is not necessarily the same everywhere in the universe. Some say what we have is not a 'Universe' but a 'Multiverse' and so on.

In our lifetimes however, unless sweeping technological advancements lead us to a different dimension, all that we would have known is the seemingly flat world and human ego to deal with.  This is our reality that matters to us most.

'As time moves on, things change for better or worse'. This how we are trained to think unconsciously.  Is this not a fallacy?

Do things change as time goes on?

We seem to be telling ourselves that 'time' is like a train that we have boarded which moves whereas the scenery of life keeps changing in the window of our eyes.

Let us step back for a moment and investigate a little more.

Change is constantly happening.  The earth is changing its position around the sun.  The sun is changing its position in the galaxy.  The galaxy itself is changing its position in the universe and so on. We are never ever at the same place twice truly speaking.

Closer home, the plants are changing their form all the while, so are flowers and trees.  The walls made of bricks or wood are also changing - ever so slowly.  Look into the mirror. A temporary strange form possessing funny things known as eyes, ears, hands and legs undergoing constant change is what we see.

Change is the only thing that happens in the whole world. Time is simply a measure of it.

Time is perhaps like a carpet on rough edges. We use it to hide changes that are subtle and hard to detect.

Times don't change. It is change that times. Whatever that means!

Ganesha Symoblism

Hinduism believes in one God.  This often comes as a surprise to people in the west and of course, to many Hindus as well.  Hinduism is a collection of diverse philosophies with Vedas as its basis.  

The Vedas proclaim, "God, the Omnipresent is one without a second and is formless".  It has a lot of significance and meaning.  It does not fit into a theory that God sits above the clouds judging the world.

"Then why are there so many Gods in Hinduism?" Though God is one, there are several forms of worship in Hinduism.

While the Vedas declare God to be formless, there are the Puranas which bring out various aspects of eternal human values such as love, compassion, goodness and clarity of thought in a world that is temporary and fleeting.  Strategically, forms of worship are mixed into tradition and festivals.

The form of Ganesha is also very symbolic and traditionally viewed with meaning.

Two innocent eyes of the elephant says, "look at the world with innocent eyes".  An innocent eye does not carry the burden of past interpretations and judgements.  Every day is seen as new beginning.  

Two large ears of Ganesha symbolises, "listen more and talk less".  We talk not just with our mouth but also with our minds.  The constant chatter in the mind is also a kind of needless talking.  Good listening skills and good learning skills are one and the same, where mind is without self-made noise.

The ash in the forehead symbolises the meaning that, "the body will finally turn into ash".  This remembrance brings about purity and objectivity in our day to day transactions.

The two tusks of Ganesha symbolises our likes and dislikes.  We are programmed to do what we like and avoid doing what we dislike.  However productive activities require us to do what is needed though we may not like it.  One broken tusk symbolises our need to break our addiction to likes and dislikes.  This value system needs to be broken.

One hand has Abhaya mudra.  A psychological symbol of fearlessness and trust.  

One hand with an axe symbolising, "cut your unwise attachments".  Swami Sukhabodananda describes this beautifully.  Unwise attachment is one that says, "Without this thing (whatever the object), I refuse to be happy".  How often we think, "if this does not happen, I cannot be happy". That is an unwise attachment.  Action is to be out of happiness.  Not for happiness.

The rope in one hand symbolises, "the opportunity to climb up is here and now."

A baby elephant takes nearly one year to master using its trunk.  But once mastered, it is all powerful. Similarly the mind is hard to master.  Once mastered, it is all powerful.

While one leg is on the ground, the other leg is placed off the ground.  While our body is in the world and of the world, let all serious thoughts be placed above the material reality.

Finally, the form of Ganesha is dissolved in water after a week long worship.  Once the learning is complete, the created form goes back from where it came. A form made of clay becomes clay again.  As Swami Vivekananda said, the idol signifies the ideal.  

A weekday wish for a thoughtful world

Friday evenings are sweet. Monday mornings, not quite.

Hobbies are energizing. Work, not quite.

Then there is this term, 'compensation package'.  As if compensating for putting up with drudgery.  It is amazing how we have unconsciously inherited several insane maladies as a part of social transactions.  The phenomenon is universal.

What really is bothersome is how we walk into such social patterns unconsciously and remain oblivious of the damage it does to us.

We then ask, "How else? Isn't it natural?".  This is another part of the problem.  We seem to be constantly in need of instructions as if life comes with an instruction manual.

The challenge for us is to find for oneself how one can break free from this weekly cycle of weekday routines and weekend ecstasy and start living fully.

There are several social patterns that contribute to this insanity.  For instance, let us investigate what drives us to be right all the time? Why do we want to prove we are right always? In most cultures, 'failure is taboo'.  The moment failure happens to an individual, he or she is supposed to feel bad. If it happens to a team, a blame game begins as to who caused it.  This pattern pushes people to defend failures with stupid logic rather than change for the better.

Let us take another example.  How do we view formal authority?  How is it related to leadership?  We mix concepts of leadership and formal authority so much that we begin to depend on structures and systems to correct problems that our egos create.  We tend to think, "what worked for X should work for Y".  Really?  It depends on what we know about what worked for X. Doesn't it? How do we know that we know all that needs to be known?

Our knowledge is always limited.  Any concept that we learn depends on our previous learning. Our previous learning are influenced by all learning prior to that.  This goes on into value system as well.

These are just a few examples. Bottom-line remains we have been force-fed prescriptions of what we should fear, what we should like, what we should hate, what we should respect, what is considered taboo, what is acceptable and what is not.  These are passed on to us as the gospel, often without adequate reasoning.  Thus we walk into traps of thought flows and patterns that society has created by default.

To break free of these is a personal challenge for each one of us.

Weekdays are as energizing as weekends when the old prescriptions are filtered out reasonably in what we see and do today... every other day.