Coherent EA and Segment Architecture

Present to The Association of Enterprise Architects , DC

By John Chi-Zong WuAugust 13 , 2008

WWW.CoherentEA.com Peaitce@yahoo.com

Purpose of presentation The presentation goal :

Suggest the Coherent Enterprise Architecture method to build consensus on EA definition.

Establish the future direction of EA.

Scope of presentation : The CEA Model (Why) The CEA framework (What) The CEA approach (How)

The Definition of Coherent EA

Webster's definition of an architecture is "an orderly arrangement of parts."

Coherent is “having a natural or due agreement of parts; harmonious: a coherent design.”

Coherent EA is defined as “ CEA is the coherence between enterprise

strategic planning, business architecture, system architecture and agility architecture . It is an effort to architect Enterprise businesses, IT solution and Agility for the purpose of closing business performance gaps in time of need”

The future EA direction

EA has not evolved as expected due to lack of consensus on EA definition.

CEA builds consensus on EA definition by putting the Business Architecture, System Architecture, Agility Architecture, Strategic Planning and Segment Architecture into the proper aspect.

EA is the coherent effort of different EA directions with proper level of effort instead of business centric or Information Technology centric.

1.1 EA is very different from SA

Enterprise Architecture

Application Architecture

Analogy City planning Building a house

Stakeholders The community The owner

Requirements Keeps changing to close business performance gaps.

Build a product according a static requirement.

Result Show results incrementally Not useful until complete

Life Span Continuous cycle without end A project with end.

Governance Stakeholder buy-in Command and control

Challenge Continuous Change Best practice

Enterprise Architecture (EA) has a very different characteristic from System Architecture (SA) as shown in the following table.

1.2 Enterprise is not static

Amoeba keeps changing to find food, Enterprise also keeps evolving to win competitive edge.

It is futile to design EA in a big bang approach which become obsolete before the ink dry.

Enterprise Architecture is to architect with holistic consideration rather design the big house for enterprise.

Enterprise Architects must understand the nature of changing in an Enterprise while applying architecture principle to business.

1.3 Incorporate the architecture of Agility

The major challenge of business is to manage change in time of need.

The service oriented architecture (SOA) evolution has said it all.

The challenge of SOA is “which service to provide ?”, Agility Architecture is the effort to align enterprise services with business need to enable agility and simplicity.

Traditional EA approach embed the design of agility in term of reuse as the sidekick of EA.

CEA incorporate the architecture of agility as one the three pillar of EA.

1. The CEA model

The CEA model illustrate the concept of CEA which consist of business architecture, system architecture and agility architecture.

Segment architecture carry out EA in a incremental and continuous manner to closed business performance gaps.

Enterprise (x), the Business Architecture, to see the big picture and know the enterprise.

Alignment (Y), the System Architecture, to align technology with business.

Agility (Z), the Agility Architecture, to manage ambiguity and change.

Segment architecture in the middle.

Enterprise

Ag i

li ty

Alignm

ent

Z

X

Y

CEA

2 The CEA Framework

CEA Framework is derived form the CEA model.

It lay out the attributes and structure of business architecture, System Architecture and Agility Architecture.

Leverage on the traditional Enterprise Architecture framework.

Introduce the Architecture of Agility.

The following slides elaborate each dimension.

2.1 Enterprise (X )

Business Architecture to see the big picture, know the enterprise and transform the business.

Define the enterprise from mission, function information, organization, location and performance requirement .

Business architecture analyze the relation and structure of enterprise attributes.

Business processes provide the process solution to Enterprise mission.

Business performance gap analysis is part of Business Architecture effort.

Functions Performance

Information

Processes

Organizations

Locations

Peak Hour

WHO

WHAT

HOW

WHERE

WHEN

Mission WHY

Enterprise Definition

2.2 Alignment (Y) System architecture is the

effort to align IT solution with business need .

Data architecture to align data solution to business need.

Application architecture to align application solution to business need.

Infrastructure architecture align infrastructure solution to support data and application architecture.

2.3 Agility (Z)

Agility architecture enable agility by learning from the same line of business.

Enable agility via cross-cutting solution.

Cross-cutting solution via the engineering of reuse and consolidation.

Stakeholders comply with standards to earn agility.

3 The CEA Approach Notional

EnterpriseTarget

Architecture Performance

Based strategicPlanning

SegmentArchitecture Segment

Architecture SegmentArchitecture

Develop the notional Enterprise Target Architecture

Enable agility and simplicity via learning experiences from the same line of business.

Business performance gap analysis is a continuous effort.

Segment architecture to elaborate the notional target architecture and close business performance gaps.

SegmentArchitecture Segment

Architecture Practical Architecture

SegmentArchitecture Segment

Architecture EnableAgility

3.1 Target Architecture is notional Enterprise Target Architecture is notional as the

high level master plan for the enterprise rather than the enterprise architecture blueprint.

Analogy to a city plan, it is the fundamental principle for the Enterprise.

The notional Enterprise Target Architecture consist of the conceptual business architecture, data architecture and application architecture.

The notional Enterprise Target Architecture does not address the technology architecture.

3.2 Enable agility and simplicity

Enable agility and simplicity via establishing common services as shown in the following figure.

Agility increase with the level of common services. Establish common services by learning experiences

from the same line of business.

3.3 Business Performance gap analysis

Enterprise analyze performance gap continuously. Performance based Enterprise strategic plan

establish strategic direction to close business performance gap analysis.

The 1993 Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) requires performance based strategic planning.

CEA is based on business need.

3.4 Segment Architecture carry out CEA

Segment Architecture carry out CEA in a continuous and incremental manner.

Segment Architecture is a divide and conquer approach to elaborate the enterprise target architecture.

It apply enterprise architecture method over the enterprise weak spots by elaborate the business architecture, the data architecture, application architecture and solution architecture.

The area of the segment is defined based on the business performance gaps rather than based on architecture logic.

3.5 The OMB Segment Architecture

The following figure from OMB FEAPMO illustrate the relation between enterprise architecture, segment architecture and solution architecture.

3.6 The analogy of a segment in a city In the analogy of city planning, the city continue to develop and improve

the area based on business need rather than by architecture category. The segment architecture in this case, develop the road for this areas

base on business need instead develop every road for the entire city.