Looking at the whole picture…

Doing Enterprise Architecture

I  recently read a book (sitting in the world famous Presby Memorial Iris Gardens) that is helpful for any one involved in looking at the business and company and industry as a whole. The process of understanding the artifacts of the business and how they fit together falls under the category of Enterprise Architecture. Developing and documenting an Enterprise Architecture is not for the faint of heart. It is a time-consuming and intellectual effort that could uncover roadblocks to change, the impact of a different or modified business model, a view of where the company stands in the industry. It is an extremely valuable exercise … again … not for the faint of heart.

For anyone involved in the Enterprise Architecture effort, I recommend this book by Tom Graves. It is an important book to have at your fingertips to help you remember all the other non-technical pieces associated with Enterprise Architecture.

“Doing Enterprise Architecture” is a must-have reference book. Tom Graves provides great information and advice on what needs to be captured when building an enterprise architecture for a company or industry. His framework is partitioned into logical pieces, each of which clearly explains what is needed. He provides thought-provoking questions on what to ask to uncover the necessary information (in concept and detail).

Though the book assumes the reader has exposure to other frameworks and libraries (BMM, FEAF, SEMPER, BRM, PRM, TOGAF, Zachman), I do not believe it is a necessary requirement. You can skip over the comparisons and jump right into capturing the essence and the nuts and bolts of the business or industry.

Tom knows what he is talking about. He concentrates on what needs to be captured, and leaves to you the choice of preferred techniques to model the information. To me, he provides the more important part of the process: although the ways in which information is captured has changed more over my life as a Business Architect, what needs to be known and captured rarely changes. Once the core architecture is complete, Tom provides additional information to keep the Enterprise Architecture living…to uncover information that will lead to changing the architecture and company.

This brings me to a final point: Who should read this book? Anyone that is interested in understanding the business. Anyone that is involved in transforming the business from one business model to another. Anyone assigned the task to help the enterprise understand its components (organizational, business, technical,.etc). This book, as enterprise
should never be, is NOT technology focused. Technology is a piece of the enterprise and should never be the driving force to documenting an enterprise architecture from the start. For this, I’m greatful for Tom’s book. This book looks at the whole of the enterprise. Anyone following his book will add real value to the corporation (or association, etc). I look forward to reading more of his material on Enterprise Architecture.