Respect as an architectural issue: a case-study in business survival

Respect as an architectural issue - a case-study in business survival Tom Graves , Tetradian Consulting IRM-EAC London, June 2011 info@tetradian.com / www.tetradian.com 12 Jun 2011 (c) Tom Graves / Tetradian 2011

Scope of enterprise-architecture (this, we’re often told, is the entire scope of enterprise-architecture )

Scope of enterprise-architecture (complete EA includes many other intersecting ‘ architectures ’ – security, process, brand, organisation etc)

Enterprise-architecture beyond IT
EA often starts with IT infrastructure , but...
IT tech-architecture depends on applications
Applications-architecture depends on data
Data-architecture depends on business-info need
Information-architecture depends on business
Business-architecture depends on enterprise
Enterprise-architecture defines the context
An enterprise-architecture must have whole-of-enterprise scope – it ’ s not just detail-level IT!

A question of maturity 12 Jun 2011 (c) Tom Graves / Tetradian 2010 (adapted from maturity-model in TOGAF 9, chapter 51)

TOGAF scope in maturity-model 12 Jun 2011 (c) Tom Graves / Tetradian 2010 TOGAF 8.1 TOGAF 9 (...everything else is just ‘detail stuff’) Main emphasis of TOGAF, for IT-architecture only ‘ Big-picture’ strategy Pain-points + wicked-problems But business most wants us to work on these...

The business problem “ Loss of respect ” – fallen from most-respected bank in region to least-respected bank

Symptoms …
Deterioration in customer relations
Deterioration in government relations
Deterioration in community relations
Severe loss of morale in all staff areas
Difficulties in recruiting and retention
Unresolved operational, technical and cultural problems from previous merger with other bank
No real strategy to address any of this...
All of these having significant, identifiable impacts on bottom-line performance

… and requests
Request is from Organizational Development unit:
Identify the problem-areas
Identify ‘anchors to unify the tribes’
Create experience in use of whole-enterprise view and whole-system techniques
Prepare executive-team for real strategy-work
Combined effort of business-transformation and enterprise-architecture
(will include IT-architectures etc at a later date, when business-issues have been identified)

Stage 1: Meeting with executive-team

First meeting …
One-day offsite for 32-person executive team, but :
Participants wander in at random, up to half an hour after scheduled start
People answer their phones, texting, jump out of meeting to take calls
CEO is worst offender in this – probably >10 times...
CIO sits off to one side, isolated from the team, using her laptop throughout most of the day
A simple question:
how does this reflect respect within org itself?

Five Elements in all organisations (adapted from classic Group Dynamics project-lifecycle)

Five Elements workshop
Provides a quick, experiential means to introduce systems-thinking to practical business-folk:
Describe roles within each ‘element’
Describe the ‘other’ roles from each role
“ we’re right, everyone else is wrong”
“ All move round one” – suddenly feels ‘unfair’
Different views, roles, time-perspectives
these arise from the work itself
What happens if one ‘element’ dominates?
What happens if no-one keeps the balance?

Working with Five Elements (Five Element workshop in progress, for a different organisation)

Functional Business Model (typical Functional Business Model, for a different organisation) Describe the structure of the work, how each part relates to other parts, and who is responsible

How is this business structured? (Functional Business Model process, with photos, for a different client)

Music as metaphor
Powerful experience of interdependence in org’n
Basic exercises – hit the beat, simple sequence
need to listen to each other, and to instructions
Complications – orchestrating multiple sequences
align with own team, yet also listen to others
Complexity – interweaving patterns
respond as a collective to natural ‘unorder’
Freeform ‘chaos’ – adapting in the moment
real-time responsibility for ‘feel’ of the whole
Aligns strongly with Latin culture, though can also be used elsewhere

Music as metaphor (music as metaphor for team-coordination – executive-team from another organisation)

Stage 2: Set-piece with frontline staff

Out in the firing-line … (workshop-facilitator in theatre with 400 frontline staff)

Getting issues out into the open … (each group described their issues and challenges at work)

What ’ s going on for the front line?
A very broad range of unaddressed issues:
Loss of morale – e.g. “I’m embarrassed to tell my friends that I work for the bank...”
Clashing imperatives – e.g. issue credit-cards vs withdraw credit, confused risk-management
Clashing performance-metrics between teams
Cultural mismatch – individual vs collective
Operational / IT-issues – e.g. multiple apps needed for single task, manual crosslinks needed
...all with real impacts on business effectiveness

Stage 3: Back with the executive-team

Back to the future...
Another one-day offsite with the executive...
Report from the frontline – ‘bad news’ that they could not afford to ignore
Organisation vs enterprise – create a better understanding of their place in business world
The market-cycle – where respect and trust come from, and why they’re crucial for business
The structure of strategy – why their current ‘non-strategy’ could not create success – and what to do next to make it work
...and this time they did turn up on time!

Organisation and enterprise
We create an architecture for an organisation, but about an enterprise:
Enterprise : a social structure defined by vision, values, mutual commitments
Organisation : a legal structure defined by rules, roles, responsibilities
The enterprise is – provides motivation , WHY
The organisation does – provides action , HOW
They’re fundamentally different – don ’ t mix them up!

Organisation as ‘ the enterprise ’
From a business perspective, this is the effective scope of TOGAF ’ s ‘ business architecture ’

Business-model as ‘ the enterprise ’
Typical business-model or supply-chain view (complete supply-chain should extend beyond this)

Market as ‘ the enterprise ’
Overall market includes actors who do not yet have active transactions with us, or have other transactions

The real scope of ‘ the enterprise ’
The overall enterprise has many actors who may have only ‘ intangible ’ transactions / interactions with us (yet can have major impacts on our business)

The market-cycle
transactions depend on (reaffirmed) reputation and trust
– loss of trust creates anti-clients!
boundary of ‘market’ in conventional business-models

Strategy, tactics, operations (overall cycle and relationships need to be in balance)

The ‘ quick-money ’ failure-cycle (common source of ‘unexpected’ failure – focus only on immediate profit, with classic “ last year +10% ” used as a substitute for strategy)

Completions and the market-cycle
Production-focus, market-focus, enterprise-focus?
Focus only on Production Focus on Market and its transactions

The structure of vision
Vision is the overall anchor for everything
‘ vision ’ in the ISO9000 sense – not ‘ marketing puff ’
Vision-descriptor has distinct 3-part structure
focus [noun]: context or things of concern to everyone
action [verb]: what is to be done to or in the focus
qualifier [adjective]: why this is important to everyone
Example: ‘ ideas worth spreading ’ (TED conferences)
‘ ideas ’ (focus)
‘ worth ’ (qualifier)
‘ spreading ’ (action)
Components may be in any order, but all must be present

Putting themselves on the line …
Visioning was a huge struggle...
Could not break free from self-centrism – kept reverting to standard ‘marketing puff’
After three hours... – finally arrived a vision-statement that was fully enterprise-inclusive
‘ creating better financial futures’
Another real challenge (but a happier one!)
Performing music for families and colleagues
simple percussion, as in the previous sessions
... provided a first-hand reminder of what it’s like to be out there on the business front-line

Business outcomes

What happens next?
Practical outcomes for Organisational Development
Executive did create a true business-strategy – for the first time ever, apparently...
Leveraging vision – as a guide and descriptor for all enterprise relationships
Rethinking culture – creating shared-learning between executive and front-line
Rethinking performance-metrics – a joint effort between OrgDev, HR, BPM, IT and others
...and yes, some of this did link into the existing IT-centric ‘enterprise-architecture’

Summary
The real key to enterprise-architecture is enterprise culture
Architecture is for an organisation, but is always about the whole enterprise
Always start from a real business-problem
in this case, the loss of respect in the marketplace
Keep the focus on one area at a time, but always remain aware of the whole
A real enterprise-architecture begins and ends with people – not solely the enterprise-IT

Many thanks!

Further detail: books by Tom Graves
Doing Enterprise Architecture : process and practice in the real enterprise
Everyday Enterprise Architecture : sensemaking, strategy, structures and solutions
Mapping the Enterprise : modelling the enterprise as services with the Enterprise Canvas
Bridging the Silos : enterprise architecture for IT-architects
The Service Oriented Enterprise : enterprise architecture and viable systems
Real Enterprise Architecture : beyond IT to the whole enterprise
SEMPER and SCORE : enhancing enterprise effectiveness
Power and Response-ability : the human side of systems
( see tetradianbooks.com for details )
12 Jun 2011 (c) Tom Graves / Tetradian 2010

http://weblog.tomgraves.org	51
http://weblog.tetradian.com	15
http://eablogs.gotze.eu	7
url_unknown	7
http://weblog.tomgraves.eu	5
http://bitly.com	4
http://paper.li	2
http://web1.conversationminer.com	2
http://mikerrr.livejournal.com	1

Respect as an architectural issue: a case-study in business survival

by Tetradian Consulting on Jun 12, 2011

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

9 Embeds 94

Statistics

Respect as an architectural issue: a case-study in business survival Presentation Transcript