Why enterprises need a sustainable world and a sustainable world needs sustainable enterprises. How enterprise architecture uses systemic thinking to achieve sustainability.

1. Architecting For A Sustainable
Enterprise
Stuart Boardman & Ed Harrington San Diego 4 February 2015
Stuart.Boardman@KPN.com
Ed.Harrington@Conexiam.com

2. • EA and Sustainability are Critically Linked – Our Argument
• What is Sustainability – Setting the Context
• Sustainable Organization – Essentials
• Sustainable Organization’s Ecosystem – Sort of an Onion
• Sustainability and EA Link – Systems Thinking
• Case Study – Smart Charging Ecosystem
• How? – Some Suggested Techniques
• Wrap-up and Questions
SUMMARYAGENDA

3. Our Argument
A sustainable world is necessary if any
organization is to have a future
A sustainable world needs sustainable
organizations
A prime goal of enterprise architecture is to
enable sustainability

4. Sustainable
Wikipedia
• …the capacity of a system to endure and remain
functional and productive over time
Taleb
• Antifragile
•Oxford
•Able to be maintained at a certain rate or level
•Able to be upheld or defended
•Merriam Webster
•….method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not
depleted or permanently damaged
•Able to last or continue for a long time

5. Sustainable Organizations
A sustainable organization is not one that “does”
sustainability (or has a CSR programme or
delivers sustainable solutions to society)
It is an organization that is itself sustainable (see
definitions)

6. Essentials for Sustainability

7. Life, Everything and the Universe.
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to
everything else in the universe. – John Muir

8. Sustainable Organization
is dependent on other parties: partners, suppliers,
customers, competitors….
and on factors such as innovation, investors,
resources, policy, society…..
and the other parties are dependent on yet other
parties and (in their own way) on those other factors
so the organization can only be sustainable if the
whole thing is sustainable
The success of an organization depends on the
collective health of all the organizations in a
business ecosystem.

9. It’s a Sort of Onion
What we have done for us
What we do
(and how that
works)
(And what we know about that)
What they have done for them
(that’s relevant for us)
And how it might affect us
What else affects their business
That we ought to keep an eye on
Economy
Resources
Policy
Innovation
Environment
Stakeholders
Customers
Employees
Investors
Society

10. SUMMARYWHAT IS TO BE DONE?
EA has the Holistic Perspective and Remit
to take the Wider – Sustainable – View
and approaches the organization not from
just the inside
but from the outside as well

11. This Requires Systems Thinking
Which is
what
enterprise
architects
do.
(If they’re
any good).
and systems of systems

12. Systemic Thinking
Central
organizational
principle is
relationship and
process – not
structure and
rules
Everything is
part of
something
Everything has an
outside
(environment) with
which it is in
varying degrees
(co)dependent

13. Reprise: The Big Onion – Case Study
“To understand any complex, adaptive system, we must look outside its limits”
We use the onion to:
• understand relationship between
parties
• Identify stakeholders and what
constitutes value for them
• Identify dependencies between
services (manual & auto)
• Identify external dependencies per
party

14. Smart Charging Ecosystem
(Taxi Driver)
http://blog.opengroup.org/2014/12/30/the-onion-from-the-inside-out/

15. The Taxi Driver’s Onion
Supplier
Taxi Driver
Local Government
DSO
Bulk Generator
Transmission Operator
For her, the value is primarily in
being able to charge the vehicle at
a convenient time, place, speed
and cost. But the perception of
what constitutes value in those
categories may vary depending
on whether she uses a public
charging station or charges at
home.
The service she uses is
focused on the
Supplier/Charging
operator, because that is
who she pays for the
service.
Factors like convenient time and
place may bring Local
Government into the picture,
because they are often the party
who make parking spaces for
electric vehicles available.

16. Local Government’s Onion
Supplier
Local
Government
DSO
Transmission Operator
Taxi Driver
Bulk Generator
Value for local government is
a question of policy balanced
by cost/gain (licenses and
parking fees). Policy is
influenced by the economy, by
the convictions of the
councilors, by lobbyists
(especially those connected
with the DSO, Bulk
Generators and Transmission
Operators), by innovation and
natural resources and by the
attitude of the public towards
electric vehicles, which in turn
may be influenced by national
government policy.

17. Distribution Service Operator’s Onion
Supplier
DSO
Taxi
Driver
Bulk Generator
Transmission Operator
Local Government
Value for the DSO involves
balancing its regulatory
obligation to provide continuity
of energy supply with the cost
of investment to achieve that
and with the public perception
of the value of that service.
The DSO also gains value in
terms of reputation from
investing in innovation and
energy saving. That value is
expressed in its own long-
term future as an enterprise. .

18. Other Techniques
The Viable Systems Model
• model whole system using above info
• ensure purpose & strategy fit
• ensure coordination
Uncertainty checklists & Post-Normal Science
• explicitly allows for subjectivity and working with
uncertainty
• Quantify uncertainty, significance per stakeholder, define
appropriate actions

19. The Viable System Model
• Stafford Beer (1972)
• A model for viable systems
• Purpose, Vision, Identity
• Feedback
• Fractal

20. PNS & Uncertainty
Checklists
Stakeholders
& their
interests
Which
stakeholders
are critical &
are they
sufficiently
involved?
What things
are uncertain,
to what extent
and how much
do they
matter?What do we
do if
something
completely
unexpected
occurs?
http://www.pbl.nl/sites/default/files/cms/publicaties/PBL_2013_Guidance
-for-uncertainty-assessment-and-communication_712.pdf

21. Theories/Frameworks/Insights
• Systemic thinking and sensemaking
– Beer & Ashby
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viable_system_model
• http://www.esrad.org.uk/resources/vsmg_3/screen.php?page=home
• http://www.fractal-consulting.com/VSM-Intro-Fractal.pdf
• http://talesoftheenterprise.com/2013/06/mr-ashbys-bright-idea/
– Funtowicz/Ravetz Post-normal Science http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-normal_science
Graves - Service Oriented Enterprise & SCAN
• http://weblog.tetradian.com/2014/10/29/services-and-ecanvas-review-summary/
• http://weblog.tetradian.com/2013/06/07/a-simpler-scan/
• http://weblog.tetradian.com/2015/01/29/toolsets-for-associative-modelling/
– Hodgson, Ison in Learning for Sustainability (ed Wals, Corcoran)
– Heuristics/common sense : BMC, TOGAF
– Via negativia – Taleb in Antifragile

22. Sustainable Architecture: a Profile
http://www.ruthmalan.com/Journal/2014/2014JournalJanuary.htm#Agility_Integrity_Sustain
ability
@ruthmalan

23. @ArtBourbon
www.kpnconsulting.nl
www.talesoftheenterprise.com
@ephassoc
www.ephassocllc.com
www.conexiam.com
THANKS