Does Agile EA Equal Agile Plus EA?

Copyright © 2015, Intellyx, LLC
1
Does Agile Enterprise
Architecture Equal Agile
Plus Architecture?
Jason Bloomberg
President
jason@Intellyx.com
@TheEbizWizard

About Jason Bloomberg
• President of Intellyx
• Advise companies on their digital
transformation initiatives & help vendors
communicate their agility stories
• Write for Forbes and Wired
on Digital Transformation
• Buy my latest book,
The Agile Architecture
Revolution
Copyright © 2015, Intellyx, LLC2

Open Group Starting
Point
“EA needs to catch up with the
agile approach, not ‘Agile as such’.”
“‘Agile’ is a loaded term and largely
associated with building solutions
rather than the Enterprise
Architecture.”
Allen Brown, President & CEO
The Open Group

“Agile” Starting Point:
The Agile Manifesto
Manifesto for Agile Software Development
We are uncovering better ways of developing
software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:
– Individuals and interactions over processes
and tools
– Working software over comprehensive
documentation
– Customer collaboration over contract
negotiation
– Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on
the right, we value the items on the left more.
Source:http://www.agilemanifesto.org

Context: Software
Development
• Focus on small teams
that crank out code
• Iterative, self-
organizing,
collaborative
• Focus on creating
working software
Well-run Agile development means
producing a lot of good software
quickly
PhotoCredit:PhilWhitehousehttps://www.flickr.com/photos/philliecasablanca/2473728872/sizes/l

What about Architecture
on Agile Projects?
• We don’t need no stinkin’
architecture!
• Architecture lumped in with
documentation (less is more)
• Architects slow down
developers
• Architects produce artifacts
that aren’t Agile
– Lead to extra work
PhotoCredit:Yortwhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/yortw/5470226807/sizes/l
Widespread belief that Agile and
Architecture don’t mix

Why Agile Software
Architecture isn’t Agile
• Agile movement focuses on working software
– Focus on getting the software to meet its
requirements
– Get all roadblocks out of the way
• Agile-built software is coded to be fit for purpose
PhotoCredit:B4beeshttps://www.flickr.com/photos/brizo_the_scot/4013939756/sizes/l

The Goal of Agile
Software
• Requirement to build software that responds to
changing requirements
• Inherent flexibility vs. rapid development &
deployment
PhotoCredit:RobertCouse-Bakerhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/29233640@N07/14859431605/sizes/z/

Extending the Agile
Manifesto
• Individuals and interactions over
processes and tools
– As a system of people & technology,
the enterprise is more about people
• Working software over comprehensive
documentation
– Technology must actually work to
enable agility
• Customer collaboration over contract
negotiation
– Slice across the silos
• Responding to change over following a
plan
– Architect for change
PhotoCredit:MaryMargrethttps://www.flickr.com/photos/double-m2/4384578534/sizes/l

Scaling Agile for the
Enterprise
• Enterprise
Architecture context
– Organization,
process, technology,
and information
• Legacy context
– Existing applications,
middleware, systems of record
• Business focused, iterative, get stuff
to work, iconoclastic
PhotoCredit:BostonPublicLibraryhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/8962106164/sizes/l

Agile EA & Architecture
Frameworks
• Architecture frameworks (TOGAF,
Zachman, DoDAF, etc.) do not adequately
address business agility
– Difficult to use properly
– Can help achieve
baseline or specific
business outcomes
PhotoCredit:StephanieOvertonhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/sloverton/7303570930/sizes/l

What about Agility?
• Business agility is a
metarequirement
• Requirement that
requirement change
must be supported
PhotoCredit:THORhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/geishaboy500/
Requirement: Make the
Organization More Agile

“Meta” Thinking
• Remember, we’re architecting for
change
• Agile architect doesn’t think about
the thing, but about how it changes
• Metaprocesses
– Processes for creating, managing,
changing processes
• Metapolicies
– Policies for creating, managing,
changing policies
– In other words, policies for how to
do governance
PhotoCredit:SkaraCommunhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/63794459@N07/6189381851/sizes/l

Change at the Meta Level
• In fact, your entire
architecture subject to
change
• We need a meta-
architecture: an
architecture for
building inherently
dynamic architectures
• The key to thinking like
an Agile Architect!
PhotoCredit:UKMinistryofDefencehttps://www.flickr.com/photos/defenceimages/

Different Meanings of
“Agile”
• “Agile-with-a-capital-A”
– Software development
that follows the Agile
Manifesto
• General meaning of
“agile”
– Business agility as
property of an
organization

Business Agility
• Responsiveness
– Tactical value
• Resilience
– Risk mitigation
• Innovativeness
– Strategic value
PhotoCredit:MasoniteBurnhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/masonite-burn/6273626739/sizes/l
Ability to respond to change in the
business environment and leverage
change for competitive advantage

Understanding the
Business Agility Driver
• Architects must recognize and identify agility
drivers
• Stakeholders may or may not identify drivers as
such
• Business drivers
always connect to
bottom line (and
mission priority in
public sector)
PhotoCredit:WestVancouverArchiveshttps://www.flickr.com/photos/westvanarchives/7153091139/sizes/o/

Architecting Human-
Technology Systems
• Architecting technology isn’t
enough
• You have to architect the
people as well
• Organizational and process
layers rightfully part of EA
• Business architecture also
focuses on human behavior
PhotoCredit:JaviMhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/84578994@N07/

Architecting People?
• Governance: creating, communicating, and
enforcing policies
– Apply to both human & technology behavior
– Policy-related processes
• Automated & lightweight
• Focus on important policies
– Security
– Regulatory compliance
– Software interface standards
Not a traditional approach to governance!
PhotoCredit:DaveCatchpolehttps://www.flickr.com/photos/yaketyyakyak/5913250849/sizes/l

Where’s Our Business
Agility?
• Organizations must be responsive, resilient, and
innovative
• Business agility is a property of the enterprise
• People and technology can be flexible as well,
but we must architect our organizations to be
agile
PhotoCredit:StuartBerwickhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/lapleader/793507962/sizes/l

Introducing Complex
Adaptive Systems
• Systems of systems
that exhibit emergent
properties
– Properties of system
as a whole
• Component systems
can be human,
technology, etc.
• Self-organizing
PhotoCredit:DirectDishhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/13800911@N08/3557789021/sizes/l

Enterprise as Complex
Adaptive System
• Business agility is
property of organization
as a whole, hence an
emergent property
of the organization
• Enterprise is system of
systems that exhibits
emergent properties
– System of people and
technology
PhotoCredit:agu2000_dehttps://www.flickr.com/photos/38123550@N00/166930597/sizes/o/

Business Agility as Emergent
Property of Enterprise
• We want our organizations to
be agile
• Individual subsystems
(people or technology) can be
flexible, but business agility is
a property of the enterprise
(or possibly portions of the
enterprise)
• Innovativeness, resilience,
responsiveness also emergent
PhotoCredit:fotologichttps://www.flickr.com/photos/fotologic/1161333950/sizes/o/

Engineering a Complex
System
• Architecture focuses on the overall
design of a system
– How all components of the system
must work together to achieve
business goals
• Engineering focuses on the best way
to build and run a system
– Lifecycle best practices (quality
assurance, deployment, updates, etc.)
– Compliance with architecture
Agile principle: respond to change over
following a plan
PhotoCredit:Brent2.0https://www.flickr.com/photos/brentinoz/4221291984/sizes/o/

At the Heart of Agile
Architecture
• Think of the enterprise as a system of systems
– Component systems are people and technology
systems
• We must architect the organization so entire
enterprise exhibits business
agility
• We can only engineer
business agility via its
component systems
• Change is constant & how
changes to component
systems affect the enterprise is unpredictable
PhotoCredit:nickodohertyhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/nick-od/9151191333/sizes/l

Complex vs. Traditional
Systems
• Avoid emergent properties in traditional systems
• Traditional system: given requirements, build
to requirements
• Complex system: establish initial conditions
and rules for behavior of
component systems,
and emergence takes
care of itself
– Feedback loops are
common
PhotoCredit:FrancoFolinihttps://www.flickr.com/photos/livenature/8064660509/sizes/l

The Secret to Emergence
• Rules that affect behavior of
component systems can be
very simple
• Emergent behaviors often
unpredictable
• Try something, see what
happens, repeat
• Feedback loops & iterative
approaches
PhotoCredit:JuanLeishttps://www.flickr.com/photos/kaibara/4632384645/sizes/l
Sound Agile to You?

Continuous Business
Transformation
• With Agile EA there is no to-
be architecture
– Not in the physical sense
• Instead, the focus of the
architecture is expecting and
supporting ongoing change by
specifying technology that is
inherently flexible
• Architects must begin at the
Meta layer
PhotoCredit:ShawnCarpenterhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/spcbrass/4388396268/sizes/l

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