This document discusses the importance of enterprise architecture and planning for business solutions. It argues that failing to plan is like planning to fail, and provides examples of how individual systems developed without an overall plan can result in issues like those seen in the Winchester Mystery House. The document recommends defining a conceptual architecture with principles, policies, standards and taxonomy to provide a blueprint or high-level plan before embarking on projects. This helps understand current and future costs and capabilities, and provides a roadmap to transform systems in a coordinated way rather than creating duplicative, incompatible or unsustainable solutions.

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Value Proposition of
Architecture-Driven
Business Solutions

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Current context for
Member Organisations
Intense pressure to enhance
Member Engagement01
Demonstrate Value For Money02
03 Deliver excellent Customer Service
All against a background of
increasing costs and competitive
pressures on revenues.

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“Systems view”
of enterprise
“High level”
City Plan
to
is
analogous
“Failing to Plan is
Planning to Fail”
Planning relates to what you intend to build
just like an architect provides the high-level plan for a
new city, or, office block.

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Bizarre features
 A window built into
the floor.
 Staircases leading to
nowhere.
 A chimney that rises
four floors .
 Doors that open onto
blank walls .
 Upside down posts.
 Estimated cost for
constant building
over 38 years = US
$5.5 million
 Equivalent to over
$75 million in 2012.
you fail to plan, you end up like the
Winchester Mystery House, California
Winchester Mystery House

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Planning individual
systems without regard
to how they work with
other systems
Is like planning of the
Mystery House rooms.
Each room meticulously planned on paper
(even design of the table napkins)
But NO Blueprint or Architect's plans for overall
endeavour
Go Back to Basics
Go back to basics, and have a blueprint
before embarking on major building project.
Key Lesson

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Project sets off and starts to specify
detailed requirements and design the
solution.
Solution is selected and implementation
project set up with scope, deadline &
budget.
Broad requirement is identified (e.g.
Membership Management, Case
Management).
Typical IT Scenario

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Irreconcilable tension between
Scope, Time and Money.
This discovery period draws out:
 Infrastructure inadequacies e.g. network
bandwidth, porous website security, out-of-
support desktop operating and database
systems.
 New interfaces to existing systems for data
requirements.
Typical IT Scenario

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Unsupportable & Costly
legacy systems
Duplication of systems lead to
duplication of functionality
leading to complexity &
additional cost
Legacy applications persist
and over time become
unsupportable
Users & IT know that much of
the data is the same in
different systems but out of
sync
Members complain
“processes are not joined up”
and different processes exist
Users and systems make
mistakes because every
interface is different
Incomplete
solutions &
Failure to
de-commission
legacy
systems
“Boil-the-ocean” Projects

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Define a Conceptual Architecture
Principles
Key values &
beliefs to guide
actions and
decisions
regarding Business
Solutions
Policies
High-level
statements of
what we intend to
do with regard to
Business
Solutions.
Standards
Of Policy
Implementation
for methods, tools
and technology.
Taxonomy
Common
understanding of
key terminology
between
Business and its
Partners.
So What to DO?
A blueprint is not a detailed specification,
but rather an outline at a
coarse-grained component level.

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Use this information for planning
transformation programmes:
• Understand the Total Costs and Capabilities of
Current IT.
• Understand the Total Costs and Capabilities of
Future IT.
• Provide Options and Costs for the Implementation Roadmap.
The current state identify components to
retain & reuse, or upgrade or replace, and
identify gaps that must be filled.
The target future state in terms of
applications, data and infrastructure.
Create views (i.e. models)