The Enterprise Is The Story

The enterprise is the story
Tom Graves, Tetradian Consulting
Australasian Enterprise Architecture Conference
Sydney, 19 October 2015

Hi. I’m Tom Graves.
(enterprise-architect, business-anarchist,
confusionist, nuisance, that kind of stuff…)

“What’s the story?”Why enterprise-
architecture?

What is
enterprise-architecture?
(lots of arguments about this…)

…it’s the architecture
of the enterprise.
What is
enterprise-architecture?
(yeah, I know, kinda obvious, really…)

…why enterprise-architecture?
Perhaps more usefully…
(what’s the point? why bother?)

“Enterprise architecture is done
to build better enterprises,
not merely better IT systems.”
One useful suggestion…
(Pallab Saha: ePragati)
[Andhra Pradesh State Enterprise Architecture]

…it’s Not A Good Idea…
Why architecture?
“the purpose of the system is
[expressed in] what it does”
Without architecture as anchor,
what we’d get is a random mix
of POSIWID:

Yes, this is EA…
(well, part of it, anyway…)
CC-BY-SA MysteryBee via Flickr
…and yes, IT-infrastructure is where current EA started
(back with frameworks like TOGAF versions 1-7)

Yet to understand the IT-infrastructure
(TOGAF versions 1-7)
we need to understand the applications
and the data in those applications…
(TOGAF version 8)

…to understand the applications and data
(TOGAF version 8)
we need to understand the business use
and meaning of the data…
(TOGAF version 8.1)

…to understand the business use of data
(TOGAF version 8.1)
we need to understand quite a bit more
about the business itself…
(TOGAF version 9)

…and to understand the business
(TOGAF version 9)
we need to understand the broader context
in which the business operates…
(TOGAF X, we hope?)

…because, in short,
everything in the enterprise
depends on everything else
(yes – even the IT)

…which gives us the real reason
for enterprise-architecture:
things work better
when they work together,
on purpose.
(kinda straightforward, yes?)

…what is
enterprise?
Yet to understand
enterprise-architecture,
we also need to ask…

…enterprise is…
In classical economics…

…“a bold endeavour
…the animal-spirits of
the entrepreneur”
CC-BY-ND archaeon via Flickr

…it’s about people,
doing things, together…
CC-BY-SA Nationalmuseet via Flickr

…but where are the people
in the usual EA story?

Hmm…
CC-BY-ND-SA ores2k via Flickr

Zachman has a ‘Who’ column…
CC-BY-NC-SA knnkanda via Flickr
…but it’s mainly about ‘users’…

…who somehow seem to look like this.
CC-BY justin pickard via Flickr

TOGAF does talk about…
Graphic: © The Open Group
…but again,
people here are
mostly described
as ‘users’…
‘Business
Architecture’…

In Business Model Canvas…
CC-BY Alex Osterwalder / Alan Smith et al
…we do have ‘Customer Segments’…

…who can
even look like
real people…
CC-BY Fretro via Flickr

…but inside the organisation…
CC-BY Alex Osterwalder / Alan Smith et al
…in ‘Key Activities’ and ‘Key Resources’…

…we’re back to ‘users’ again…

…at best, possibly-human…
CC-BY Vlima.com via Flickr

…or maybe not…
CC-BY aleutia via Flickr

In any case, a lot more like this…

…than like this.
CC-BY andré luís via Flickr

So how come it’s so different
to outside
when they’re often the same people?
from inside

…gonna hafta think about this…
CC-BY-ND alexsemenzato via Flickr

“What’s the story?”
What’s the story?

“Two points of view on architecture”
• Architecture is an exercise in truth
A proper building is responsible to universal
knowledge and is wholly honest in the expression of
its functions and materials
• Architecture is an exercise in narrative
Architecture is a vehicle for the telling of stories,
a canvas for relaying societal myths, a stage for the
theatre of everyday life
Chapter 84, in Matthew Frederick, 101 Things I Learned In Architecture School, MIT Press, 2007

• Architecture is an exercise in truth
A proper building is responsible to universal
knowledge and is wholly honest in the expression of
its functions and materials
• Architecture is an exercise in narrative
Architecture is a vehicle for the telling of stories,
a canvas for relaying societal myths, a stage for the
theatre of everyday life
The TL;DR version...
- architecture is about structure
- architecture is about story

Current EA emphasises structure...
So, here’s a structure...

CC-BY Avodrocc via Flickr
It’s called the Sambadromo...

Which, on its own,
doesn’t really tell us anything...
That’s the problem with structure.
To make sense of a structure,
we need the story...

CC-BY Boban021 via Flickr
...here, the story of Carnaval.

CC-BY sfmission via Flickr
For this city, a huge shared-story...

Full of colour, sound, spectacle...

...and occasional extremes...

But it’s more about
exuberance,
and pride...

The young(er)...

The old(er)...

The whole community...

Yet when the party’s over,
and it’s time to head home…

CC-BY otubo via Flickr
Someone must be there to clean up...
- because that’s part of the story too.

CC-BY jorgeBRAZIL via Flickr
Process, assets, data, locations....
- all the usual structure-stuff...
...all those necessary details
of organisation.

Organisation focusses on structure

yet the enterprise is the story.

The structure happens
because of the story.

Structures may be re-used
for other stories,
but the structure itself
is not the story.

CC-BY SheilaTostes via Flickr
A key task of enterprise-architecture
is to remember
and design for that fact,
Architecture is about structure.
Architecture is also about story.
We need both, to make it all happen.
maintaining the balance
between structure and story.

Who’s in the story?

Whose architecture?
Some of the ‘cast’ - stakeholders - in the Carnaval story.

“An architecture
describes structure
to support a shared-story.”
Whose architecture?
Organisation aligns with structure, enterprise with story.
We need a balance of both for the architecture to work.
Tom Graves, The Enterprise As Story, Tetradian, 2012

“We create an architecture
for an organisation,
but about an enterprise.”
Tom Graves, Mapping the Enterprise, Tetradian, 2010
Whose architecture?

“An organisation is bounded by
rules, roles and responsibilities;
an enterprise is bounded by
vision, values and commitments.”
Whose architecture?

A useful guideline:
“The enterprise in scope
should be three steps larger
than the organisation in scope.”
Whose architecture?

Whose story?
If the organisation says it ‘is’ the enterprise,
there’s no shared-story - and often, no story at all.

Whose story?
The minimum real enterprise is the supply-chain
- a story of shared transactions.

Whose story?
The organisation and enterprise of the supply-chain
take place within a broader organisation of the market.

Whose story?
The market itself exists within a context of ‘intangible’
interactions with the broader shared-enterprise story.

A stakeholder
in the story
is anyone
who can wield
a sharp-pointed
stake
in your direction…
CC-BY-NC-SA evilpeacock via Flickr
Stakeholders in the enterprise
(Hint: there are a lot
more of them than you
might at first think…)

“Customers do not appear
in our processes...
...we appear in their
experiences.”
Chris Potts, recrEAtion, Technics, 2010
Whose story?
We must create the architecture around the shared-story
- not solely around our organisation’s structures.

A vision for the story

…what story would be a ‘guiding star’,
to bring all of these stakeholders together?
Vision and values…
What works best is a three-part ‘story’:
-shared-concern (‘What’)
-action (‘How’)
- qualifier (‘Why’)

A myriad of ‘guiding stars’ out there…
…choose one that looks right to you.
Use it as your guiding-star. Everywhere.
Example (TED conferences): “Ideas worth spreading”

Concern: the focus of
interest to everyone in
the shared-enterprise
“Ideas worth
spreading”
CC-BY UK DFID via Flickr

“Ideas worth spreading”
Action: what is
being done to
or with or about
the concern
CC-BY US Army Africa via Flickr

“Ideas worth
spreading”
Qualifier:
the emotive
driver for action
on the concern
CC-BY HDTPCAR via Flickr

concern – action – qualifier?
So, what is
the vision for Carnaval?
To be honest,
I don’t know…

but I can see
it’s about joy,
exuberance,
and pride...

for the young(er)...

for the old(er)...

for the whole community...

that it involves the whole city...

…with some limits to its extremes…

as a party
for everyone…

And that those who clean up afterward
(because that’s also part of the story)…

would have been in the party too.

Supporting it all, there’s structure…

CC-BY otubo via Flickr
and anything else it may need…

The vision enacted as story.

…the enterprise as the story.
The vision
guides the enterprise…

…it’s Not A Good Idea…
Warning:
“the purpose of the system is
[expressed in] what it does”
Without shared-vision as anchor,
what we’d get is a random mix
of POSIWID:

“What’s the story?”Whose enterprise
is it, anyway?

Who owns Carnaval?

Whose enterprise?
All of these are stakeholders in the enterprise of Carnaval.

Whose enterprise?
• We choose to align with an enterprise
• We do not possess that enterprise
(if anything, it possesses us...)
• We have our own business-values,
but those must uphold the enterprise-values
• Note: values are not necessarily monetary
(for Carnaval, a monetary focus may destroy
enterprise-values of pride and community)

Whose enterprise?
Stakeholders and their respective business-drivers.

Whose enterprise?
• Each player is in relation with all other players
(the relation may be indirect, but it always exists)
• Players whose values align most closely with
the enterprise-values should take the lead
• Anti-clients may share same enterprise-vision
(but disagree with us on how it should be achieved)
• “All complex systems have parasites” [Cory Doctorow]
(grey-economy is parasitic to Carnaval)

Tracing the storyline

“Process is the use of structure
(the organisation view)
Plot is the unfolding of story
(the enterprise view)”
Process and plot

“Each traverse through
a business-process
is a self-contained story
with its own actors, actions
and events”
Process as story

The story-cycle
(adapted from classic
Group Dynamics
project-lifecycle and
VPEC-T framework)
(Start here)

Where’s the story?
“Story is everywhere
in enterprise-architecture
(once you know where to look)”

CC-BY AllBrazilian via Wikimedia
process-volume...
(look! – technology in use!)

business-scenario...

CC-BY ~ggvic~ via Flickr
use-case...

CC-BY fairfaxcounty via Flickr
resource-management...

CC-BY Jack Zalium via Flickr
transaction...

CC-BY quaziefoto via Flickr
exchange-protocol...

CC-BY Alicia Nijdam via Flickr
governance...

CC-BY-SA adriagarcia via Flickr
system-overload...

CC-BY rodrigofranca via Flickr
standards...
and risks...

customer-experience...

CC-BY elbragon via Flickr
...customer-journey?

“Customers do not appear
in our processes...
...we appear in their stories.”
paraphrase from Chris Potts, recrEAtion, Technics, 2010
And remember...
Our organisation acts within the scope of the enterprise:
think broader-enterprise first - outside-in, not inside-out.

What kind of story?

Four types of stories
• Single-shot: enterprise delimited by one project
with a clear ‘character-arc’ or change
• Sequel: re-uses a previous enterprise,
but often without any new character-arc
• Series: different stories within the same ‘world’
bounded by the enterprise
• Serial: continuing stories within a ‘world’
(Most enterprise-stories work best as series or serial.)

The strategy-cycle
(overall cycle and relationships
need to be kept in balance)

The market-cycle
(transactions depend on (reaffirmed) reputation and trust)

The market-cycle
(transactions depend on (reaffirmed) reputation and trust)
boundary of ‘market’
in conventional
business-models
??
??
??
??

‘Quick-money’ failure-cycle
(incomplete short-cut
after transaction-profit
slowly erodes trust / respect,
breaks continuity of market-cycle)

Staging the story

Technology
CC-BY-SA xdxd_vs_xdxd via Flickr
Process
People

Stage
CC-BY-SA xdxd_vs_xdxd via Flickr
Scene
Actor
ActorStage
Stage
Stage
Stage
Stage
Scene
Scene

“The world is made of stories”
• The enterprise itself is a story –an overarching theme
• Enterprise as ongoing story of relations between people
– the actors of the story
• Enterprise-story comprised of smaller stories – the
scenes or story-lines (aka ‘processes’)
• Enterprise-story takes place in a setting – the stage and
its context (technology), location, props (artefacts) etc
• Stories thrive on conflict, tension and uncertainty – in
contrast to machines, which generally don’t…

Scenes in the story
Split story into identifiable scenes, with begin, middle, end
CC-BY TheArches via Flickr

Scenes in the story
Process-story as identifiable scenes, with begin, middle, end

Show, don’t tell
Each line of action drives the story forward

Show, don’t tell
Each line of action drives the story forward
CC-BY-ND Kecko via Flickr

The role of props
Each item has its place, and drives the story onward

Each item has its place, and drives the story onward
CC-BY-ND Kecko via Flickr
The role of props

Maintain the mood
Computers may not have feelings, but people do:
how does the whole EA support the mood we need?
CC-BY-ND alanclarkdesign via Flickr

Simple changes
have roadmaps like
city streets…
…that story of change
is quite easy to
describe and explain…
…mapped out in terms
of (time)-horizons and
simple cross-
dependencies

Large-scale change is
more like setting out
to explore an
uncharted ocean…
…it needs a different kind
of planning…
…a different kind of
story…

A real example
Major business-
transformation project
(c.5 years, US$100mil)
Model developed by and provided
courtesy of Ondrej Gálik

Essentials for the journey…
Platform for change: tools, systems,
processes, models, records, funds,
resources
People for change: skills, experience,
teamwork, commitment; tools for
sensemaking, decisions, governance
Guidance for change: maps of the
known (as-is) and ideal (to-be); rules,
principles, navigation, ‘guiding-star’

Describing the story

Most current EA toolsets
are for design of static structures...

...yet we also need our tools
to support the story.

“A challenge to vendors of
EA toolsets: we need
stronger support for story
within our EA tools:
images, audio, video and more.”
Supporting the story

From structure to story
(Published variants of Business Model Canvas)
Alex Osterwalder / Alan Smith and others (cc) 2012

From structure to story
“Business Model Canvas In 2 Minutes” (YouTube: http://youtu.be/QoAOzMTLP5s )
Alex Osterwalder / Alan Smith / businessmodeltv and others (cc) 2012

Often excellent on structure...

Solution-architect’s toolset

– pen and paper
…which might explain why
the most-used EA tools are:
– whiteboard
– just plain talking with people,
sharing stories

CC-BY-SA MattHurst via Flickr
Enterprise-architect’s toolset

we need
better toolsets
As enterprise-architects,
for
better stories!

A coda to this story…

CC-BY Amanda M Hatfield via Flickr
A gentle warning…

CC-BY-NC-ND Chris Blakely via Flickr
literally, ‘the god
out of the machine’…

CC-BY-NC-ND datmater via Flickr
…do you see
the person first,
or the machine?

CC-BY-NC Drew Shannon via Flickr
…do you see
the person first,
or the machine?

“it’s not not about the
technology”
– Andrew McAfee
Sure, the technology
is an important ‘enabler’…

it’s about the enterprise
Yet it should never be about
technology itself…
– about people and
their enterprise

“Enterprise architecture is done
to build better enterprises,
not merely better IT systems.”
Remember that earlier suggestion…
(Pallab Saha: ePragati)
[Andhra Pradesh State Enterprise Architecture]

Guard against
that tendency to worship the machine…
CC-BY burnaway via Flickr

…lest we ourselves become machines…CC-BY-ND tburns via Flickr

Our ‘users’ aren’t mere extensions
of the machine…

…they’re people…
CC-BY-SA Nationalmuseet via Flickr

…people like us.
CC-BY andré luís via Flickr

Stage.
Actors.
The architecture of the enterprise.
Scenes.

…people are the story.
People are the enterprise…
The enterprise as story.

What’s the story?So wherever we are in architecture,
we also need to be able to describe...
wherever we see structure,

“What’s the story?”“What’s the story?”“What’s the story
for your enterprise?”

What’s the story?Enterprise architecture…
enterprise as story…

Contact: Tom Graves
Company: Tetradian Consulting
Email: tom@tetradian.com
Twitter: @tetradian ( http://twitter.com/tetradian )
Weblog: http://weblog.tetradian.com
Slidedecks: http://www.slideshare.net/tetradian
Publications: http://tetradianbooks.com
Books: • The enterprise as story: the role of narrative in enterprise-
architecture (2012)
• Mapping the enterprise: modelling the enterprise as services
with the Enterprise Canvas (2010)
• Everyday enterprise-architecture: sensemaking, strategy,
structures and solutions (2010)
• Doing enterprise-architecture: process and practice in the real
enterprise (2009)
Further information:

The Enterprise Is The Story

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