EA and Civil Engineering: Overcoming Stakeholder Buy-In

1. EA : IT Civil Engineering (ITCE) Association of Enterprise Architects Washington DC Chapter November 9, 2005 By John C. Wu Peaitce@yahoo.com

2. Abstract and Bio John C. Wu Planning and Engineering Manager Management Systems Designers, INC. (MSD) Abstract : This presentation suggests that EA is nothing new to be confused. Relax! It is only the good old Civil Engineering in the information age to share common IT resources in the people oriented civil community. EA is still evolving and there are many different EA approaches and directions depending on whom you talk to. EA is here to stay and will become a part of the information age culture. However, only the EA approaches that can overcome the challenge of buy-in from stakeholders will success. This presentation suggests that EA may reuse the Civil engineering approach to overcome the challenge of buy-in from stakeholders instead of reinventing the wheel. The civil engineering approach, which is the engineering of public work, has been the historical solution to the challenge of buy-in from the people oriented civil community. The civil engineering approach overcomes the challenge of buy-in from the stakeholders via political processes in the people oriented civil community by: Comprehending the big picture to know the stakeholders. Focusing on commonality to achieve consensus. Keeping it simple with reusable patterns for every community. Working from bottom up to provide the services. Engaging full communication for total participation. www.e-cio.org

3. Abstract and Bio Mr. Wu is an employee of Management Systems Designers INC (MSD) in Washington DC Metropolitan area. He has served as an Enterprise Architect in the US Department of Homeland Security component of Immigration Customs Enforcement (DHS ICE) and the legacy INS since 1998.  Mr. Wu was a Registered Professional Civil Engineer in his previous career. The inter discipline of EA and Civil Engineering enable Mr. Wu to recognize the similarity between EA and Civil Engineering. He has applied this concept for many years in DHS ICE and have produced very useful EA products. Mr. Wu has also been the Director of Computer Support of the Office of Assistant Secretary of Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) where he managed the information technology program involving IT policy, system management, application development, network management and IT security. Mr. Wu holds a Master Degree on Computer Science from Florida Institute of Technology and a Master Degree on Civil Engineering from Howard University in Washington DC. www.e-cio.org

4. It is all about people • Civil engineering is the engineering of public work. The word of “Civil” says it is all about people. • Traditionally, public works are roads, bridge, water and sewer . • In information age, public works are extended to application services, information resources and technology infrastructure. • EA is all about people. [Ambler, 2003] • After all the significant effort to design the architecture, the architects find out that “buy-in from stakeholders” is not guaranteed • “Buy-in from stakeholder” is the key EA success factor. www.e-cio.org

5. Use political processes to secure buy-in • Government relies on political process of legislation, Executive and Judicial branches. • Civil engineering use political process to secure buy-in from stakeholders. • EA governance places the political processes for making and enforcing IT related policies into business realm of the enterprise [Bolton, 2003] www.e-cio.org

6. How to secure buy-in from stakeholders • Governance processes established with consensus from the stakeholders to empower the legitimacy for enforcement. • Compliance processes enforce the architecture standards. • Comprehend the big picture to know the business and stakeholders • Building consensus over common denominator • Keep it simple by reuse patterns • Bottom up to provide services • Communication Governance Framework www.e-cio.org

7. 1.0 Comprehend the big picture • Almost all of EA depends on knowing what is the enterprise. Many stove pipe systems are created due to lack of big picture. • Comprehend the big picture requires special discipline; Seeing the forest is not trivial. • Civil engineers comprehend the big picture via survey and mapping • EA comprehends the big picture via the Business architecture architecture effort. www.e-cio.org

8. 1.1 Business & Solution Architecture • Business Architecture is the bridge between enterprise strategic planning to the solution architecture. • It translate the strategic planning to tangible requirements for the solution architecture. (as shown) • EA resolve the challenge of stove pipe system based the big picture of the enterprise. • Business Architecture describes the big picture of the enterprise. • Solution Architecture which include application architecture, data architecture and technology architecture is the automation solution for the enterprise Strategic Planning Business Architecture EA Solution Architecture www.e-cio.org

9. 1.2 EA is not business process centric • EA is not business process centric as it is in Application development and BPR. • Common foundation by definition is generic to specific business processes. • Physical architecture is not a function of business logic, it is driven by workload and performance requirement. • Business processes subject to localization. It requires significant effort to exhaust all the enumeration of business process sequence. • ITCE describe the business logic with function decomposition rather then business process modeling • BPR is a dedicated paradigm to business processes optimization. It is not the best value of EA in redundancy. www.e-cio.org

10. 1.3 Business Architecture • Business Architecture is described by the attributes of why, How, What, Who, Where and When based on the Zachman framework with modification. • The Mission (Why) • The Functions (How) • The Information (What) • The Organization (Who) • The Location (Where) • The Workload and performance requirement (When) • The Enterprise Definition (Who, Where, When) describes the enterprise. WHY Mission Functions Performance HOW Function WHAT Information WHO Organizations WHERE Enterprise Definition Locations WHEN Peak Hour www.e-cio.org

11. 2.0 Building consensus on common denominator • Civil Engineering overcomes the challenge of buy-in from stakeholders by focus on the common infrastructure, resources and services. • It is difficult for every one to agree on every thing , there is always a common denominator upon which they can agree. • Civil engineers and city planners do not design every building in the city. It does not only requires significant investment of time and cost but also very difficult to earn buy-in from the stakeholders. www.e-cio.org

12. 2.1 The EA paradigm • EA looks for commonality between the differences to enable the agility of automation. • It is a distinct paradigm of its own to comprehend the big picture and conduct the engineering of reuse and sharing. • Strategic planning establish the vision, direction to transform the enterprise. It has been an established paradigm. • BPR optimizes unique processes to win competitive advantage. It is an established paradigm where various processes depend on local culture. • EA and BPR are complement to each other to support application development for strategic direction as shown on the next exhibit. www.e-cio.org

13. 2.2 The EA paradigm context Application development automate business processes to support enterprise strategy Strategic Planning is responsible for enterprise transformation with vision and direction. Strategic Planning BPR look for uniqueness to win competitive edge , it subject localization and also encourage stove pipe systems. BPR Enterprise Architecture Application Development EA looks for commonality to resolve stove pipe systems and enable agile application development, www.e-cio.org

14. 2. 3 Nothing is new under the sun • There are different layers of commonality and there are different approaches to establish the commonality in an enterprise. The following commonality model is establish to distinguish the different layers of commonality. • The unique business layer in the enterprise. • The common patterns within the lines of business (LOB) in the industry. • The common patterns between a group of LOB within the enterprise. • The general common patterns for the enterprise. www.e-cio.org

15. 3.0 Keep It Simple by reuse patterns • Civil engineering secure buy-in by keep it simple. Civil Engineering has never been too difficult to any civil community. • Engineering handbooks and design charts present significant engineering patterns, best practices and design templates so the engineers can pick and choose to keep it simple. • The FEAPMO reference models is in the same direction to identify the reuse patterns. Background www.e-cio.org

16. 3.1 The Enterprise Reference Model • The Enterprise Reference Model (ERM) is a 3-D expression of the FEAPMO reference models. • There are common application services, information resources and technology infrastructure patterns to vertically associate LOB. • ERM contains the common reuse solution patterns base on LOB and the enterprise performance requirements (size). • Enterprise can pick and chose their automation solution patterns from ERM. Lines of Businesses BRM SRM PRM DRM TRM Performance requirement www.e-cio.org

17. 3.2 Establish common foundation from LOBs • Civil engineers establishes the public work based on high level city zoning designations such as the commercial, residential and industrial. • Enterprise can design the common foundation from their LOBs and associated patterns from high level business architecture without the significant effort of a water fall approach. Enterprise Law Enforcement Budget & Finance Human Resources Legal Services Application Patterns Data Patterns Technology Patterns www.e-cio.org

18. 3.3 LOB driven approach www.e-cio.org

19. 4.0 Bottom up to provide services • Reuse patterns from LOB enable bottom up solution. • The value of EA is to provide the agility to accommodate the dynamic of local business process reengineering. • The common foundation include infrastructure, resources and services as shown in the following table. www.e-cio.org

20. 4.1 ITCE Model • A short list of standards and patterns does not constitute an architecture. • ITCE is the engineering of reuse and sharing. • The engineering of reuse is base on patterns to establish standards. • The engineering of sharing establish the architecture common foundation architecture base on enterprise definition of organization, geographic distribution and workload. Background www.e-cio.org

21. 4.2 Top down and Bottom Up • ITCE model combines the top down and bottom approach. The Bottom up approach is not a random, it has an implicit top down side. • Align to business based on LOB in a top down approach to define the standards and patterns. • Design enterprise architecture bottom up with the selected patterns and standards based on enterprise definition. www.e-cio.org

22. 4.3 EA Artifact Framework www.e-cio.org

23. 5.0 Communication ! Communication ! • Communication is fundamental to secure buy-in. • Civil engineering information has become common knowledge . • They use drawings as the container to pass architecture information to the community. • EA information has not become common knowledge among application developers due to lack of basic communication mechanism. • ITCE suggests the following communication model using drawing set, documents with web technology. www.e-cio.org

24. 5.1 Communication model www.e-cio.org

25. 5. 2 EA drawings • ITCE adopt the traditional architecture drawing approach to communicate with stakeholders. • Architects and Engineers use drawings to communicate with stakeholders. It overcome the language barrier and can become international. • The drawings serve as the container which can be certified and delivered to the stakeholders similar to a token or a package in the network communication world. • ITCE propose the drawing sets as shown on the prototype. • Business architecture. • Application architecture. • Data architecture. • Infrastructure architecture. . www.e-cio.org

26. 5. 3 EA Portal • EA portal delivers updated information using web technology to the stakeholders at the right time. • ITCE portal is based on the following implementation framework . www.e-cio.org