Walk the Talk

My last posts have been very much focused and following a red line, so now I am trying to pick up some loose ends. There is one thing which bugs me quite often when I am doing Enterprise Architecture work. There is way to much focus on talking about Enterprise Architecture. Something which is also reflected by following twitter post:

I suspect that the primary job role of Enterprise Architects is to argue with other EAs about what #entarch is. Prove me wrong, people.
— Kevin Brennan (@bakevin) 7. Februar 2013

My personal observation is that Architects actually discuss about Enterprise Architecture, but do in most cases not argue. This is a differentiation I find very important, because an argumentation chain would at least provide a red line why one approach is chosen over the other. By looking at the pure amount of frameworks and tools in the market and the amount of new players entering that space it is quite obvious that Enterprise Architecture is at the moment in a hype or fever situation. This can easily lead to total irrational decisions. On this topic I recommend to take a closer look at the Tulip Mania, some of the behaviours might also be seen in more recent crises.

Here (as mentioned before) I use GLUE as mapping tool for me. The real most interesting (and relevant) question for me always is: Where is a person stuck in the GLUE circulatory system.

And then I try to go into that position, placing myself onto the seat of that particular person to understand where the missing links are. If I manage to understand a portion of it I try to show the traces by using whatever terminology is approbiate for that particular person. Not GLUE, not a specific framework, but whatever language element helps. Sometimes indirect communication by others is the only way to succeed, sometimes I need to play over time. Invest today, harvest in a couple of month when a small trigger has grown into something powerful.

In most cases showing the connections to other information streams (in the circulatory system) allows the person at hand to see some possible answers to concrete problems which have not been solveable before. And there is one thing I know, then it is that I do not know anything, but what I know is that I am an Enterprise Architect. So in most cases I have literally no chance to give a correct concrete answer even though I am fairly often asked to give one, but I am able to help the information flow, to unblock the thinking, to link elements. There is my focus and that enables others to bring their great knowledge to the game and solve problems I would not have dreamt of being solved.