EA Articles / Reference

In the last 50 years, I have written thousands of pages of articles, given countless live presentations, visited a large portion of existing countries and when I stopped traveling about five years ago, I had FIVE MILLION MILES on United Airlines alone. Needless to say, there was no grass growing under my feet!

Unfortunately, I only published three of my articles in an academically authorized publication, the IBM Systems Journal… typically, the peer reviews were from 2nd Wave perspectives whereas virtually all of my articles were written from a 3rd Wave perspective, so the reviews were of little value for me.

Although, I had to stop traveling, I have not given up!! I have a dozen new slide sets that are probably the most radical of all my presentations.

For those of you readers who have heard one of my presentations, you would remember that I write the key points down in complete sentences on my slides… because I wanted to give away to you the results of my work. If I only used 4 or 5 bullets on a Powerpoint slide, you would never remember the points a month later.

However, if I write everything down in complete sentences, six months or six years later, you could read the sentence and say something like, “oh yeah, I remember that point!”

And, if I took the time to think through the arguments and write down the key points in complete sentences, I READ the sentences to you during the presentation because I KNOW you can’t read the slides and listen to me talk at the same time! You either have to read OR listen… OR think, if I was saying something you never thought about before.

The FIRST most important slide I ever created was the “Framework for Enterprise Architecture, the Enterprise Ontology” slide… colloquially, “The Zachman Framework”… because this is a description of (the “meta-models” of) the 36 different types of models that are relevant for designing an object, ANY OBJECT. ResearchGate.com alone tells me I have 80,534 “reads” and 8,002 citations.

The reason this Framework slide is so important is because I didn’t create it… I learned it from Enterprises that designed and manufactured airplanes, computers, coffee pots, garbage cans, etc. plus some personal Architect friends that designed and constructed hundred story buildings, California ranch houses, log cabins, etc.

Okay, now the SECOND most important slide I ever created in my entire life is next, but I have to describe TWO slides. The first slide explains why the second slide is so important and the second slide is the real subject of this article.

Oh… I WISH I could show you these slides one sentence at a time and read the sentences very slowly so you don’t miss the points!

Slide 1: OBSERVATIONS

Historically, the main reasons for IT’s (and General Management’s) indiscriminate, dismissal of the idea of Enterprise Architecture,
(i.e. Enterprise DESIGN)
are
1. (It is intuitively obvious that) Enterprises are too big, too complex, changing too fast and we wouldn’t have any idea where to start anyway!
and
2. Furthermore, any ENTERPRISE “Architecture” or “Design” work would take too long and cost too much, siphoning off valuable resources that IT needs to get the code running to replace human labor and justify technology acquisition expenditures in the current accounting period,
a legitimate, Industrial Age (2nd Wave)
objection.

Slide 2: VERY IMPORTANT

The media for descriptive representations of Industrial Age
TANGIBLE PRODUCTS
is either paper or digital for the PRODUCT DESIGN
(Framework Rows 1 through 5).
There is a media transformation from the design (paper or digital)
to the IMPLEMENTATION, the actual PRODUCT (Row 6),
made of wood, steel, aluminum, titanium, composites, plastic, etc., etc.,
that is, HARD, NON-MALLEABLE, FIXED IN SHAPE, materials.

Therefore, the product must be COMPLETELY DESIGNED
for all the parts to physically fit together FOR USE and/or OPERATION.

Similarly, the media of the ENTERPRISE descriptive representations for DESIGN (Rows 1 - 5) is either manual (paper) or automated (digital)

But, IN CONTRAST, the media of the ENTERPRISE implementation
(Row 6) is THE SAME as the media of it’s DESIGN (Rows 1 - 5),
either manual (paper) or automated (digital)…

THEREFORE, there is NO media TRANSFORMATION
to FIXED-SHAPE, NON-MALLEABLE MATERIALS!

Therefore, ENTERPRISES can exist and be operating, even if the Enterprise has never been designed, or is only partially designed, or is composed of “parts” that don’t fit together…
i.e. “DATA” WHICH IS NOT “INTEGRATED,” ENTERPRISE-WIDE…
i.e. DATA THAT IS ENTERPRISE DIS-INTEGRATED…

which, I submit, is normal for many? most?? all ??? 2025 Enterprises!

Do you get it? The Enterprise does not have to be completely designed… EVER! You can do it iteratively and incrementally, little by little, over long periods of time if you need to or want to. Of course, there are significant implications (trade-offs) implicit… a subject for another article.

In any case, there is NO LEGITIMATE, RATIONAL ARGUMENT that it takes too long or costs too much to start DESIGNING your ENTERPRISE… it only takes as long and costs as much as you have to or want to spend in any budget period!

The flurry of activity in the domain of Artificial Intelligence is evidence of the shifting paradigm, shifting to the 3rd Wave, “The Information Age.” Every Enterprise Design Day lost is not recoverable (the Second Law of Thermodynamics).