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!

PAUSE - Think about this for a moment - PAUSE

Since the physical implementation of the Enterprise is either paper or digital, that is malleable in both the physical and semantic senses, not rigid like Titanium, or Steel, etc. in tangible products. Enterprise parts can be modified or shaped to fit as required. Therefore the entire product, i.e. Enterprise, does not have to be completely designed, manufactured and assembled for it to exist or to be operating … in contrast, for a coffee pot to be finally assembled and be operational all the parts have to be designed, manufactured AND ASSEMBLED for it to exist and to operate.

An Enterprise can exist and be operating even if all the processes and data elements are not designed and syntactically fit together to meaningly work. Therefore an Enterprise may exist and be operating if only partially designed or not at all designed.

Therefore it is completely irrational to say it takes too long and costs too much to design an Enterprise. You could design 1% … or 2% … or 27% or 83% … however much you have time or money to design!

So, what is holding you up?

It is only proper that I take a moment to acknowledge Alvin Toffler.

To my knowledge, Alvin Toffler was the first serious academic to address the issue of “change.” He wrote three seminal pieces of work on the subject:

Future Shock !970
The Third Wave 1980
Powershift 1990

In “Future Shock” he said, “Knowledge is Change and the ever-increasing body of knowledge feeding the great engine of technology creates ever-increasing change.” This explains the dramatic escalation in the rate of change we are experiencing today and the cautions not to assume any respite looking ahead.

In his second book “The Third Wave,” Toffler briefly characterized and differentiated the First (Agricultural) Wave and Second (Industrial) Wave and speculated about the characteristics of the Third (Information) Wave.

My observation about the Second Wave: The fundamental concept of the Industrial Age paradigm is technology can be employed to extend human ability to work … that is, technology can perform processes “better, faster and cheaper” than they can be performed manually. Therefore IT justifies the acquisition cost of technology on the number of Full Time Equivalents (FTE’s) an application would displace.

This justification of acquisition cost creates an ENORMOUS motivation to get the new technology operating AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, to increase productivity by displacing labor, realizing the value of the technology acquisition. In fact, the over-riding mentality in IT is to get the code running ASAP … in fact, that IT motivation seems to permeate the entirety of the ENTERPRISE operation!

In fact, as I write this paragraph. I changed my mind … the slide where I develop this “value proposition” is THE MOST IMPORTANT SLIDE I EVER CREATED, because this concept universally dominates EVERY warm body in the Information Technology community if not every live person among ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT and probably EVERY ACADEMIC institution that teaches or PUBLISHES … or REVIEWS ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE ARTICLES FOR PUBLICATION, which explains why I had difficulty getting my 3rd Wave articles published in 2nd Wave Academically Acceptable Journals.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

This means that getting the code running as soon as possible supersedes and displaces DESIGNING an Enterprise to produce quality products that the market will buy … and to do it profitably … and to do it in such a fashion that the downstream Enterprise maintenance costs don’t consume all the profit?!!

NO!!! Get the Enterprise designed right to begin with and THEN think about getting the code to run!

The flurry of activity in the domain of Artificial Intelligence is evidence of the shifting paradigm, shifting to the 3rd (THIRD)Wave, “The Information Age.” My opinion about the Third Wave, the INFORMATION AGE: The fundamental concept of the Information Age paradigm is technology can be employed to extend human ability to THINK … supporting innovation, supporting creativity, supporting disruptive change … that is, assuming that the Enterprise is DESIGNED effectively, eliminating Technical Debt and facilitating CHANGE.

Note: Do not waste a day to start getting the Enterprise DESIGNED! Enterprises today may be running, in operation, apparently working … BUT if you cannot show me the inventory of descriptive representations postulated by the Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture, the Enterprise Ontology, I KNOW THE ENTERPRISE IS NOT DESIGNED!

And, AI cannot improve the Enterprise design if there is no Enterprise design to improve!

Now you know why the SECOND most important article I have written is the one that shows that the Enterprise, in contrast with all tangible products, can be designed iteratively and incrementally while the ENTERPRISE is in operation! You can do it … so DO IT!

In the event you have been auditing, the Framework slide has been demoted to third place … with the slide showing the dominant motivation today is getting the code to run as soon as possible, subverting all other more critical motivations is first (by default) and the slide proving the Enterprise can be designed iteratively and incrementally while the Enterprise is operating is second, and the Framework slide itself is downgraded to THIRD!

EGAD!!