The growing interdependence of our systems is driving the complexity of our systems towards the edge of chaotic systems. The choices that we make are no longer focused on finding the perfect solution. Instead, we can see many possible solutions, many of which are good solutions. The choice is then to pick the solution which builds positive interdependency and limits negative interdependency.

Fig. 1: Growing interdependency has put us at the edge of complex and chaotic systems.

In his talk at ITLP, Ron also pressed on the ever-growing rate of change. These two factors limit our ability to design and implement perfect solutions to problems. To paraphrase again:

If you take two years to design a great solution, the landscape will have changed so much that the solution may not be applicable. The level of complexity makes finding and defining the perfect solution even more difficult. The level of interdependence means that even more good solutions are available – when many systems are connected, many systems could be used to provide the solution.

Fig. 2: Impossible Route to a Perfect Solution

I agree with what Ron has come to believe. The level of integration between systems is very high. The expectation for real-time interactions has become the norm. Users expect to see real-time flight information. They expect real-time updates on openings in courses. Students can see, in real-time, the bus schedule, where they are located and the location of nearest bus stop and the location of the buses on their routes.

This interdependence has driven complexity to the point where perfect solutions are hard if not impossibly to design and deploy. Therefore, we must choose from many good solutions that exist. We need to act quickly to implement some solution to meet the rapid rate of change.

Fig. 3: Many good solutions

This is where Enterprise Architecture and the other architecture practices can help. If we look out to the future and think about the desired state, then we can begin to sift out those good solutions which move us towards that future state. For us, we had stated that Service Oriented Architecture was a strategic direction. That bounded the future state some. In the student area, we had a future state process diagram. This diagram outlined improvements to the way that students manage course data and move through finding courses to enrollment. This put another boundary on the future state. When it came to think about how we get course roster type information out to a new learning management system (Moodle), we were able to use that projected future state to pick from the possible solutions (flat file transfer, shared database connections, web services) those which moved us closer to future state.

Fig. 4: EA can help filter the good choices that move you towards the desired future state.

The rate of change and interdependency drives the importance of an architectural approach. If you have not thought about the future state, then there is a multitude of choices. To pick from many choices, you have to establish some factors that affect your selection. In a restaurant, this might be dietary restrictions, cost, the weather outside. In technology, it is often quickest and cheapest. But those factors, in this complex environment are often shortsighted and misguided. The quickest and cheapest solution might need to be replicated many times for many systems. This would increase the interdependency in a negative way and push you even closer to a chaotic system. A more expensive, slower solution might serve you well over the long haul.

Architecture can help you make those choices in a framework that is focused on the future and on the overall complexity that you are creating. Enterprise Architecture (and the other architecture practices) can help sort those good solutions and help make sure the choice you make is along the path to desired future state.

Soaring

I’ve been working with our CIO on the I.T. strategic planning initiative.  At the same time, I’ve been working with the Technical Directors and Operational Directors on planning at the technology level.  They have been creating a map of what technologies are used to support our services.  I’ve had my head in the blue sky of the strategic planning process while I’ve also had my hands in the dirt of the technology mapping.   I keep coming up against the issue of how to connect the blue-sky of the strategic plan with the down-in-the-dirt technology planning.

Finding a process and methodology to connect the sky to the ground has taken up a lot of my mental cycles recently.   The following is my take on a method to connect the strategic planning to the technology planning. 

1.  Strategy to Capabilities

The first step is to take the general directives of a strategic plan and have them expressed in terms of capabilities.   I see this work being done by leadership as part of a collective planning exercise.   As an example, a strategic initiative might be: Classrooms and learning spaces will be equipped with a base set of instructional technologies.   This strategic direction then needs to be interpreted into a set of defined and measurable capabilities.    A leadership team would be charged with determining the capabilities that would meet this strategic direction.  The capabilities should be measurable.

For example, the capabilities might be:  Multimedia Projection, Student Response Measurement and Lecture Capture

We could survey all rooms and learning spaces and get measures of current state (for example: 65% of rooms meet the projector capability, 15% meet the student response and 10% meet the lecture capture capability).   We could then decide priority – which is more important lecture capture or student response – act on those priorities and measure improvement.

2. Capabilities to Services

The next part of this to map our services to the strategic capabilities.  Some services support multiple capabilities (Hosting Services, Identity Management Services for example).  Some capabilities may not have a supporting enterprise service.  A capability that does not have a set of supporting services might indicate a gap in the enterprise.  For example, there may not be a matching Lecture Capture Service that provides the Lecture Capture capability.  This might be done in an ad hoc fashion or it might be missing completely.  This gap in the enterprise service would be worth evaluating to see if the capability is being delivered effectively in the current structure.  If not, then we might want to look at developing an enterprise-wide Lecture Capture Service that supports all of the classrooms.  

3.  Services To Technical Roadmaps

This is where we use the brick diagram in our planning.  The brick diagram captures the technologies that support a given service.  The brick captures what is current state (those technologies currently in use), what is tactical (what will be used for the next 0-2 years), what is strategic (on the plans to use 2-5 years out), what is in containment (no new development), what is in retirement (being stopped) and what is emerging (interesting trends that may move into the tactical or strategic realms in the future).  

These brick diagrams are created and maintained by the service owner – that is the group that manages the service being provided.  The bricks let the service owners and the service teams grab a snapshot of their current state and their strategic plan for the next few years – what they will leverage, what they will stop, what they are watching and what they want to move to – in a simple format.

Core Planning Stack from Tech to Strategy

This set of relationships is managed by a set of governance process that define and prioritize the layer below.  

At the lowest level, the service manager or service team usually defines and prioritizes the technology they use to deliver that service.   This is the layer that is captured in a brick diagram.  They should also describe the capabilities that are delivered by their service and which strategic directions they support.  

At the top level, senior leadership should work to refine the strategic directions as measurable capabilities that want to see delivered.  

The mid-level governance is a gap in our institution.  It is probably filled by project prioritization processes and budget processes.  I’ll talk about that in part 2 of this post.

Brick Diagram

Brick diagrams are a strategic planning tool that I mentioned in passing in my ITANA talk at EDUCAUSE.  Since then, I’ve had several people ask for more information.  So here it is… more information.

Brick Diagrams are used by NIH in their Enterprise Architecture planning process.  You can see the NIH brick diagrams and their taxonomy for the brick diagrams on the NIH EA Site.

Other institutions use similar planning tools.  Read on to see links to other places that use something similar and to download slides for a talk about Brick Diagrams that I gave to our Management Team.

British Columbia Institute of Technology uses a Technology Lifecycle Taxonomy.  You can read more about it in Leo De Sousa’s article “Discussing a Technology Lifecycle Taxonomy“.

St. Louis University uses the Project Information Master which has similar categories as the Brick Diagram and the Technology Lifecycle Taxonomy.  

Here is the slide-deck that I used when I spoke to our Management Team about Brick Diagrams:  m-team-brick-diagrams

As Weinberger points out space on the web doesn’t work that way. Distance is measured in hyperlinks and proximity is created by interest. In other words, each of us gets to create own own space on the web. Your own neighborhood, if you will, filled with the places you find interesting…. So this got me to thinking, What does my digital neighborhood look like? What seemingly disparate places are loosely joined (pun intended) just because I happen to be interested in them?

Jeff then goes on to do an analysis of his digital neighborhood.

As I read Jeff’s piece, I began to think about the value of understanding digital neighborhoods. If we understood our incoming students’digital neighborhoods, it would give us a better understanding of how to reach them, what their interests are and places that we should think about pushing content into. One example that we have in place is in Facebook. We now have an emergency notification group and system in place in Facebook. Our leadership can push out notices via Facebook, into the user’s neighborhood.

Another example is our increasing use of RSS feeds for various applications and calendar feeds. This lets users pick up the content and move it to their own neighborhood. I have a calendar feed for our corporate calendar system integrated into my Google homepage. I can check my work calendar while checking personal email, local news and recording my workouts. The fact that my calendar appears among my personal tools means I track changes to my calendar much more closely when I’m at home doing my personal things. In some ways, Google’s custom homepage is like strip-mall with a few anchor stores (Mail, Calendar, Google Apps) and a lot of empty store fronts that you can fill with your own shops.

The value of these virtual malls, is that users can aggregate enough of their own personal content and applications that it makes it worth the trip. Every time you go on the web, you have thousands of possible places you could visit. Yet, you visit a select few. If we continue with the physical store/neighborhood metaphor: Every time you go shopping, you could go to any store in town but you go to a select neighborhood (like our State Street) because of the variety of interesting shops or to a given store because of the shop has some unique value (low price, selection, the one thing you can only find at their store). A similar thing happens when we deploy applications. Users are expected to visit that application because of the unique value it brings. When we bring up applications that are separated from their current digital neighborhood, it is like building your store in a new mall well out of town. The users have to have some reason to visit. The value has to be higher than an application built in their neighborhood or built such that it can easily be included.

This suggests to me at least, that we need to think about our users’current digital neighborhoods and how we can integrate our new applications and services into those neighborhoods. RSS feeds are a low risk and fairly simple way to move content into their neighborhoods. Facebook groups and applications could reach into the students’world. Portlet type applications that can be put into existing enterprise portals or into sites like Google’s homepage allow richer interaction. Finally, if if has to stand on its own, it better have unique value that makes it worth the trip.

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