Understanding Architecture Architecture Principles: Part 1

The power of enterprise architecture is its ability to?simplify complexity. ?

For Architects using?TOGAF, this is achieved by using a set of building blocks, simplified and defined elements of design, which can be connected?to produce a model of an organisation. The model can be analysed to understand the current situation and adjusted and extended to show options for future development. For the model to be effective, an Enterprise Architect must be familiar with the types of blocks, known as stereotypes, and insistent on clean thinking: when the definitions of the blocks are blurred or misunderstood, the analysis gets?muddy, and the quality of the?work suffers.

In this series of articles, I shall explore in detail the elements of an enterprise architecture, that are of most use in large-scale digital transformation. I will go beyond the dry and theoretical description of definitions provided in specification documents, and explore the more human side of enterprise architecture, discussing?how psychology plays a part in the design of an enterprise, and how?architecture can be used in practise to drive successful transformation. My hope is that this will enrich our understanding and help us to unlock the power of enterprise architecture.??

We will start with a trilogy on Architecture Principles:?

·??????In this first article we will introduce the concept of architecture principles. First, we will identify the symptoms experienced by an organisation that does not have an appropriate set of principles in place. Then, we will define the concept of an architecture principle, and explore the all-too-human reasons behind their usefulness. ? ?

·??????The second article in the series covers the formal structure in which principles should be written, and the consideration that must be given to their interaction.?

·??????In the third instalment, we will discuss their use in the governance of an organisation.?I will also provide and discuss a set of principles that I have designed specifically to support the adoption and governance of platform-based operation within an enterprise and discuss each of them in turn. ?

Please note: While I have worked with many organisations, none of them will be directly referenced. All my examples will be genericised, and any resemblance to a real organisation is purely coincidental. ?

Architecture Principles: Part 1??

Symptoms?

“Good Lord this is complicated,” exclaimed John from IT Operations. “Why do we have so many applications?! There must be 57 ways of doing customer service in this crazy organisation.” ?

“It's worse than you think...” chimed in Sam, a data consultant recently (and expensively) brought in to try and resolve the chaos. “Every department has a different way of recording case data. They all?ask our customers for the same information, then store it in systems that don't talk to each other.”??

“I think I found a solution to that one,” said John. “This new app I bought last week. I didn't ask anyone first, but the demo was so convincing...”?

Sam shuddered. “Great. Now we have 58 ways to do it!”?

It's easy to spot an enterprise that?has no principles. You'll find an ever-growing number of over customised IT resources that do not integrate; multiple platforms and applications with duplicated and overlapping functionality;?staff drowning in e-mail; and an array of disconnected and manual processes.?They will have an immature and ineffective Governance capability. Most telling, you will find that IT runs tactically, not strategically. Operational?decisions will either be made on impulse or will take far too long, but in either case, they most likely won't support the wider strategic aims of the enterprise. ?

The Definition?

TOGAF defines Architecture Principles as:?

“A set of principles that relate to architecture work. They reflect a level of consensus across the enterprise and embody the spirit and thinking of existing enterprise principles. Architecture Principles govern the architecture process, affecting the development, maintenance, and use of the Enterprise Architecture.”?

Why Architecture Principles are Useful?

The official definition is true, but Architecture Principles are so much more: They are statements of intent which help to define?the ethos and culture of an organisation. Effectively, they are decisions made in advance; they are the guardrails that keep an organisation true to its purpose. They protect an organisation from the whims and opinions of individuals and drive the organisation towards the agreed consensus. If an organisation finds itself in chaos, imposing a good set of Architecture Principles will serve to reduce complexity, and?help to shepherd it towards order.?

There is nothing new under the sun. Without getting religious, possibly the oldest example of architecture principles in literature are the 10 Commandments given to Moses at Sinai. In this exquisitely concise list, we have a predefined set of rules that will be used to shape a rabble of escaped slaves into an ordered society. As written in the Old Testament, each commandment is a short phrase, pithy, and easily remembered. There are ten of them, so one’s fingers can be conveniently used?as an aide memoire. In addition, although the list is short, it covers all the bases of interactions between man and man, and man and God.??

To draw the parallels in our own practise, Architecture Principles are created and approved high up in an organisation and then promulgated to lower levels. If you want them to be well adopted and used, the list of principles should be short, no more than 20 or so for a whole enterprise. The set of principles will be wide-ranging in scope covering, at a high level, the activities and intent of the organisation. Moreover, they will describe the interaction within an organisation, and with the wider enterprise, that is, with entities outside its?own boundary.??

There are further psychological insights that we can draw from the 10 Commandments. When Moses gives the 10 commandments to the people, they accept them without question. If you have ever tried to impose an entirely new way of working on a large group of people, you'll know that on the face of it this sounds impossible. Surely, they would resist the change? Why would a group of people accept upon themselves a set of rules that appear to restrict their activities and curb their excesses? The answer lies in the way that the people behaved prior to receiving the Commandments: They had a moral code, observed through common agreement, it just hadn't been written down and formally established in law. They readily accepted the Commandments not because they were new, but because they were familiar; they reflected their own, long-established ethos and aspirations.?

To bring this back to earth, and the reality of enterprise architecture, even within siloed and chaotic organisations, there will be people who understand best practise. There may be policies that are being followed informally, even processes that support industry standard working procedure. The knowledge is already there, it just hasn’t been formalised. Creating Architecture Principles allows this best practise to be abstracted away from just the few individuals who know it, so that it can be adopted and upheld by the whole enterprise. ?

Although it can be difficult to craft a good, elegant set of principles, once finalised, they often seem like obvious rules that everyone should be following already. This is the mystery and power of Architecture Principles: They act as crystalised common sense, and when adopted and maintained through Governance, they work like a charm to bring order to chaos and align an enterprise with its strategy. ??

About the Author: Dr Michelle Supper has contributed to the creation of eight international standards, along with other publications including white papers and guides. She is the EMEA Enterprise Architecture Advisor, in the ServiceNow EMEA EA Team, and the creator of the Guided Architecture methodology.?

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