Notes

Outline

LEA Section 4, Chapter 1: Seeing the whole

See the forest See the forest An expression used of someone who is too involved in the details of a problem to look at the situation as a whole: “Knowing in part may make a fine tale, but wisdom comes from seeing the whole.” [ ]

Why see the whole Resolve the challenge of stove pipe system. Establish once and used by many Investment management from holistic consideration. Requirement analysis from holistic consideration. Engineering of reuse and sharing from holistic consideration.

The desire of stakeholder Based on the author’s experience, seeing the whole has been the most popular desire from EA among the stakeholders. See the whole has been the stakeholders collateral duty for each project. The have conducted the effort to see the whole partially and redundantly for each project.

Stove pipe due to lack of big picture Stove pipe systems are developed due to lack of the enterprise big picture. It is difficult to overcome stove pipe system without the big picture. Although it is a human nature to develop stove pipe system,  stakeholder need the agility, simplicity and cost efficient of a matured information age. Instead of pointing fingers to stakeholder on stove pipe systems, the architect must also realize the it is because of the failure to provide the big picture.

IT professionals to know the business Information Technology must align to business direction instead of the other way around. IT professionals has been technology centric. See the whole is the effort for IT professional to comprehend the business need and align IT solution accordingly. Technology change business processes but not the holistic enterprise mission.

A distinctive EA discipline See the whole is the distinctive EA discipline. EA professionals are trained to see the invisible whole with framework and modeling technique. See the whole has been a collateral duty. EA is the dedicated discipline to see the whole. The capability to seeing the whole distinct the EA paradigm from the others.

EA is hinged on seeing the whole

The challenge The challenge is that EA artifacts are abstractive, it is there but can not be seen. To see the abstractive EA artifacts and render the abstractive artifact quires special discipline.

More than enterprise inventory Traditional EA suggest  documenting the existing IT environment to find out the list of application systems, drawing the network and find out how many computers in the enterprise. In many EA projects, documenting existing environment is considered as a clerical effort based on the assumption that it is there and can be seen.

The whole is invisible The limitation of human comprehension The are many things exists but can not been seen. The things too big to see. The things too abstractive to see. In a sense,  we are the blind man.

The Blind Men and the Elephant See the whole is analogy to effort of blind men and the elephant: In a sense, each individual is  blind to the invisible big picture. IT professionals are subject matter experts. EA is the effort to render the big picture for common comprehension.

The story In the children's book, The Blind Men and the Elephant, (Scribner's, 1959) Lillian Quigley retells the ancient fable of six blind men who visit the palace of the Rajah and encounter an elephant for the first time. According to Ms. Quigley, this is how the story goes: The first blind man put out his hand and touched the elephant’s side. “How smooth!” he said. “An elephant is like a wall." The second blind man touched the trunk. “How round! An elephant is like a snake." The third blind man touched the tusk. "How sharp! An elephant is like a sLEAr." The fourth blind man touched the leg. "How tall and straight! An elephant is like a tree." The fifth blind man touched the ear. "How wide! An elephant is like a fan." The sixth blind man touched the tail. "How thin! An elephant is like a rope." An argument ensued, each blind man thinking his own perception of the elephant was correct. The Rajah listened for a few moments, and then said, "The elephant is large. Each man touched only one part. You must put all parts together to find out what an elephant is really like."

The Enterprise is large An Enterprise is large and abstractive, it can only described with framework and model such as: Function models. Process models Data models Organization models.

Each man touched only one part Most of IT professionals are subject matter experts. They are specialize in their subject matter such as: Application development. Network engineering and management. Security engineering and management. Collaboration engineering and management. System administrators. Data base administrators.

"EA is the effort to..." EA is the effort to render the whole. EA render the whole with concept of operation. EA topology. Business architecture.