The Enterprise and its Architecture: Ontology & Challenges
TL;DR: It is posits that EA is about the architecture of the entire enterprise including its ITs, and asserts that this raises significant challenges for information system (IS) professionals, educators, and researchers who, like those in most other disciplines and professions, tend toward reductionist specializations.
Abstract: Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a set of concepts and practices based on holistic systems thinking, principles of shared language, and the long-standing disciplines of engineering and architecture. EA represents a change in how we think about and manage information technologies (ITs) and the organizations they serve. Many existing organizational activities are EA-type activities, but done in isolation, by different groups, using different tools, models, and vernaculars. EA is about bridging the chasms among these activities, from strategy to operations, and better aligning, integrating, optimizing, and synergizing the whole organization. This article: (1) posits that EA is about the architecture of the entire enterprise including its ITs; (2) describes an ontology for the information needed to holistically define and represent that architecture; and (3) asserts that this raises significant challenges for information system (IS) professionals, educators, and researchers who, like those in most other discip...
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TL;DR: In this paper, an overview of approaches in structuring and using tools/techniques, based on the effectuation of creativity and decision-making in the design environment, is presented.
Abstract: For product designers, tools and techniques are essential in driving the design cycle. Nevertheless, their employment usually is implicit, while passing over e.g. the design and project environments empowering their adequate use. This publication presents an overview of approaches in structuring and using tools/techniques, based on the effectuation of creativity and decision-making in the design environment. In elaborating on characteristics of tools/techniques and ensuing ways of selecting them, the designer's portfolio of tools/techniques is characterised. Representative problems of tool/technique usage are depicted and contextualised by illustrating their industrial application. Prospects for future developments are also reviewed
97 citations
TL;DR: This paper first integrates existing IS control constructs and relationships into a comprehensive IS control model, then applies this model to emerging IS processes to guide future research and practice and identifies five control dimensions.
Abstract: A major stream of information systems (IS) research examines the topic of control, which focuses on attempts to affect employee behavior as a means to achieve organizational objectives. Despite a rich history of IS control research, approximately 90 percent of the publications focus on only three IS processes: managing information systems development, managing IS outsourcing, and managing security. However, the emergence of new IS processes and technologies with distinct control challenges, such as managing enterprise architecture and managing innovation, highlights a need to consider the wider applicability of past control insights. In this paper, we first integrate existing IS control constructs and relationships into a comprehensive IS control model. Second, we apply this model to emerging IS processes to guide future research and practice. We review 65 influential IS control-related journal papers and identify five control dimensions. We then consolidate these dimensions into a single, integrated model to apply past IS control findings to the challenges of emerging information systems by posing a series of related propositions. With this paper, we position current IS control research to be increasingly applicable and relevant to tomorrow’s emerging IS opportunities and challenges.
75 citations
Cites background from "The Enterprise and its Architecture..."
...…past, organizations adopting an enterprise architecture process will increasingly call on business departments to have a voice in determining the technologies in which to invest to better service the needs of the broader organization (Kappelman & Zachman, 2013; Lehong, Dube, & Angelopoulos, 2013)....
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TL;DR: Enterprise Architecture myths are identified that are attributable to an overly simplistic conceptualization of EA and demystified by analysing the context-dependent mechanisms behind EA that result in value creation and developing rigorous evidence-based approaches to better understand EA.
58 citations
TL;DR: The study identifies lack of communication and collaboration as the core obstacle that can explain many other obstacles in EA development and highlights that organisations should improve their communication and collaborated before embarking on EA to encounter fewer obstacles.
Abstract: Enterprise architecture (EA) is widely employed to reduce complexity and to improve business–information technology (IT) alignment. Despite the efforts by practitioners and academics in proposing approaches to smoothen EA development, it is not easy to find a fully successful EA. Because EA development is a complex endeavour, it is important to understand the obstacles that practitioners face during EA development. With the grounded theory, we studied how obstacles during EA development emerged from practitioners’ point of view in 15 large enterprises. The study identifies lack of communication and collaboration as the core obstacle that can explain many other obstacles. Communication and collaboration were also harmed by other perceived EA development obstacles, including lack of knowledge and support inside organization and issues imposed by external parties, hesitation in training personnel, setting too ambitious goals, constant change of management, (lack of) clarity in EA development process, lack of budget, forcing personnel to adopt EA, lack of motivation, organizational culture, and organizational structure deficiencies. The lack of communication and collaboration caused several undesired effects to organizations, such as being unable to set common goals and achieve a shared understanding, personnel’s distrust, endangered EA governance, lack of innovation capability, lost competitive edge, and ineffective EA outputs. The study highlights that organisations should improve their communication and collaboration before embarking on EA to encounter fewer obstacles. We provide four recommendations for practitioners to improve communication and collaboration in EA development.
47 citations
TL;DR: A review of the extent literature on framework that used to EA implementation and identify the CSF that affect to implement EA in public sectors agency to produce Enterprise Architecture framework and factors that affect enterprise architecture implementation is provided.
38 citations
References
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Book•
01 Jan 1962
TL;DR: The Structure of Scientific Revolutions as discussed by the authors is a seminal work in the history of science and philosophy of science, and it has been widely cited as a major source of inspiration for the present generation of scientists.
Abstract: A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were-and still are. "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" is that kind of book. When it was first published in 1962, it was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of science. And fifty years later, it still has many lessons to teach. With "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", Kuhn challenged long-standing linear notions of scientific progress, arguing that transformative ideas don't arise from the day-to-day, gradual process of experimentation and data accumulation, but that revolutions in science, those breakthrough moments that disrupt accepted thinking and offer unanticipated ideas, occur outside of "normal science," as he called it. Though Kuhn was writing when physics ruled the sciences, his ideas on how scientific revolutions bring order to the anomalies that amass over time in research experiments are still instructive in our biotech age. This new edition of Kuhn's essential work in the history of science includes an insightful introductory essay by Ian Hacking that clarifies terms popularized by Kuhn, including paradigm and incommensurability, and applies Kuhn's ideas to the science of today. Usefully keyed to the separate sections of the book, Hacking's essay provides important background information as well as a contemporary context. Newly designed, with an expanded index, this edition will be eagerly welcomed by the next generation of readers seeking to understand the history of our perspectives on science.
36,808 citations
"The Enterprise and its Architecture..." refers background in this paper
...This “thinking” trend is a “paradigm shift” in the Thomas Kuhn [3] sense of the term....
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34,393 citations
TL;DR: Senge's Fifth Discipline is a set of principles for building a "learning organization" as discussed by the authors, where people expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nutured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are contually learning together.
Abstract: Peter Senge, founder and director of the Society for Organisational Learning and senior lecturer at MIT, has found the means of creating a 'learning organisation'. In The Fifth Discipline, he draws the blueprints for an organisation where people expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nutured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are contually learning together. The Fifth Discipline fuses these features together into a coherent body of theory and practice, making the whole of an organisation more effective than the sum of its parts. Mastering the disciplines will: *Reignite the spark of learning, driven by people focused on what truly matters to them. *Bridge teamwork into macro-creativity. *Free you from confining assumptions and mind-sets. *Teach you to see the forest and the trees. *End the struggle between work and family time. The Fifth Discipline is a remarkable book that draws on science, spiritual values, psychology, the cutting edge of management thought and Senge's work with leading companies which employ Fifth Discipline methods. Reading it provides a searching personal experience and a dramatic professional shift of mind. This edition contains more than 100 pages of new material about how companies are actually using and benefiting from Fifth Discipline practices, as well as a new foreword from Peter Senge about his work with the Fifth Discipline over the last 15 years.
16,386 citations
Journal Article•
9,664 citations
"The Enterprise and its Architecture..." refers background in this paper
..., learning organizations [8], supply chain optimization, shared services)....
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IBM1
TL;DR: Information systems architecture is defined by creating a descriptive framework from disciplines quite independent of information systems, then by analogy specifies information systems architecture based upon the neutral, objective framework.
Abstract: With increasing size and complexity of the implementations of information systems, it is necessary to use some logical construct (or architecture) for defining and controlling the interfaces and the integration of all of the components of the system. This paper defines information systems architecture by creating a descriptive framework from disciplines quite independent of information systems, then by analogy specifies information systems architecture based upon the neutral, objective framework. Also, some preliminary conclusions about the implications of the resultant descriptive framework are drawn. The discussion is limited to architecture and does not include a strategic planning methodology.
3,219 citations
"The Enterprise and its Architecture..." refers background or methods in this paper
...That logic existed long before Zachman used it in his model, and that logic has not changed in the various versions of his framework both before and since it was first released to the public in 1987 [10]....
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...There is a universal1 set of descriptive representations for describing any or all industrial products and it has been applied to describing enterprises in John Zachman’s Enterprise Framework [9, 10, 11]....
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