tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6106782.post5102254554972550182..comments2024-03-27T10:47:33.255+00:00Comments on Architecture, Data and Intelligence: EA maturity modelsRichard Veryardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04499123397533975655noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6106782.post-78443047228554049262009-12-17T11:53:23.376+00:002009-12-17T11:53:23.376+00:00I am wondering if maturity models are the antithes...I am wondering if <a href="http://www.erp4it.com/erp4it/2009/11/maturity-the-antithesis-of-lean.html" rel="nofollow">maturity models are the antithesis of Lean thinking</a>. Increasingly feeling they are a dead end approach.Charhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09296250475964939474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6106782.post-82017870437652904052009-12-15T17:34:12.950+00:002009-12-15T17:34:12.950+00:00If I ever imply that costs and benefits can only b...If I ever imply that costs and benefits can only be measured in terms of money, then Tom would be right to slap my wrists. Costs include time and energy - people in organizations have finite attention and capacity for change, and even the most worthy initiative has to compete for management attention with all sorts of other initiatives. As for benefits, these can be measured in all sorts of ways. <br /><br />But my point is this. If you can't find an objective way to reason about benefits, then you can't demonstrate that your EA is being effective at delivering these benefits.<br /><br />Accountants and management consultants have developed ways of expressing all sorts of value in terms of money. If we don't like this, then we have to find some other way of expressing value.Richard Veryardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04499123397533975655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6106782.post-39105966394244511742009-12-15T17:11:24.213+00:002009-12-15T17:11:24.213+00:00Many EAs share your opinion that "truly excel...Many EAs share your opinion that "truly excellent EA takes less time and resource in the long run", but where are the metrics to support this opinion? <br /><br />Anyway, the business case for EA may well be based on the claim that it will more than pay for itself "in the long run", but it is still necessary to have some form of cost control in the short term. Unless of course the EAs are willing to work for nothing, on a payment-by-results basis? (No, I thought not.)<br /><br />In most organizations, costs and benefits don't always belong to the same cost centre. So although the total benefits may eventually outweigh the total costs, we still have to know what the costs are and how they are distributed.<br /><br />So an immature EA organization says "one day you'll get back your investment in us, just wait and see". A mature EA organization is able to say "here's the evidence that you are now getting back your investment in us". And an excellent EA organization says "here's the evidence we have focused all EA activity to maximize cost-effectiveness". <br /><br />My worry about the "cheaper than free" argument (whether for EA or for other kinds of quality management) is that it sends the wrong message in a world where the long run is never as important as the current crisis. What manager is going to devote resources to something that is supposed to be cheap? Surely we should be able to get it on the "never-never"?Richard Veryardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04499123397533975655noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6106782.post-10366264342550140742009-12-15T16:52:31.383+00:002009-12-15T16:52:31.383+00:00I agree with your comments about the limitations o...I agree with your comments about the limitations of the more simplistic 'excellence'-based 'maturity'-models: as you say, the problem is that whilst they provide some kind of a metric, they don't really say anything about capability. The maturity-model that I use in my book <i><a href="http://tetradianbooks.com/2009/03/doing-ea/" rel="nofollow">"Doing Enterprise Architecture"</a></i> focusses almost exclusively on capabilities and scope: specifically:<br /><br />- 'what business are we in?' (context)<br />- 'clean up the mess' (horizontal integration)<br />- 'strategy to structure' (top-down)<br />- 'real-world impact' (bottom-up)<br />- 'dealing with the pain' (spiral-out, using mix-and-match of other capabilities)<br /><br /><br />Where I disagree with you is using money as the only measure of value, because frequently that will trap us into the common error of mistaking efficiency alone for 'effectiveness'. For real effectiveness, we need to link the architecture to <i>all</i> of the enterprise's values - not solely to money.Tom Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13526969814702899986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6106782.post-42297689951262479012009-12-15T16:32:43.210+00:002009-12-15T16:32:43.210+00:00Interesting post with a different slant on maturit...Interesting post with a different slant on maturity models. I would be concerned, however about the question "What does it cost" on its own, as it implies that EA will cost more, and so must deliver value in some other way.<br /><br />IMO truly excellent EA takes less time and resource in the long run as the work is done once and only once, and so the overall cost of doing excellent EA is less than the cost of not doing it.<br /><br />E.g. If successful EA can reduce the start up and analysis time for each project by 10% (say) then the total time saved across all projects in a large organisation is enormous and may far outway the cost of doing the EA in the first place. This effectively makes excellent EA "Cheaper than free".<br /><br />Regards<br />Jon H Ayre<br /><a href="http://theenterprisingarchitect.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">The Enterprising Architect</a>Jon H Ayrehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17709282554767311834noreply@blogger.com