For Whom

There are several enterprise architecture approaches (TOGAF, DoDAF, MoDAF) based on the work of John Zachman and his Kiplingesque sextet:

"I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who."

These six interrogatives are commonly presented as the columns in a table. There have been some suggestions (strongly resisted by Mr Zachman and his followers) to extend the table.

One of the extensions we’ve been looking at the CBDI Forum is the possibility of introducing a "For Whom" column. Because value (in SOA and the service-oriented business) is not just experienced by “The Enterprise” (regarded as a single centralized pot of costs and benefits) but may be distributed across a federation or ecosystem.

For example, does a service intermediary add value for the service provider, or for the service consumer, or both? Does a change in business policy improve the whole supply chain, or have we merely pushed the problems upstream? Does a security layer mitigate risk for the bank or for its customers? Does a compliance monitoring service protect the interests of the directors or the shareholders?

Some people have told me that this is already implicit in the "Who" column. Or perhaps it is implicit in the "Why column. But I don't believe that many enterprise architects currently interpret the "Who" or "Why" columns in this way.

"For Whom" is important for SOA when we start to look at service networks that span several organizations. One organization may produce a business case for doing some SOA, but this may only be viable if other organizations cooperate. Participation in a network is based on some form of self-interest (each participating organization gets out more than it puts in) and/or some form of governance (the organizations collaborate according to some agreed or imposed regime).

In addition, "For Whom" is important for security engineering. Some organizations focus their security on protecting their own internal systems against a narrow range of direct threats, but seem to pay little attention to a broader range of indirect threats against themselves and their customers. In my view, an organization such as a bank should take a 360-degree view of security, and should try to provide real security for its customers and their assets, as well as for itself.

Finally, "For Whom" is important for ethics. The distinction between "For Whom" and "Who" is similar to the distinction between "Customer" and "Actor" in Soft Systems Methodology (SSM). Some readers may be familiar with the SSM acronym CATWOE, which stands for Customer, Actor, Transformation Process, WorldView, Owner, Environment.

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Philip Boxer, Modelling Structure-Determining Processes (19 December 2006)

Chris Bruce, Environmental Decision-Making as Central Planning: FOR WHOM is Production to Occur? (Environmental Economios, 19 August 2005)

Wikipedia: CATWOE



Related posts: Arguing with Mendeleev (March 2013), Arguing with Drucker (April 2015), Whom Does The Technology Serve? (May 2019)


Updated 18 August 2019 to emphasize the ethical dimension.