Thursday, January 05, 2012

Teaching Enterprise Architecture

#entarch @leodesousa asked if one had to teach a 1 wk mod on EA, what would be the approach?
@leodesousa asked if it was necessary to say what #entarch was before describing the value+process

I am not convinced it is necessary, and I started a discussion on Linked-In Does it matter what enterprise architecture is?

@nickmalik suggested tellimg story of a company without EA doing planning. Show class complex / silo happens. Do Root Cause Analysis ... then walk them through EA data collection, EA taxonomy, and models. ask class to make decisions again w/ data

Nick's solution to Leo's requirement assumes the goal is to appreciate the difference between EA and its absence. Yes, as foundation, says @nickmalik Build understanding as first step to empower collaboration between biz and #entarch

@leodesousa confirms that his objective is for the students to know there is an approach called #entarch that can help manage chg ... I would want them to know enough to ask for #entarch services to help the business - partnership ... which is a good way to explain the capabilities and value that can be derived from a planned approach

@aleksb6 is trying to cope with the idea that value of a planned approach needs to be explained ... can't we just tell people to go read The Art of War before they start learning #entarch ? :) ... imo #theartofwar is a pre-req for any strategy/planning function, not just #entarch



My idea of a learning objective is that the students learn to do something, not that they are persuaded of (the value of) something. What is more important for the students to be able to do at the end of the week - talk about architecture or solve real business problems? And if the students manage to solve some meaningful problems using the tools of enterprise architecture, this is surely more likely to convince them of the value of EA than any amount of theory and rhetoric?

How does reading The Art of War contribute to such learning objectives? Clearly there is a value in shared stories, and being able to refer to certain patterns of activity. @greblhad has been posting an EA version of the Art of War by instalments. Maybe when he's finished he can do an EA version of the Aenead: "De Architectura Virumque Cano".

(I don't know any Latin by the way; I just plugged the title of one work into the first line of another. Doesn't that always work?)

1 comment:

  1. Thank you very much for sharing your insights Richard and for summarizing our Twitter conversation. I am almost done putting the module together and will blog about what the end result was. All the best, leo

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