2) Module1: Enterprise Architecture for Managers and IT

Lecture 11 provides an introduction to the structure of a Strategic Business Plan. It discusses the purpose of the Mission Statement, along with Goals and Objectives, Strategies and Tactics together with Concerns and Issues. It shows why each of these must be explicitly stated; not just comprised of one or two words that hide the real meaning and directions set by senior management. 

Lecture 12 first introduces the steps of Strategy Analysis. It discusses the environment that is the foundation of the Mission and examines typical examples of private sector and public sector Mission Statements. The analysis of a Mission Statement is discussed, identifying the Business Areas (and therefore the business managers) who should be involved in a later internal Business Planning Workshop of 3- to 5-days to establish the wording of the Planning Statements that make up the Strategic Business Plan. 

Lecture 13 addresses the various planning statements: Policies define qualitative guidelines that establish boundaries of responsibility; Goals and Objectives define quantitative targets for achievement - with three characteristics of measure, level and time – that are typically represented as data values (i.e. “What”); Strategies define “what” has to be done (typically as activities) to achieve goals and objectives, within the boundaries set by policies; while Tactics define “how” the strategies should be implemented as tasks, action plans or business processes. These statements are related back to the Zachman Framework columns of “Why”, “Who”, “What” and “How”. The Planning Statements all support each other to realize the Mission.

  Using the hypothetical Mission of XYZ Corporation, Steps 1 – 3 of Strategy Analysis are applied to define the wording of some of the XYZ Goals and Objectives. Step 4 then identifies Concerns and Issues that indicate opportunities or threats. These in turn suggest potential new strategies to address those Issues. 

Lecture 14 discusses why XYZ needs to change its past strategies: from those of a traditional monopoly organization in its industry; to new strategies of an organization that can compete profitably in today’s competitive, rapid business change environment. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) are identified in a SWOT Analysis to address the Concerns and Issues discussed in Lecture 13. These suggest new strategies that are needed. Step 5 of Strategy Analysis is next used to define the precise wording of these new strategies. 

Once defined, the new strategies must be assessed as to their effectiveness. This is achieved in Step 6 of Strategy Analysis: some Problems or Opportunities may have quantitative results; others may suggest Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are used to measure the achievement of the strategies. The precise wording of these KPIs is discussed, to ensure that they continue to support the other statements in the Strategic Business Plan. 

In Lecture 16, Step 7 next identifies the Functions of the organization, where a Function is defined as a related group of activities. There may need to be new functions to manage the new strategies that have been defined in the Strategic Business Plan. Step 8 uses a Strategy – Business Function Matrix to allocate specific strategies to existing functions: some strategies may not be able to be allocated to any existing function; these may be new strategies that require that new functions be defined. 

In Lecture 17, the Strategy – Business Function Matrix from Step 8 is next used in Step 9 to allocate responsibility to the manager of each function; to implement the strategies and their associated tactics and business processes. Reading down a Function column of the Matrix, each of the strategies for which the manager of that Function has primary responsibility is identified. These strategies are incorporated in that manager’s Job Description or Personal Scorecard, to manage the performance of implementation of those strategies. This ensures management accountability. It also provides a starting point for that manager to use the steps of Strategy Analysis to define, with key business experts in that Function who report to the manager, its Tactical Business Plan. This can continue to any tactical or operational level or depth in the business.

This topic is presented in three parts: in Lectures 18 - 20. It outlines the Questionnaire that is used; preparatory to conducting the Business Planning Workshop – a 3- to 5-day internal workshop that applies the steps of Strategy Analysis that we have just completed in Lectures 11 – 17 of Section 2.

The Business Planning Questionnaire Template is provided as a Microsoft Word document (Chap 03 Questionnaire.doc) that is included following Lecture 18 in the “Fully-Assembled Module 1 Course Handfouts.pdf” in Section 1 Lecture 1, or can be downloaded by clicking on the Resources Available button. Save this Template Word document, Open and Print it, to refer to as you complete Lectures 18 – 20.

The Template is first prepared by inserting the Mission statement for the enterprise in Question 1a. Following possible further insertion of the Business Unit mission statement in Question 2a, the Template details how to prepare the Questionnaire and email it to each of the invited responsible managers, some 2 – 3 weeks before they attend the Business Planning Workshop. They are requested to answer all questions personally (not delegating it to someone else), frankly and anonymously to the best of their ability and to email the completed Questionnaire Word file before the Workshop. The template then describes how to consolidate all of their separate responses anonymously under each question, for distribution to all attendees at the start of the Workshop. 

The Template is used as a catalyst during the Business Planning Workshop as the steps of Strategy Analysis are applied. The Scheduling, the Conduct and the Deliverables of the Business Planning Workshop are discussed in Lectures 19 – 20 by using the steps of Strategy Analysis. These steps are also used during the Workshop: with the managers attending, divided into workshop teams of 4 – 5 people. Each workshop team jointly applies each Strategy Analysis step and agrees on the consensus wording of each statement. They write their agreed statements on a flipchart pad. At the end of each step, all teams as a group then review the wording of every team’s best statements and select the best-worded statements. These are entered into a laptop as a Word document or into a Modeling tool that can capture Business Planning statements. These group-selected best statements are then used as the basis for the next Strategy Analysis step that is applied. 

The Business Planning Questionnaire Template is provided as a Microsoft Word document (Chap 03 Questionnaire.doc) that can be downloaded from Lecture 18 by clicking on the Resources Available button. Save this Template Word document, Open and Print it, to refer to as you complete Lectures 18 – 20.

The Template is used as a catalyst during the Business Planning Workshop as the steps of Strategy Analysis are applied. The Scheduling, the Conduct and the Deliverables of the Business Planning Workshop are discussed in Lectures 19 – 20 by using the steps of Strategy Analysis. These steps are also used during the Workshop: with the managers attending, divided into workshop teams of 4 – 5 people. Each workshop team jointly applies each Strategy Analysis step and agrees on the consensus wording of each statement. They write their agreed statements on a flipchart pad. At the end of each step, all teams as a group then review the wording of every team’s best statements and select the best-worded statements. These are entered into a laptop as a Word document or into a Modeling tool that can capture Business Planning statements. These group-selected best statements are then used as the basis for the next Strategy Analysis step that is applied. 

The Business Planning Questionnaire Template is provided as a Microsoft Word document (Chap 03 Questionnaire.doc) that can be downloaded from Lecture 18 by clicking on the Resources Available button. Save this Template Word document, Open and Print it, to refer to as you complete Lectures 18 – 20.

The steps of Strategy Analysis that we followed in the earlier lectures of this Section to develop or refine a Business Plan are now used in this lecture. Strategy Analysis first ensures that the project team understands the Business Unit’s Mission and its Goals and Objectives, to establish clear business-driven Project Goals and Objectives.

  An understanding of the Business Unit’s Concerns and Issues, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats - and the Business Strategies defined to address these - is used to establish and refine clear Project Strategies. The business experts with detailed knowledge of these business issues are identified, to participate actively in the project team to contribute their knowledge. This ensures that the project delivers on the business needs when implemented as databases and systems. 

Lecture 22 discusses the need for the Strategic Modeling Questionnaire to be completed prior to business managers, business experts and IT experts attending a Facilitated Strategic Modeling session for a Business Unit project.

Ideally, the Business Plan resulting from the Business Planning Workshop (that we covered using the Business Planning Questionnaire in Section 2, in Lectures 18 – 20) should be used as a catalyst in the Facilitated Strategic Modeling session. In practice, most organisations do not do a Business Planning Workshop prior to commencing a Business Unit IT project - that starts with a Strategic Modeling Facilitated session. Because of this, a Strategic Modeling Questionnaire (that is similar to the Business Planning Questionnaire) is used to provide a catalyst for the Facilitated session. Lecture 22 covers the preparatory steps prior to distributing the Strategic Modeling Questionnaire.

It can be downloaded by clicking on the Resources Available button in Lecture 22 and download the Word document (Chap07 Questionnaire.doc) as the Strategic Modeling Questionnaire Template. Save, Open and Print the Questionnaire, to refer to when doing Lectures 22 and 23.  Save this Template Word document as the Strategic Modeling Questionnaire.  Open and Print it, to refer to as you complete Lectures 22 – 23.

Lecture 23 reviews the questions and the responses in the Strategic Modeling Questionnaire used for the hypothetical Project Management Division of XYZ Corporation. These XYZ Project Management Division Strategic Modeling Questionnaire responses will be used in Case Study problems for later Lectures of this Section, to illustrate how the Strategic Modeling Facilitated session develops the Strategic Data Model for the Business Unit project. The Questionnaire responses will also be used as Case Study problems in Sections of the Module 2 Course. 

Lecture 24 reviews the sequence in which we will develop a Strategic Model. We first use Planning Statements in the Why column of the Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture that we covered in Section 1. We will review the Policy Statements from the Strategic Modeling Questionnaire that we discussed in Lecture 23. We will use these as a catalyst in the Facilitated session in Lectures 25 – 30.

Lecture 25 uses – as a catalyst for the Facilitated session – the first Policy Statement: Project Ownership from the Strategic Modeling Questionnaire responses to introduce the basic concepts of Strategic Modeling. We will see how a Strategic Data Model is progressively developed as a “picture of the business” made up of boxes joined by lines to other boxes, based on the data that is indicated by each Planning Statement. We will also see how Business Rules are represented as symbols on the lines joining related data boxes, to represent Management controls, Audit controls, Security controls, Governance controls, Communication paths or Reporting paths.

  NOTE: We will first use business terminology for the business managers and business experts in the audience, NOT technical data modeling terminology, to introduce them to the basic concepts of data modeling. 

Lecture 26: Identifying Business Activities and Processes – Part 1

Lecture 26 continues with the first Policy Statement: Project Ownership to show how many-to-many associations in a data model are decomposed to identify Business Activities and Processes in the data model. In this lecture, we identify the Project Budget Management Activity and the Project Budget Management Process. Furthermore, we will see in Lectures 28 - 30 how we can use Business Rules to identify reusable processes, which can save large organisations millions of dollars in annual operating costs. 

Lecture 27 starts by reviewing, in a Summary, the data modeling terminology that was first introduced using business terminology in Lecture 26. The lecture then continues by using business and data modeling terminology together, interchangeably.

The Project Management Policy statement is next discussed, followed by the Project Authorization Policy statement, as responses from the Strategic Modeling Questionnaire. These statements are used as further catalysts to identify additional data entity boxes.

In this Lecture 27, two potential business errors are discussed that have crept into the Strategic Model. One business error is due to a weak Business Rule; the other business error is due to the omission of a key data entity from the Strategic Model: because business experts from an significant part of the business were not invited to attend the Facilitated session. These errors were deliberately left in place; they will be detected in the following Module 2 Course. The rapid delivery methods that are taught in that Module 2 Course identify and discuss the business implications of these errors and their correction, so avoiding disaster and resulting in business improvement. This is achieved through the Workshop Case Study Problems and Sample Solutions of the Module 2 Course.

Lecture 28 introduces the three entity dependency rules, with exercise examples. These rules are used to assess the strength of the association defined between pairs of entities – and hence the strength of the business rules that the association represents. The entity dependency rules are applied to the fragment of the Strategic Model that we earlier developed (in Lecture 26) for the Project Budget Management activity. The phase number in a project plan for implementation of each related entity is derived using the three entity dependency rules to determine the owner of each pair of entities. The project plan is then shown in outline form; with each higher phase number entity indented one position to the right. 

Lecture 29 continues, deriving the project plan for the Project Objective Management activity. This project plan is also shown in outline form; with each higher phase number entity indented one position to the right. This project plan introduces the concept of reusable processes: it includes part of the Project Budget Management activity, due to the fact that a PROJECT must have one or many PROJECT BUDGETs. That is, the Project Budget Management activity is reusable and is also a prerequisite for the Project Objective Management activity. Reusable processes, when identified, can save large organisations millions of dollars in annual operating costs. Next, the concept of Project Maps is introduced; that are derived from a data model to indicate the sequence of implementation of sub-projects within a larger project.

Lecture 30 introduces the concept of the Enterprise Architecture Portfolio Plan (EAPP). This is derived from a data model and is used to manage the progressive implementation of sub-projects for rapid delivery into production of databases and systems based on the priorities for processes that were set by management. The EAPP can be represented also in a Gantt Chart format. The lecture concludes with a recap and a Summary of the sequence in which we develop a Strategic Model, based on the Planning Statements in the Why column of the Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture that we covered in Section 1.

The first real-world project in Section 4 was in 1995, for a large Government Department in Australia, the Department of Social Security (DSS) in Canberra. DSS had implemented a Data Warehouse some four years earlier, to provide information for DSS management decision-making. However, during implementation, the IT project team was not sure what information was needed, so they decided to upload periodically all operational data into the Data Warehouse. Unfortunately, this approach quickly started to outgrow the disk capacity of their hardware.

However, management complained that they knew the data was there, but they could not get the information that they needed. Their terminology was different from that used in the warehouse, as they wanted aggregated information that was derived from the operational data. This required ad-hoc programming to derive that information, which took too long to deliver results. Instead, they said that they wanted an “Information Warehouse”.

A 2-day Facilitated Strategic Modeling session was conducted with senior and middle management, based on the 1995 – 2005 DSS Strategic Plan, together with their more detailed Program Plans: these were essentially Tactical Business Plans for the Programs (i.e. Business units). These were used as catalysts to identify the information that was needed and so develop a Strategic Data Model. In a total elapsed period of 15 days, an Enterprise Architecture Portfolio Plan (EAPP) and a Project Map were developed and documented to deliver priority DSS project areas into production. 

This project was for a medium-sized Regional Bank in a South-East Asian country. This Bank had implemented a Client/Server Banking System in the early 1990s. It was very innovative: but with the advent of the Internet from 1995 the Bank became concerned that overseas banks could use the Internet to acquire their regional customers. However, they found that their recently - implemented Client/Server Banking System was unable to change: it had become a Legacy System!

  In 1997 they initiated an Internet Banking project – using Strategic Modeling – to transform the Bank to compete more effectively with other Banks. This ran over 4 weeks: there were two facilitated sessions that were scheduled to develop the Strategic Model. The first was a 1-day Preliminary Facilitated Session with the Bank’s Management Project Team of senior managers and IT experts; the second was a 2-day Review Facilitated Session with the Management Project Team, together with Bank Managers as business experts. The second session expanded on the Preliminary Strategic Model. This was then analysed and documented to derive the EAPP – which they called their Strategic Information Systems Plan (SISP) in the remainder of the 4-week period. The SISP was reviewed on the last day by all who participated in the two facilitated sessions. 

The SISP identified a number of dynamic reusable processes that the Bank could develop to manage and service the needs of its regional customers. Lecture 34 discusses that during that review of the results of the SISP, the managers identified inter-communication deficiencies in their Strategic Plan and organization structure. These were highlighted by the competitive threats imposed by overseas banks using the Internet. This review lead to these inter-communication deficiencies being corrected. But then a complete transformation occurred: the project changed from a reactive, defensive project to avoid threats posed by the Internet into a proactive, offensive project that enabled the Bank to use the Internet as a competitive weapon.

 The Bank’s managers realized that they could instead use the Internet to attract the regional customers of the overseas banks at very low incremental cost for the Bank, by using the same reusable processes that they were going to develop to manage and service the needs of their own regional customers. Several anecdotes in the lecture demonstrate the power of the Strategic Model: the two facilitated sessions were NOT conducted in English, yet the Strategic Model clearly showed the managers a “picture of the business” that enabled them to see the competitive opportunities that the Internet and the strengths of their reusable processes presented. This Internet Banking project progressed through Tactical Modeling, then Process Modeling and was subsequently implemented in 1999 in Java.

The Bank’s SISP Report and the News Release on this project can be downloaded in PDF. Click the Resources Available link in Lecture 34, then click “kjb-News.pdf” to download the News Release and then the ”kjb-SISP.pdf” to download the SISP Report. Save the PDFs, then Open and Print.

After the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in 1990, you will remember that the retreating Iraqi Army set fire to many of the oil wells in Kuwait. Although the oil fires were extinguished, the Kuwaiti Government was concerned by how totally dependent their economy was on oil. In 1996 they established a new Department for the development of other industries in the country: called the Public Authority for Industry (PAI).

  This project was in 2000 for the development of Enterprise Information Architecture for PAI prior to development of an Enterprise Portal for the Government of Kuwait.  A Strategic Modeling project was undertaken over 3 weeks in Sep 2000, which commenced with a 2-day Facilitated Strategic Modeling session with senior PAI management. However, although PAI was established in 1996, it had not developed a Strategic Business Plan by 2000. We therefore had to rely on the enabling Legislation that brought PAI into existence. This Legislation was documented as Articles of Law: these Articles were very precise statements, so we used them as the catalysts for the facilitated session to develop the PAI Strategic Model.

Lecture 36 discusses the derivation and the reading of derived project plans for PAI in its Enterprise Architecture Portfolio Plan (EAPP). It shows the documentation of business activity descriptions from the derived project plan clusters. It further illustrates the development of Project Maps for progressive delivery into production of reusable business activities and processes. Although originally scheduled as a 3-week Strategic Modeling project, it was in fact completed and documented in only two weeks.

The PAI EAPP Report for this project can be downloaded in PDF. Click the Resources Available button, then click the PAI-EAPP-Report.pdf to download it. Save the PDF, then Open and Print. 

This project was for the Social Security Department of a large Western country: somewhat similar in size to the USA Social Security Administration. This Department had determined that its present operational databases and systems needed to be redeveloped: the databases operated as separate silos; each citizen had to register again for every Social Security service that they required throughout their life. The Department decided they needed to completely redevelop all of their Legacy systems. This redevelopment was estimated to cost $1 Billion and so needed Treasury Board approval for that level of expenditure.

A 55-day time-boxed Enterprise Architecture project was established to develop a cost-justified Business case for the Treasury Board, of which the first 20-days were used to develop a Strategic Model and an Enterprise Architecture Portfolio Plan (EAPP). The senior managers participated in a 3-hour facilitated modeling session in which they identified 56 major areas of interest in a high-level Strategic Model.  These senior managers thought about the delivery of their Social Security services in terms of Life Events as each citizen progressed through their life. This was most unusual, as it meant that the senior managers were thinking in terms of reusable processes.

The high-level Strategic Model was expanded in a further 2-days facilitated session with their direct-reporting middle managers, to a total of 180 entities. This was more complex than most Strategic Models that typically comprise 90 – 120 entities. During this facilitated session we tested the Strategic Model by identifying the data that each Life Event needed to access. The only thing different for each Life Event was the person accessing the data: this was illustrated by the instructor wearing a different hat; to show he was a different person. It demonstrated a high degree of reusability in the processes that accessed the data for each Life Event.

This had the potential to dramatically reduce the cost of redevelopment: reusable processes did not need to be redeveloped as separate systems, but instead could be reused. Furthermore, as each person (i.e. citizen) existed only once in the Strategic Model, when their data values changed (such as a change of address) that data value change was available to all reusable processes that needed the changed data. Previously, that same changed data value had to be reentered into each silo database that needed the changed data. This reduced the previous high degree of data redundancy. It represented potentially $ hundreds of millions in annual operating cost savings.

As we tested the reusable processes against the Strategic Model, we further realized that it also represented a Strategic Model for most other Government Departments who provided services to the citizens of the country. That is, it was a potential Whole-of-Government Strategic Model. This represented enormous potential cost savings not only in development costs, but also in annual operating costs across the entire Government.

Many of the reusable activities that had been identified from the Strategic Model were then documented as IDEF0 Activity Model diagrams. These defined the new potential “To-Be” future activities as well as the existing “As-Is” activities. Activity Based Costing was then used to determine the costs of the To-Be activities and also the As-Is activities. The potential cost savings were then calculated, to provide the cost justification that resulted in eventual redevelopment approval by the Treasury Board.

Lecture 40 concludes with a summary of this very large Government project. All of the projects in Section 4 are then summarized and a number of other Industries that have used the same principles for the rapid delivery of Enterprise Architecture projects are briefly discussed.

Congratulations on completing the course! This Bonus Lecture provides access to the Course Roadmap immediately preceding Section 1 in the Fully-Assembled Module 1 Course Handouts that were downloaded in PDF from Section 1 Lecture 1.

Alternatively, the “Course Road Map for Students.pdf” can be downloaded from Section 1 Lecture 41, by clicking the Resources Available button. in Section 1 Lecture 1. Save the PDF, Open it and click the link for the next course based on your EA training focus.