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One of the best remarks I had about my EA work is that while I
mentioned that an EA picture is worth a thousand words, I haven’t
supplied it. Point taken. Instead, I provided a general framework.
Stakeholders would not be interested in the debates and subtleties of
an EA framework. The framework is for the EA architect to use.
Most stakeholders are after a picture showing only their own
concerns in relation to the Enterprise. Furthermore they need a
blueprint that describes the Enterprise basic structure and operation
on which they can pin their concerns and discuss them in a common
language.
How would that single EA picture look like though? Let me begin by
saying that an EA not only looks like but should represent the map of
an Enterprise. "A map is a visual representation of an area, a symbolic
depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space
such as objects, regions..." (Wikipedia).
In truth, there are many types of maps describing an area, depending
on the aspect of interest: political, physical, rainfall, temperature,
hiking, railway, railroads, natural resources maps etc. This approach
applies to Enterprise Architecture too. We call the maps, EA views;
they show, like a map, only the information required for an area. An
overall EA is still composed of a set of views (maps) describing the
Enterprise, each and everyone showing a different angle of interest
specific to a stakeholder.
A single picture may be obtained by combining, overlaying all views
or maps. The outcome would like a hairball though for either EA or a
map. Too much information.
What do the cartographers (for us the Enterprise Architects) do to
eliminate the hairball problem? Let's go back to Wikipedia: "...most
commercial navigational maps, such as road maps and town plans,
sacrifice an amount of accuracy in scale to deliver a greater visual
usefulness to its user... With the end-user similarly in mind,
cartographers will censor the content of the space depicted by a map in
order to provide a useful tool for that user. For example, a road map
may or may not show railroads, smaller waterways or other prominent
non-road objects, and if it does, it may show them less clearly (e.g.
dashed or dotted lines/outlines of various colors) than highways. Known
as decluttering, the practice makes the subject matter the user is
interested in easier to read, usually without sacrificing measurement
accuracy".
We can apply the same principles of content sacrifice and censorship for the EA views: zooming and decluttering the views.
Simplifying even further, which map do we typically use to represent
an area? given the fact that there are so many maps. Wikipedia saves us
again: "road maps are perhaps the most widely used maps today, and form
a subset of navigational maps...".
From an Enterprise Architecture perspective how would this road map
look like? A Single Page EA would like a decluttered, censored road map
depicting the key connections and objects of the EA. Ideally, we should
be able to zoom and navigate electronically with a tool, to reveal the
censored information.
The single page EA is one of the most important deliveries of an EA
effort since it will be used by all stakeholders alike. An EA picture
is not going to replace the EA though.
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