Projects that have been working on the architecture for months. Infrastructure that takes forever to implement because it is just too complex, and that seems to do much more than we need. Endless discussions between enterprise architects and project members about issues that have been talked over again and again. Project architectures that look more like reference architectures and/or meta-models than project documents. Do any of these sound familiar? A lot of organisations are struggling with doing the right things. Making sure that the enterprise architecture is in line with the strategic goals. Making sure that architecture principles are not overgeneralized requirements. Making sure that projects do nothing more than they are expected to do. Making sure that infrastructure is kept simple, and does only the things that are needed. What we need is architecture that is motivation driven.
Letīs take a better look at what a motivation driven architecture looks like (for more information see the Business Motivation Model). Starting point for an enterprise architecture should be the strategy of the organisation; it's vision, mission and strategies. Based upon these, tactics should be developed that address the strategy and that can be translated to change initiatives for the organisation. In parallel the organisation should work on defining its directives; the business policies and business rules that provide constraints for the tactics. In the enterprise architecture these are the architecture principles and guidelines that express the fundamental choices of the organisation, as well as the impact of internal and external influences. These influences range from environmental, regulation and technology influences to issues, corporate values, assumptions and habits. An assessment of these influences is needed to get insight into their potential impact to the organisation. This is typically done through a SWOT analysis that shows the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the organisation.
At a solution architecture level focus should be on scoping, requirements and architectural decisions. The initial step is defining a clear scope for the project, based upon the enterprise architecture. This implies identifying the organisational units, processes, applications and infrastructure that is involved in the change. Within the project scope, a lot of time should be spent on elicitation of architecturally significant requirements, which is much more than writing down what people say. It is also very much about challenging the requirements based on your knowledge, experience and oversight. Do not hesitate to ask difficult questions; if there is not a valid answer then you can probably drop the requirement. Try to find the most significant (groups of) business rules (also see the Business Rules manifesto). Then translate the requirements to architectural decisions, and don't forget external and internal influences such as technology, infrastructure and resources. Architecture decisions are your main deliverable and describe the issues to be addressed, the alternatives considered and the decision that is made.
By now, it should have become clear what I mean with motivation driven architecture. I strongly believe that motivation driven architecture will be a critical success factor for the effectivity of digital architects in the field.
Iīll end with some of the principles I would like to promote:
Motivation is key; without an end any means will do
Keep it simple; just enough architecture
Validate your architecture; quality is much more important than quantity
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