5 Signs of a Dysfunctional Attitude in Your Organization

The Baldrige National Quality Program covers all functional components of a business. An effective organization will exhibit strong interacting processes across the various functional units. Many organization however lack such strong interactions among its functional groups. How to know if yours is one of them? Five common symptoms are:

1. Hiding mistakes and keeping them internal to the functional unit.
2. Selfishness and attempting to get all the resources we need for our unit, regardless of the needs of other units.
3. Making sure we spend all the budget before the fiscal year is over, to avoid reduction in next year's allotment.
4. Focusing on own unit's work and not supportive of initiatives outside the unit.
5. Ignoring the external customer unless we are in a sales or marketing role.

Organizations which structure internal operations based on end-to-end processes have been able to offer their customers a more comprehensive and integrated value proposition. Moreover the organizations are more streamlined and efficient. A leading example is IBM's Enterprise Process Framework (EPF) 1, 2. IBM transformed its operations across multiple end-to-end levels, each level represents one enterprise process area, for example product ordering, IT services or HR services.

A process optimized organization is a mid-stage organization in between a business unit optimized organization and an enterprise optimized organization. Optimized business units are silos of work centers and processing units, process optimized are definitely a step above where waste is reduced, processing is automated end-to-end and economies of scale can be achieved. If your organization is exhibiting any of the five signs above, then know that you are still way far from a process optimized organization.

Read more here:
- Streamlining Business Processes, IBM
- The Business Shrink The Dysfunctional Workplace
- Top Ten Reasons Teams Become Dysfunctional

Getting Over the Project Bifurcation Point

So we are already there. We reached the bifurcation point on the project I am currently managing. It is a $3.5 million software development project to automate and speed up the ordering and provisioning of several telecom services at a major operator. The project is due to deploy in June 2010 but is behind schedule by more than six months. So how do we get out of this dilemma? (see post on 2/19/10 for symptoms of project bifurcation).

Along with two of my colleagues we have come up with a simple straight forward process to stop the bleeding and deliver something over the next three months. The process is summarized as follows:

1. Enforce an immediate stop on all activities.
2. Rescope the project to deliver the core capabilities in the time available.
3. Ensure all project documents are baselined and a strict change control process is enforced to avoid creep
4. Introduce an agile approach to realize some leaps in project delivery
5. Evaluate open issues on the project and close any ones that are no longer applicable to the rescoped project.
6. Prioritize the issues that remain open and ensure all architectural and user requirement related issues are resolved first.
7. Ensure end to end traceability starting from business objectives to test results including all the various requirement level, design artifacts and test cases.
8. Ensure all interfaces are well understood and interface requirements are documented.
9. Hold at least one technical review at some reasonable point to assess the integrity and soundness of the work developed and processes followed.

These simple steps if done, at the bare minimum will guarantee that you will deliver something, that will most probably work. When projects reach bifurcation salvage is the top priority and salvaging means focusing on the key capabilities and ensuring that they will operate as expected. Do not try to get too fancy and deliver everything, it will not work and the project will fail.

Change Agent Strategies: A Need for Survivability

The only constant in this world are the rules of the Creator. The world we live in has been created in accordance to precise measures and in adherence to strict laws. Laws of physics, chemistry and biology are a few examples. Another clear example is the earth's rotation around itself and the sun, a phenomena we experience every moment and take for granted. So does this mean we live in a constant world with no changes. Absolutely not, change is the norm of our lives. People's interests change, impacting business dynamics, which impacts economies and society which in turn impacts people's behaviors and the cycle goes on.

Organizations which wish to survive must adapt to change, in other words must change themselves. Healthy change however has to be founded by a certain set of values which a person, organization and society treasures and takes as sacred.

Hence, there are two main points we need to consider when we talk about change. The first is a stable unchanging framework that defines the boundaries that we operate and live within. We can not exceed these boundaries, either due to inherent limitations in our capabilities or due to a conflict with laws of the Creator, manifested in how the creation behaves. The second point is that for change to be of utility it must be controlled and understood. So lets look at an example to understand these two points better.

Considering the sun, moon and earth. These are Creations of the All-Mighty God. Their behavior does not change, and adhere to a precise set of laws, and we are unable to change their behavior. The sun rises from the east every morning and sets in the west every evening. This is our framework of light, heat and energy. Now we might decide that during summer season we do not want too much sun light, so we place barriers between us and the sun in the form of hat, canopy, umbrella or some other structure that we develop. We can change the configuration of this barrier as the sun rotates and moves around, and during winter months we can remove it all-together.

"a stable unchanging framework that defines the boundaries that we operate and live within is needed for a viable environment"

What we are able to do is only change the impact of the behavior of the framework, but not the framework itself. When mankind starts to attempt to change the framework itself, unpredictable results occur which could be devastating, if we are even able to do so.  Change within the framework is healthy and recommended, as it leads to innovation and growth. Going back to the example of the sun's heat and protecting one self from it, we realize that the simple shield of a ceiling made of straws thousands of years ago has turned into advanced engineering structures with air cooling and filtering systems and sensor controlled sky lights.

" controlled change leads to innovation, growth and opportunities"

Of course man made frameworks are not perfect, and could have limitations that require changes and improvements. This is also healthy as long as we can control the changes and understand the impact of the change on what is inside that framework and on other frameworks that communicate with our framework.

So how can one implement change agents that are healthy and valuable? Lets say an organization wishes to change its bylaws. The bylaws to the organization is the same as the sun to people living on earth. It is the framework by which this organization runs its affairs and the binding contract among its members. Lets look at some practical steps for introducing the change into the bylaws.

1. The need for the change must be clearly understood. This includes documenting the need for the change. Assessing its feasibility, its pros and cons, its urgency, its importance and its impact. This is must be followed by an assessment to study the readiness of the organization for change. Once the need is understood, the need must be communicated to all impacted parties and awareness must be established.

2. Organize a team or project with required authority to guide the process and formulate methods, policies and plans to control and guide the change process; and visualize it.

3. Remove obstacles that prevent others from acting on the vision, and create a sense of urgency to ensure buy-in and support. It is crucial to ensure that all parties involved are empowered. An empowered organization is one whose main focus is on its constituents that it serves and the role of its leadership is one of a facilitator and coach, rather than a controller and monitor. Relationships across the organization are peer-based rather than top-down and every individual in the organization has the ability to make decisions and take responsibility within a clear framework without lack of power and authority.

4. Coach, train and educate top management on the technical aspects involved in the change.

5. Collect all ideas and points of view to each proposed change. Measure, control and report progress of the implementation of the change.

6. Be ready to utilize emotional intelligence, and to handle behavioral issues effectively. Control the complexities of change which are a result of the intangible areas involved in change such as beliefs, behaviors and perceptions of people through constraint management, scenario forecasting, motivation, negotiation and collaboration.

7. Guide the assessment of the results of change, and ensure the implementation of clear acceptance criteria and metrics to accept the change as measured or to make further improvements to it. Capture lessons learned and evaluate comprehensively the impact of the change; economically, socially, and otherwise.


When change agents hit road blocks the points above could help move the process forward safely and effectively. Each of these points is an exercise in itself and needs to be executed carefully and comprehensively. However once the need for change can be justified and plans developed, execution needs to be quick.

More on changing the state of an ailing project that reached bifurcation next week.

** The above image has been developed using Wordle at http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/1748011/Change_Agents_Strategies

Project Bifurcation: Are We There Yet?

Bifurcation is a sudden qualitative change in a system's behavior. The change can be for good or worse, and could be small or large. A subtle change in a project usually has negligible impact initially, however it could quickly multiply following some patterns such as period-doubling or subharmonic bifurcation. These developments in the magnitude of changes in a project could be devastating and lead to chaos and eventually total failure or collapse.

One key challenge is identifying these reflection points and be prepared to deal with them. However, fortunately there are signs that can help the project manager forecast and determine that the project is approaching one of these points that cause a huge negative impact on the project health.

A few examples of projects that are at a bifurcation point and approaching a chaotic state are:

• Escalation of issues to upper management
• Project documents not being baselined due to lack of agreement of stakeholders
• Project documents changing too often
• Teams not agreeing on technical approaches, processes or solution architectures

I have recently been asked to join one of my client's ailing projects. The day I joined the project there were over 300 technical issues logged, over 200 which were open issues. I quickly noticed that these issues are not being closed. The reason chaos. The project had reached a bifurcation point where closure of issues was not only a challenge due to the reasons listed above, but also the issues were becoming redundant, reproducing off-shoot issues, and duplicating as a result of bifurcation of problems, and the non-linear growth in issue dependencies.

Other symptoms of a project reaching a negative bifurcation point is sudden scope changes, descoping of work without having a clear documented baseline for the fear of not being able to meet deadlines. The project team's rework skyrockets, and effectiveness of team members drops to almost nil. This is a point of not only chaos but also paralysis. Paralysis could exhibit itself in paralysis of leadership decision making, paralysis of technical work productivity, and paralysis of stakeholder status reporting and performance assessment. Projects that reach this point will exhibit the following:

• Work performed out of order resulting in errors and omissions
• Large volumes of rework
• Sudden decisions for scope change
• Project teams on hold, awaiting for others to provide input
• High rates of change in technical direction and documentation
• Change requests out of order

Next week I will talk more about ways to mitigate the impact of a crisis on a project that has went beyond major negative bifurcation points as part of efforts to bring it back to order.

Leadership Lessons Through Project Management from Around - India 2025

After about 60 years of independence India is still considered a country developing itself. Since the 1990s India has embarked on a serious transformation initiative and has not turned its face back. The Indians understand their mission, its significance and are committed to making it a reality.

Today India, the world's second largest populous country and the 10th largest economy is expected to be the 3rd largest economy in the world by 2025. Indians are making use of many factors to reach this expectation, among them is project management. How are Indians using project management principles to avoid a business as usual status, and become a global leader bringing inspiration to other nations?

Unfortunately many successful organizations and growing institutions focus on the immediate gains, although immediate gains are important and required to ensure positive cash flow and growth, it can in some cases make longer term goals, issues and actions less clear and understood.

Indians have invested heavily in promoting project management concepts, knowledge and practice. A surge in project management certification has been witnessed in the last decade. Indians have been keen on bringing project management conferences to their country, this was noticed by holding the first International Project Management Association (IPMA) world conference outside of Europe in forty years, in New Delhi.

Applying project management principles to the business process outsourcing (BPO) sectors has resulted in the abundance of best practices and streamlined approaches. Heavy investment into various sectors such as transportation, construction, energy and healthcare is resulting in the abundance of projects requiring even further application of project management skills and knowledge. The Indians have been successful in applying lessons learned in the these sectors to other areas of the society which has traditionally not applied project management such as tourism, education and research.

Cross industry lessons and critical thinking are key success factors for institutional leadership. The ability of an institution to apply project management concepts across industries could result in huge economies of scale and growth opportunities

Indians have not only used project management for capital projects, but also its application is expanding into the management of operations, training, competence development, new product development and services.  This has been assisted by the introduction of project management into educational curriculum at institutes of higher education [1, 2]. Moreover the Indian government has provided incentives to businesses [3, 4, 5] to establish training centers and to develop competency in core competence areas including project management.

Interestingly, although India ranks lowest in a study published by the International Growth Centre analyzing management practices at firms. India scores above the US when it comes to the percentage of firms applying sound management practices.

We learn several lessons from the Indian experience, most important are:

1. Institutions which wish to accelerate their growth need to look at experiences not only within industry, but across industries.
2. Project management brings scalability benefits and allows the institution to take on larger loads of work and initiatives in a streamlined approach.
3. Project management for services, and managing operations as projects could bring in order, improve quality, and enhance performance.
4. Investing is project management education and competence development in younger generations and introducing project management as a field of study is critical to skills development.

Stakeholder Analysis: Are We Doing Enough?

Many organizations and individuals focus on satisfying the customer, which is of course one of the basic rules of business. After all, no customer equals no business. However the majority of us do not have a comprehensive look at all stakeholders. Stakeholders include not only customers, but suppliers, partners, customers' suppliers, policy makers, our own management, investors and the list goes on.

If you are a non-profit school your students and their parents are your customers, and you ought to make sure the services they are receiving are top notch quality. However your donors are also key stakeholders. They have high interest in what you do, otherwise they would not have donated their hard earned dollars, and they have high power in supporting your mission. Maybe even more than the customer. Does you school stay in continuous touch with the donors? Does it constantly solicit feedback from them? Do they have representation at your various governance bodies?

One useful tool to analyze stakeholders is to look at their power and their interest, we call that a power/interest grid. Power can be mapped on one dimension and interest on another, as shown in the top figure.


Another tool is a matrix linking stakeholder groups and their interests to an entity's capabilities allowing the identification of value gap to be addressed. A sample of such a simple stakeholder alignment matrix is on the right. It allows us to align our capabilities to our stakeholder's interest and needs.

How Effective is Your PMO

Project Management Offices come in all shapes and forms. Some are there to support the various projects in the organization, others provide oversight and control, and quite a few offer direction and expertise. A good PMO can make all the difference in the world to project performance and return on invesment at a company.

Effective PMOs share some key attributes which are:

• Ensure standardized terminology and process across projects
• Ensure best practices are propogated across the projects
• Instill a culture of innovation and allow project teams to provide ideas for improvements to process and templates
• Automate and streamline project reporting and project tools, for repeatability and efficiency

It is all too common to witness PMOs that stifle innovation and productivity through very rigid templates, or exhaustive processes that add overhead. PMOs must allow project managers and teams the flexibility to adapt processes and guidance the unique attributes and constraints of their project.

Pragmatic Hob Hunting: Book Proof Arrived

With the grace of the Lord, my new book's proof arrived today. One final adjustment and its on the market inshaa Allah... Want a free copy?

Leave a comment below and email me your snail mail address to anassar at anassar.net, and will send you a free copy. Offer valid only in 48 States.

Learning Centered Education

A learning-centered environment is one that focuses on the needs of the student rather than others involved in the educational process. Student needs range from administrative services, to tutoring and instruction, and include everything in between such as life services.

A learning centered environment ensures that the student is empowered to learn through a balanced power in the classroom, critical thinking, student research and discovery, improved modeling of learning by educators, learning conducive environments, acting on feedback and tight institutional integration with the mission of realizing mastery learning rather than curve grading and ensuring that learning is positioned in a well-applied context to retain and utilize the knowledge learned.

Business Agility: Do You Have Some?

There have been various attempts to define business agility out there. Many are bogus definitions and very incorrect, so I thought I shed some light on the proper meaning of being agile, and what it means to an enterprise. Michael Hugos defines agility to be a product of visibility, motivation and training. I do not fully agree with his point of view, it is too specific and focused on enablers rather than the definition of agility. Agility needs enablers, and these could be some of the required enablers, but not necessarily all, moreover, each environment and enterprise might require different enablers.

According to Webster's College Dictionary, agility is being in a quick and well coordinated state, or nimble, active and lively. So agility is a state when one is able to act quickly and to the extent needed. Over-acting is not agility, its actually exerting more than needed, and under-acting is low performance.

So applying this to an enterprise means that it is able to act quickly and in a lean way. The terms quickly and lean are a little vague, so its not a bad idea to add some context to them.

• Quick is being able to respond to a stimulus in a time-frame that allows the enterprise to capture an opportunity or mitigate a threat.
• Lean is being able to respond with only what is needed to accomplish the point above, no more and no less.

An agile enterprise is one that has the capabilities to execute and realize what needs to be accomplished, without overstretching itself or wasting resources.

Some close definitions to mine are Brad Appleton's, which is a little too specific by listing energy and also specifying it along with economy and efficiency; and Wikipedia's definition which ties it specifically to cost. There are many ways to enable agility in your enterprise. Nicholas Evans promotes mobility solutions as one approach. I believe cloud computing will also make possible many enablers for an agile business. An example of how cloud can make telecom providers agile is illustrated in my recent patent.

Agile = Quick + Lean

Some examples of lean enterprises are those that:

• Can quickly change their website to respond to a trend, or customer need
• Can easily and without introducing additional cost reposition a product line
• Can enter a new market area with no additional overhead
• Can serve new types of customers with no impact on its customer support resources

Developing an agile enterprise is an on-going process, and it pulls from many areas of the enterprise architecture. An agile enterprise has agile business, technology and governance, reflected in its operations, systems, infrastructure and competitive abilities.

Do Not Undermine Your Most Valuable Asset: The Soft Assets

A couple of decades ago software was provided almost as a possible freebie to encourage buyers to purchase computer hardware. Today both hardware and software are available for free. With services such as Google's App, IBM's Symphony Suite, Sun's Open Office, G.ho.st and others software applications and hardware platforms are available for free. The competitive difference between two organizations is not what assets (capital, resources, technology, etc..) they have but rather how they utilize these assets. In other words their capabilities and in particular their soft capabilities.

Soft capabilities is becoming increasing important. As discussed in a past blog entry soft skills of individuals are things like a person's interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence. The question on the table is what defines an organization's soft assets? We can state that soft assets of your organization include its agility, culture, values, alignment to its mission, sustainability. The reason they are soft is because we usually can not measure them easily. This might change in the future. Today we can measure an organization's performance through monitoring its financial reports and deriving some measures that reflect its level of success in managing its capital and financial resources. However this performance measure is very narrow-sighted, it only addresses one stakeholder of the business, the investor, and does not include all aspects of a business' mission, or maybe none of it at all.

Take for example a company whose mission statement is "preserving and improving human life". To effectively measure the delivery of its mission, measuring return on investment and debt / equity ratios will not provide a true picture. Rather measurements of soft aspects of the business are needed. Examples would be return on educating customers about diseases, adoption of good practices by patients, healing rates, impact of side-effects on the health of patients, economies and other aspects of human life, and the list goes on. Our lack of solid approaches and well-defined techniques makes measuring these performance indicators difficult, and hence we call them soft.

Businesses need to focus on these soft areas, whether they are soft outcomes of the business, soft assets, or soft capabilities; simply because this is where true value lies. True value of a business is its ability to achieve its mission. I consider any business metric that can not be measured in a standardized approach across business borders to be part of the soft side of the business. For example, a business' performance is a soft attribute, simply because true performance is not simply financial return on investment (which has very standard approaches of calculating and measuring), but could include customer satisfaction, and other metrics that most people today do not have standard way of measuring across autonomous domains. The first step of understanding a business's soft-side is to include it as part of the business architecture.

The concept of soft extends beyond businesses and organizations and is also considered at country level, an example is discussed on the Foreign Policy Blog which is seen to be an emerging component in valuation of nations.

In summary, (1) the soft-side is where value is located, and its is usually hidden simply because we do not attempt to measure it, and those who do attempt to measure do not have sound approaches. (2) anything that a business has difficulty in measuring will be defined as soft.

Three Fatal Mistakes Leaders Do

Everyone makes mistakes, including leaders. We are all human and its part of how we are. However some mistakes are more fatal than others. These three killers below can diminish a leader's effectiveness.

1. Lack of Consistency
These leaders are not consistent in their performance. They are not involved on a continuous basis and their work habits are sporadic. They also demand more than they give, and are not easily accessible or available, even though they might be working very hard. Their messages are confusing and do not have a clear vision or strategy. Our Creator tells us in the Quran about these types of people in a couple of places,

وَيْلٌ لِّلْمُطَفِّفِينَ (83:1)
WOE UNTO THOSE who give short measure

الَّذِينَ إِذَا اكْتَالُواْ عَلَى النَّاسِ يَسْتَوْفُونَ83:2)
those who, when they are to receive their due from [other] people, demand that it be given in full

وَإِذَا كَالُوهُمْ أَو وَّزَنُوهُمْ يُخْسِرُونَ(83:3
but when they have to measure or weigh whatever they owe to others, give less than what is due!

"These leaders lack loyalty, vision, commitment and respect to their followers and the cause they are leading"

2. Lack of Action
These leaders love to visualize, strategize and come up with ideas, but they never deliver. They miss deadlines, they don't keep up promises, and might even always critique others without providing a solution or alternative. They set standards of behavior or quality and don't abide or ignore them. These types of leaders are also discussed in the Quran,

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آَمَنُوا لِمَ تَقُولُونَ مَا لَا تَفْعَلُونَ (61:2)
O YOU who have attained to faith! Why do you say one thing and do another?

كَبُرَ مَقْتًا عِندَ اللَّهِ أَن تَقُولُوا مَا لَا تَفْعَلُونَ (61:3
Most loathsome is it in the sight of God that you say what you do not do!

إِنَّ اللَّهَ يُحِبُّ الَّذِينَ يُقَاتِلُونَ فِي سَبِيلِهِ صَفًّا كَأَنَّهُم بُنيَانٌ مَّرْصُوصٌ
Verily, God loves those who fight in His cause in [solid] ranks, as though they were a building firm and compact.

"These leaders are usually not team players, are not serious about other team members' opinions, are not responsible, nor reliable, are perceived as not sincere, and provide limited value"

3. Fail to Develop Others
These leaders do not include coaching or mentoring thoughts into their directives. They do not think of providing opportunities for growth and development of their followers. Their main focus is on self-development. Opportunities for learning, development, responsibility and taking initiative are limited in their organizations. Teams are disengaged and clusters of groups exist. Succession planning is not on the radar screen, and sustainability is weak.

Allah (SWT) shares with us many stories of leaders who developed others such as Al-Khider and Musa (PBUH), Mohammad (PBUH) teaching his companions through the revelation from Allah (SWT) in the numerous statements of قُلْ throughout the Quran, Ibrahim and Ismail (PBUH) and many others.

"Leaders who fail to develop others are perceived to lack confidence, vision, loyalty, trust, courage, motivation, teaching and compassion"

Leaders need to constantly revisit where they stand and if they are approaching any of these three killers.

Strategy and its Role in Becoming Capable

Strategy is focused on the matching of an enterprise's opportunities and threats (external factors) to the enterprise's capabilities.

In some cases an organization might not have a capability in place that allows it to benefit from an opportunity. In such cases the capability will need to be realized otherwise the opportunity will be missed. The realization of such absent capability is part of the enterprise strategy, and will require enablers from across the enterprise such as technology, locations, roles, processes, intellectual property and more.

__________________________________________
Robert Grant, "Contemporary strategy analysis: concepts, techniques, applications", Blackwell Publishing, 2002.

Harvey Thompson, "The Customer-Centered Enterprise: How IBM and Other World-Class Companies Achieve Extraordinary Results", Mc Graw-Hill, 2000.

Getting Capable

Institutions vary widely in their capabilities to achieve their mission. You could find two organizations in the exact same line of business, with very similar strategies and business drivers, yet very different results due to the differences in their capabilities. Lets take an example of two airlines. Both airlines share the same mission, transporting humans across the globe safely and in an enjoyable manner. Airline A always takes off on time, lands on time and does not lose luggage. Airline B always takes off late and loses luggage.

Their business requirement is the same, yet their outcomes are very different, which is due to differences in their capabilities.

A capability is a realized requirement, it could also be said that a capability is a business requirement added to some value acquisition process. The value acquisition process should span the entire enterprise to ensure that is picked from all strengths of the enterprise and also did not bring along any unnecessary baggage.

Organizational Capabilities in Less than 100 Words

How quick can your organization respond to its constituents needs. How effective can it adapt to changing dynamics in the environment surrounding it? How efficient can it deliver its mission? The answer to these questions depends on what we call organizational capabilities.

Similar to an individual's ability, organizations have abilities to do certain things, these abilities combined with resources, assets, processes and skills form an organizational capability. A few examples of strategic capabilities are (1) The ability to innovate and be creative, (2) the ability to develop and deploy products in a compressed cycle, and (3) the ability to educate and train young people.

Are your capabilities well defined? Do you know how to improve them, and how to measure where these capabilities are enabling your stakeholders to realize the value proposition you are offering?

Know Thy Business Events

A business event is a valuable building block in an enterprise's business architecture. Business events provide insights to triggers and decision points in the business domain. Business events could be classified into three types: External events such as a customer service request, internal events such as closing a project or an employee time sheet submission, and finally temporal events which occur based on the elapse of a given time-frame such as end of month.

There are many important questions to ask oneself about events when building a business architecture or when defining events. Examples are:

1. How are these events identified?
2. Are they unique?
3. Can they be repeatable?
4. How can we structure events in the context of a business architecture?
5. How can events be modular?
6. What processes are related to events?
7. What business capabilities are impacted by events?
8. What impact does the event have on the business services, operations and other areas?
9. Who reacts (which roles) to an event and in what way?
10. How often does an event occur and what is its significance?

Step By Step Business Architecture

Developing a business architecture for an enterprise can be a daunting task. However following a systematic approach makes it a bit easier, or at the very least organized.

1. Develop a description of the existing business architecture if it exists. The description should include as much of the AS-IS architecture as needed for the development of the TO-BE architecture.

2. Identify any reference models, tools, patterns and techniques that should be used to develop the TO-BE architecture based on the context, complexity and scope of your business requirements.

3. Select viewpoints of the business architecture to be utilized to illustrate the architecture, according to the business requirements. Common business architecture view points are operational, systems, technology, governance, financial and functional viewpoints.

4. Develop an architecture model for your TO-BE business requirements. Ensure that you perform each of these,

• Create the model for the specific view point. For example create the activity model for an operational view point of the business architecture. Common models are activity models, use-case models, class models, node connectivity diagrams and information exchange matrices.
• Verify that all stakeholder requirements and concerns are included.
• Ensure you have models for business goals and objectives, business functions, business services, business processes, roles, business data,
  
• Ensure your architecture has captured the interlocking of organization and functions, and interlocking of processes and systems.
• For each business function identify when, where, where, how often and by whom will the function be performed. Identify the inputs to the function and the expected outputs.
• Identify dependencies and assumptions for each business function.
• Conduct trade-off analysis if any conflict exist among the different views.
• Validate and verify the developed model against requirements for completeness and scope

5. Select the business architecture building blocks. Reuse blocks as applicable, and develop new ones to add to the BA library.

6. Hold a formal architectural review of the developed model and building blocks with the stakeholders.

7. Review the non-functional requirements and service level agreements. Common non-functional requirements are scalability, performance, availability, costs, reliability and capacity.

8. Complete the documentation for the business architecture by ensuring that you,

• Have a completed requiements traceability report.
• Identified requirements that are driving the architecture.
• Mapped the architecture to reference architectures and models in the organization.
• Identified new vs. reused building blocks.
• Documented rationale for architectural decisions.
• Completed the business architecture report including the business footprint, detailed description of business functions, and their information needs.
• Outlined the governance footprint as related to the business needs and scope of the TO-BE
• Included a table of standards, rules, guidelines, assumptions, dependencies, and measures used.

Business and Enterprise Architectures: Differences and Commonalities

Business architecture is a unifying structure that enables the execution of business strategies through initiatives to achieve business results. The business architecture could also be viewed as the relationships and connectivity among the various value streams and the inputs that feed these value steams, the processing centers that enable the value streams and the value realized.

Business architecture is only one component of enterprise architecture. In an enterprise there are business objectives, technology and infrastructure assets, organizational units, security concerns information handling and processing and various other components, each of which can be defined as a separate architecture and part of a defined framework.

The business architecture encompasses the business flows, activity models, use cases, user models, class models, node connectivity diagrams and business information exchange matrices. Business architectures usually reflect a baseline known as the AS-IS architecture and defines a future aspiration known as the TO-BE architecture.

Enterprise architectures explain all aspects of an enterprise; its data, business processes, infrastructure, technology and business

Patterns: What Are They? Part 1

Literally patterns are defined as a combination of qualities, items, objects, behaviors, or other which form a consistent or characteristic arrangement. We observe dozens of daily patterns every day. Examples are teen behavior, the movement of the earth around the sun, the blooming of flowers and hundreds more.

"A combination of qualities, items, objects, behaviors, or other which form a consistent or characteristic arrangement"

Patterns are not new to man-kind, the Creator has informed us about patterns in the Quran and other earlier revelations. Recently system developers started to analyze the concept of patterns, pioneered by Christopher Alexander in his book, " A Timeless Way of Building", he defines a pattern as a three-part rule, expressing a relation between a certain context, a problem and a solution.

Patterns are a first step in understanding root causes of the problem within a specific context. It also allows the development of architectural and solution building blocks.

"In systems realization, patterns express a relationship between a problem and its solution within a given context"

For a software designer some pattern examples are: Message Translators, Process Managers, and Proxies to mention a few. A process manager pattern for example will comprise of a sensor to detect an incoming message which initializes the process manager. The process manager in turn executes a set of rules stored in the process manager memory implementing the processing rules, and detects the subsequent steps through a status feedback detector/analyzer.

Considering a different domain, take the example of a group that does youth trips, examples of patterns could be: Headcount Process, Critical Supplies, Meal Managers, Activity Itinerary Manager and many more. An Activity Itinerary Manager pattern will comprise of an input process to capture developmental and coaching themes/needs of the youth trip, a search process to match the theme to a group of activities that meet the objectives of the theme from a repository of activities, the selected lists of activities could then pass by the activity processor which breaks down the activity into steps, each assigned to resources, a lead, a cost structure, risk factor and plan of action. Feedback from the actual deployed activity is then finally fed back into the activity manager for updates to the activity definitions and other relevant areas, within quality expectations.

_____________To Read More _______________

(1) Hohpe and Woolfe, "Enterprise Integration Patterns: Designing, Building and Deploying Messaging Solutions", Addison Wesley signature Series, 2004.

(2) Haskins and Raveh, "Introduction to Patterns Through Writing Systems Engineering Patterns", 16th Annual International Symposium, 2006.

(3) Gross and Yu, "From Non-Functional Requirements to Design Through Patterns".

The Spark ...

Teamwork is touted as the driver behind progress. This is not necessarily true. There is no doubt that teamwork is a fact of life. As humans we have to interact with one another to satisfy our human needs and desires such as socializing, belonging to a group identity, sustaining needs of life among many others.

Effective teams need leaders to align them and give them direction and motivation. The spark that makes groups and societies move is the outcome of individuals. These sparks ignite the team and thrust its members forward, but the team members do not necessarily produce any starting sparks. As Igor Sikorsky once said,

"The work of the individual still remains the spark that moves mankind ahead, even more than teamwork"

If you find yourself on a team, organization or society, with higher levels of motivation, vision and commitment than others, don't despair, that means you are a leader. As a leader you can not work alone, sparks don't develop into fire without a catalyst, and your team is your catalyst. Nurture, coach, and develop the team, and it will be a strong catalyst.

It was once said that a small group are the ones carrying the ambitions of the nation, and a group of those are the ones who sacrifice their time and wealth to accomplish these ambitions, and a group of that smaller group are the ones who sacrifice their lives for the sake of succeeding in the accomplishment of these ambitions. A small group, from a small group, from a small group.

"A small group, from a small group, from a small group"

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Picture: Courtesy of NASA: The formation of a star, A molecular cloud is a region containing cool interstellar gas and dust left over from the formation of the galaxy and mostly contains molecular hydrogen. The Spitzer data, in red, green and blue shows the molecular cloud (in the bottom part of the image) plus young stars in and around Cepheus B, and the Chandra data in violet shows the young stars in the field. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/photo09-062.html.