Understanding of Context which governs Enterprise Modeling Projects (An extract from my thesis)

It is well understood that all business activities do not exist in vacuum but they exist and are shaped and as well as shape the context environment they operate in, are context based, as they exist in a unique environment. Understanding the fundamental factors which are part of the context or environment is vital (Business in context By David Needle). In The Art of War", role played by fundamental factors are described as "he who knows them will be victorious; he who knows them not will fail." One needs to consider these factors and understand how they affect the Project.

Alignment with business and technology vision, strategy and principles: This forms the basis for guiding the Organization’s architecture, its modeling and its underlying principles, methodology, constraints, decisions, scope and usage. This is not only a characteristic but is in the very nature of Enterprise Architecture and its modeling. And the Enterprise modeling project should be dynamic reflecting the changes to the business strategy (TOGAF, Rosemann. M 2006, Stevens et al, 2003, King 1995, Schekkerman, 2003; Delen, 2005) and thus need to realign.

Involves high Collaboration: it is important that during development cycle of Models, it is necessary to involve the various experts, stakeholders and users. (Alur and Dill, 1994; Chirichiello and Sala, 2005; Clarke and Peled, 2000). Though all these parties are either interviewed or communicated with in other ways, there is often a lack in the skills or in the time to actively participate in the modeling effort (Renger et all, 2008). This is particularly true for large distributed organizations. This also raises “Communication Issues”. Though analysts and architects might have mental models, visions for solution designs and meta-models, they often lack the adequate means of articulating and communicating them and their purpose in terms familiar to all stakeholders involved (Renger et all 2008; Clarke et al 1995). Enterprise Modeling thus requires high level of continuous correlation among all stakeholders (Delen et all, 2005).

Large organizations such as ST have become increasingly distributed, with information sources dispersed in multiple locations which makes effective collaboration for model management and knowledge access very difficult (Brown and Duguid, 1998; Ba et all 2008). To develop a comprehensive and coherent view of the enterprise, the various models must be correlated to facilitate understanding of the relationships and constraints between the elements represented in the various models which calls for decision-makers to collaborate to detect conflicts and inconsistencies between models, identify missing information, and calculate the impact of changes in one aspect of the enterprise on other aspects (Delen and Benjamin, 2005).

Balance of Scope: Enterprise level architecture involves a scope which spreads across multiple domains such as Business, IT, Data, Infrastructure and Organization resources. There are multiple purposes for Modeling such as Sarbanes-Oxley Act, ISO 9000 audit, knowledge base, business process engineering and Technology architecture work. Adopted from TOGAF’s dimension of scope of an Enterprise Architecture, the following has been identified as the dimension of scope for Enterprise Modeling.

· The breadth of coverage (Horizontal coverage) of the enterprise.

· The level of details (Vertical coverage).

· Domains to be covered (business, data, application, technology).

· Time horizon.

· The architectural assets (Models to be created, reused, recreated or modified, and their conditions for use.

A guiding principle for the scope for Enterprise Architecture modeling is “Good, is Good enough” (Delen and Benjamin, 2005). An enterprise model is not independent from one another an each model describes an aspect that it depends on, and is constrained by aspects described in other models. Delen and Benjamin, (2005) suggest a critical characteristic of enterprise models is that all model types are equally important in describing an enterprise. The goal of a model is to address comprehensively the types of questions being posed by decision-makers, not to provide the most detailed analysis possible. Shapiro, Charles (2004).

Method and discipline: Enterprise architecture is principled based. It lays down methodology which should be followed. As the various enterprises model types focus on different domains of an organization, such as data, activity, process, information system and organizational structure and to understand the entire enterprise it is the relationships and integration between the various model types from the different domains. This requires a method to support to support such integration. (Delen et all, 2005; Vernadat

, 2002). Delen et all (2005) provide reasons of correlation and maintenance problems with the various type of model from different domain captured, represented, and stored when using a standalone application. Modeling methods and tools are seen as complex, non integrated, time-consuming, expensive, and usable only by experts with a specific set of skills who are difficult to find (Delen et all, 2001; Mize et all, 1992; Vernadat, 2002; Williams 1994).

Requires High Buy-in and should handle Corporate Politics : TOGAF describes this factor this as "There is a similarity between enterprise architecture and architecture in the physical world, in that politics has an important role to play in the acceptance of both architectures. In the real world, it is the dual politics of the environment and commerce, while in the world of enterprise architecture a consideration of corporate politics is critical. An enterprise architecture imposed without appropriate political backing is bound to fail". The organization culture and resistance to change creates an environment which inhibits the Enterprise modeling initiative.

Reference:Alur, R., Dill, D.L.: A theory of timed automata. Theoretical Computer Science 126(2), 183 - 235 (1994)
Brown JS, Duguid P (1998) Organizing knowledge. California Manage Rev 40(3):90–111
Delen, Dursun;Benjamin Perakath C. ; Towards a truly integrated enterprise modeling and analysis environment.Computers in Industry Aug2003, Vol. 51 Issue 3, p257
King, W.R. (1995, Winter). "Creating a Strategic Capabilities Architecture," Information Systems Management, 12(1), pp. 67-69
http://www.opengroup.org/architecture/0404brus/speakers/schekkerman_jaap.htm
Michiel Renger , Gwendolyn L Kolfschoten ., and Gert-Jan de Vreede: Challenges in Collaborative Modeling:A Literature Review: Advances in Enterprise Engineering I 4th InternationalWorkshop CIAO! and 4th InternationalWorkshop EOMAS, held at CAiSE 2008 Montpellier, France, June 16-17, 2008
Rosemann, Michael Potential pitfalls of process modeling: part A Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 12, No. 2. (March 2006), pp. 249-254.
Rosemann, Michael Potential pitfalls of process modeling: part B Business Process Management Journal, Vol. 12, No. 3. (March 2006), pp. 377-384.
Vernadat F.B. (1997). Enterprise Modelling Languages ICEIMT'97 Enterprise Integration - International Consensus. EI-IC ESPRIT Project 21.859.