Enabling Operational Excellence
Enabling Operational Excellence
Enabling Operational Excellence
Enabling Operational Excellence

TURNING OPERATIONAL KNOWLEDGE & COMPLIANCE INTO A COMPETITIVE EDGE

We systemize tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge

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Q&A: What is Meant by ‘Capability’ in Business Architecture and How Does it Relate to ‘Services’ and Business Rules?

In preparation for this year’s Building Business Capabilities (BBC) Conference (http://goo.gl/6JcB9) and its new Business Architecture Summit (http://goo.gl/5hnzh), I’ve been doing some background research on how professionals in the space view ‘capability’. Here’s a good exchange I had with Alexander Samarin (http://goo.gl/DNGLp).  RGR: What is meant by ‘capability’ in the context of enterprise architecture?  Samarin: ‘Capability’ is the proven possession of characteristics required to perform a particular service (to produce a particular result, which may include the required performance). Capability needs to ‘understand’ the mechanics of delivering that service for expected demand. The mechanics include the resources, skills, policies, powers/authorities, systems, information, other services, etc., as well as the coordination of work within the service. There are three options to ensure a service has the required characteristics: 1. By contract (“re-active” approach) – acquire a service with the required characteristics, use it, check that its performance is acceptable and replace it if something is wrong with it. 2. By measurement (“active” approach) – implement a service, use it, measure it, improve or re-build it, etc. 3. By design (“pro-active” approach) – build a service model, run a simulation test, improve the model, build the service, use it, measure it, improve it, etc.  RGR: By contract do you mean ‘contract’ as a business person would understand it (legal), or as understood in object/component IT methodologies? Other?  Samarin: Legal.  RGR: By service do you mean a business service, a system service, an eCommerce service … other? All the above? Samarin: A service is a consumer-facing formal representation (i.e. explicitly-defined) of a self-contained (i.e. operationally-independent) provider’s repeatable set of activities which creates a result for the consumer. (It is considered that there are internal [even within an enterprise] providers and consumers.) It is important that the internal functioning of a service is hidden from its consumers, so that some parts of the enterprise can be changed independently. For example, a ‘proper’ service can be relatively easily outsourced. Services are expressed in terms of expected products, characteristics and delivery options (cost, quality, speed, capacity, geographic location, etc.) – this is the Service Level Agreement (SLA). RGR: How does the notion of business service apply to a company that sees itself selling widgets, not services in a conventional sense?  Samarin: An enterprise creates a result which has value to a customer who pays for this result. The enterprise acts as a provider (supply-side) and the customer acts as a consumer (demand-side). There is a (business) transaction between the provider and the consumer. From the point of view of the consumer (the outside-in view) the transaction is bounded by the pair ‘request and result’, e.g. from making an order to receiving goods. From the point of view of the provider (the inside-out view) the transaction is a set of several distinct activities (or units of work) which function together in a logical and coordinated manner to satisfy / delight the consumer. These activities are carried out in response to the consumer’s request which is an external business event for the provider. The main ‘problem’ is the coordination of activities (remember – they have to evolve). Processes, services, capabilities are, finally, the tools to improve the coordination (and the final outcome). For example, services are building blocks which are ‘glued’ by processes in bigger services. Capabilities are measures for how solid those blocks should be. RGR: In the approach you describe, how is the how-how handled? Surely know-how is essential to ensuring repeatable, ‘delightful’ results, gluing services together, etc. Samarin: As much as possible, ‘things’ (e.g. artifacts and relationships between them) should be made explicit and executable. For example, coordination of activities can be expressed in different techniques: template-based, event-based, data-based, rule-based, role-based, intelligence-based, community-based, etc. Also it should be known how to use those techniques together – similar to changing gears. RGR: Sounds a bit vague to me. Let me try a different angle. The problem with BPMN is that it is token-based. It doesn’t externalize the state of business things. But talking about the state of business things is exactly what business people want and need to do (and do informally in everyday conversation). Structured business vocabulary (fact models) is how you externalize state so business people can talk about it. Business rules are how the business encodes its know-how so as to constrain the states of things (and derive classifications) … and retain the know-how. Business processes attempt transforms and add value. Thoughts?  Samarin: You consider that BPMN is token-based, but it also provides some event-based coordination. For me, this is not a problem, but just a building block to execute some coordination techniques. I don’t think that BPMN is designed for externalizing states of business objects. You emphasize that business people want to know state. And, in addition, I am asked by business people to show them a course of actions to obtain the result and to warn them in case of potential problems. Different people have different needs.

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Deconvoluting EA

There is much confusion in the Enterprise Architecture space over some of the most fundamental words in the English language: what, how, where, who, when, why. I’m afraid to say there’s some very loopy thinking out there. Zachman anticipated all this and brilliantly provided six generic models for the 6 question words. Here they are roughly as follows (and possibly needing to be adjusted slightly in his new 3.0): What:  thing-relationship-thing How:  input-process-output Where:  site-link-site Who:  role-workproduct-role When:  event-cycle-event (moment-state-moment) Why:  ends-means-ends For me, it’s hard to argue that these are not what each question is about from an architectural point of view. The only thing missing is how you relate instances of the 12 elements to comprehensively configure an enterprise at any given point in time. (Zachman calls these “integration relationships”. They’ve always been there, but only on the schematic in 3.0.) IMO, the best, most dynamic (agile) way to support the ‘integration relationships’ is business rules. What could possibly be better?

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The ‘Up’ Why and the ‘Down’ Why

I had a major case of deja vu reading a recent post by Tom Graves, “The Two Kinds of Why”, at  http://bit.ly/qgJ40i #baot. I’ll tell you why in a second. Believe it or not it has to do with our business card. Zachman and I have had a continung conversation over many years about business rules and the Zachman Framework. We’ve moved forward inch by inch. You have to admire a man who is 76 years old and never tires of listening and learning. I certainly do. John has a version 3.0 of the Framework coming out very soon if not already. I can pretty much guarantee you won’t see business rules in the ‘why’ column. Graves says, “One side of Why creates a question: literally, it starts a ’quest’. For most of us, that’s the exciting bit. The other side of Why is the answer to the question, the end of the quest. That was the question, here’s the answer: The Decision. End of story.” Oh not so! Strategy should be viewed as a continuous feedback loop. You put some stakes in the ground, the ‘down’ why’, but you continuously test those ‘decisions’ to see if they hold up in the light of day. Do they achieve what the ‘up’ why (the ‘quest’) set off to achieve? We believe a conversation about strategy (both the ‘up’ why and the ‘down’ why) is exactly the one business leads are looking to have.  Our deliverable for that,  called a Policy Charter, addresses both questions, two sides of the same coin.
  • Looking down from business goals.  What are the best business tactics and business policies to achieve the business goals, and how are the associated business risks addressed?
  • Looking up toward business goals.  What is the business motivation for each of the business tactics and business policies, and why are they appropriate? 
We’ve looked at the world like this since 1996 and it’s proven highly productive in many scores of engagements. I submit to you as evidence Exhibit A below, our original business card from 1996. (I always liked it … I designed it. Obviously, I shouldn’t give up the day job!) See the intertwined why’s? Hard to miss. Finally, business rules are boring?! Not! See  http://goo.gl/0tLD3    

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What vs. How … Could We Get This Straight?

Some professionals view the interrogatives what and how as peers, each addressing a distinct area of engineering solutions (e.g., designing systems). Other professionals characterize ‘requirements’ as the what, and the design for a system as the how. Contradiction? No, just a bit of confusion over perspective. 
  • From the perspective of designing a system, both what (data) and how (processes) must be addressed. Both interrogatives (as well as the other four – where, who, when, and why) are essential for engineering a complete, robust solution.  
  • From the perspective of IT methodologies, requirements are always incomplete, so what the requirements say must be transformed into a system model that indicates how the requirements will be supported. 
In other words, the former use of what and how is based on an engineering point of view; the latter use is based on an IT-methodology point of view. Don’t confuse business people or IT professionals – or yourself – by failing to make the distinction.

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Business Capability … You Have to Know in Order to Do

As many of you are aware, the Business Rules Forum Conference is now one of three conferences in the annual Building Business Capabilities (BBC) Conference (http://www.buildingbusinesscapability.com/), which includes the Business Analysis Forum, the official conference of the IIBA. So Gladys and I have had to do some hard thinking about the meaning of “business capability”. Here’s our take emphasizing business … A business capability is not an application system, database, set of use cases, enterprise architecture, or any other IT artifact. Its design and implementation might depend on some or all of those things, but that’s a different matter.  Instead, a business capability is created as a business solution to an operational business problem. That solution and the problem it addresses have a scope (definite boundaries) that can be identified in terms of what business items make it up. The business solution is initially developed and expressed as a business strategy (a Policy Charter in our methodology, Proteus).  The business model you create in business analysis is the business architecture for the business capability, a blueprint enabling business people and Business Analysts to engage in a business discussion about what needs to be created, managed, operated, changed, and discontinued. Developing a business solution using a business model does not necessarily imply software development, but if software development does ensue (and it usually does), the business model provides a solid grounding.  Our definition of business capability comes down to this: What the business must know and be able to do to execute business strategy. The part that many people miss is what the business needs to know. Quite simply: How can you really ‘do’ without knowing what your business rules are?

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