As it turns out, rules have been one of the hardest things to figure out in the Zachman Framework. From a purely selfish point of view, that’s been a good thing, because it’s given an excuse for John and I to have many long dinners over the question in places that have really, really good food.
I think the emerging answer is an exciting one. Think ‘gray lines’ in 3.0. Rules turn out to be composites.
As John likes to do, roll the Framework into a cylinder, then look through it like a telescope. The gray lines arching through the space inside represent the current configuration of your enterprise.
Traditionally, those gray lines have been implemented by procedural means … and we know the pitfalls of rules hardcoded into application code. It’s like setting the business in concrete.
I think what 3.0 really points us toward is a new vision for the composites; a highly innovative burst of rethinking about configuration based on the primitives. I’ll be having more to say about this in the near future … It’s the topic for my 15 minute 3Amigos session with John and Roger Burlton at this year’s Business Architecture Summit (Oct 31 – Nov 4, Ft. Lauderdale) …
http://www.buildingbusinesscapability.com/
P.S. Try to picture John being able to say
anything in 15 minutes. That will be interesting in itself!