>The Marines and Enterprise Architecture

>

Traditionally, the Marines are known for their rapid, hit hard capabilities. They are a highly mobile force trained to transport quickly on naval vessels and literally “take the beachhead.” However, with the war in Iraq, the Marines have assumed a more non-offensive deployment posture in “conducting patrols.”.

The Wall Street Journal, 12-13 January 2008, provides an interview with the Commandant of the Marines, General James T. Conway about the need for “the Corps to preserve its agility and its speed.”

“It’s the future of the Corps not its past that dominates Gen. Conway’s thoughts…that in order to fight this war, his Corps could be transformed into just another ‘land army’; and if that should happen, that it would lost the flexibility and expeditionary culture that has made it a powerful military force. The corps was built originally to live aboard ships and wade ashore to confront emerging threats far from home. It has long prided itself in being ‘first to the fight’ relying on speed, agility, and tenacity to win battles. It’s a small, offensive outfit that has its own attack aircraft.” However, in Iraq, the Marines are performing in a “static environment where there is no forward movement” Additionally, there is a feared culture change taking place, the marines “losing their connection to the sea while fighting in the desert” over an extended period of time.

When we think about enterprise architecture, most people in IT think about technology planning and transformation. However, EA is about both the business and technology sides of the enterprise. Change, process reengineering, and retooling can take place in either or both domains (business and technology). In terms of the Marines, we have altered their business side of the enterprise architecture roadmap. We have radically changed their business/mission functions and activities. They have gone from service and alignment to the long term mission needs of this nation for a rapid, mobile, offensive fighting force to accommodate the short term needs for additional troops to stabilize and conduct counter-insurgency and peace-keeping operations in Iraq. Whether the business functional change ends up hurting the culture and offensive capabilities of the Marines remains to be seen. However, it does raise the interesting question of how organizations should react and change their functions and processes in reaction to short term needs versus keeping to their long term roadmap and core competencies.

Of course, when it comes to the Marines, they must adapt and serve whatever the mission need and they have done so with distinction.

In regards to the long term affects, General Conway states: “Now, it is necessitated that we undergo these changes to the way we are constituted. But that’s OK. We made those adjustments. We’ll adjust back when the threat is different. But that’s adaptability…You create a force that you have to have at the time. But you don’t accept that as the new norm.”

As we know, in EA and other planning and transformation efforts, change for an organization—even the Marines—is not easy and resistances abound all around. How easy will it be for the Marines to return to their long term mission capabilities? And how should EA deal with short term business needs when they conflict with long term strategy for success?

>Branding and Enterprise Architecture

>

User-centric EA is concerned with establishing a baseline and target architecture and transition plan for the organization. This endeavor includes everything from performance results, business function and processes, information requirements, systems and technologies, and how we secure it all. But how about including the organization’s brand and reputation in defining the architecture, especially in targeting and planning for a stronger reputation with customers and stakeholders?

The Wall Street Journal, 9 January 2008, has an article titled, “As Economy Slows, Reputation Takes on Added Meaning.”

Organization’s brands can be an asset or liability, based on how well it has been planned and managed and “cared for and fed.”

‘‘Mending reputations can’t be done overnight’ says Kasper Nielson, the Reputation Institute’s managing partner.” As we do in EA, comparing the current to the target architecture and developing a transition plan, Mr. Nielson “takes companies through a seven-step analysis of what’s causing their reputations to suffer, followed by a close look at which constituencies—employees, customers or investors—are affected and what they are seeking. Then it’s time for the hard work of figuring out what aspects of company conduct are helpful and what needs to be fixed.”

Many organizations only care about their technology and business alignment after they run into problems with poor IT investment decisions or programs that are failing or falling behind because of inadequate automation and technological sophistication. Then the organization wants a quick fix for an enterprise architecture and IT governance, yesterday! Similarly Mr. Neilson states about reputation, “A lot of companies care about reputation only after a crisis hits. Then they want to know, can you fix things? They don’t integrate reputation into their everyday processes. That’s dangerous. You have to do a lot of things right to build up a reputation platform.”

“‘Reputation is invisible, but it’s an enormously powerful force,” says Alan Towers, a New York advisor to companies concerned about reputation issues. He encourages CEO’s themselves to assume the role of chief reputation officer.” If brand and reputation is important enough for the CEO to take the lead role, it is certainly important enough to be considered a factor in building an viable enterprise architecture that will consider not only a company’s technology, but also how it is perceived to customers and stakeholders.

Some examples come to mind in terms of applying EA to organizational branding:

1. Do we want to organization to be perceived as a technological leader or laggard?
2. Is the organization viewed as having strong governance, including IT governance?
3. Do stakeholders perceive that the organizations is spending its resources prudently and controlling its investment in new IT?
4. Do stakeholders see the company as customer-centric, providing the latest in customer service systems, sales ordering and tracking, payment processing, website information and transaction processing, online help and other IT enabled user tools?
5. Is technology seen as integral to the future of the organization or a sidebar or worse yet a distraction?

I once heard someone say that “perception is reality”. So, even if the organization is managing their technology and business alignment, if its stakeholders don’t perceive that to be the case, then the enterprise is not being effective with its constituents. The organization must factor stakeholder perceptions and its organizational reputation into the development of its target architecture and transition plan. Brand and reputation does not just materialize, but rather needs to be planned and managed to. EA can help to perform this role.

>Wii and Enterprise Architecture

>

We all think of kids and teens playing with video games like the Wii, but how about senior citizens?

Well, The Washington Post, 15 December 2007, reports in “Granny Got Game” that “Wii’s move-around style appeals to a new demographic,” the senior citizen.

“Bingo is looking a little like last year’s thing, as video games have recently grabbed a spot the hot new activity. More specifically, retirees are enthusiastically taking to games on the Wii.”

One 73 year old retired marine says he “likes that the Wii emulates the motion of real sports.” And research has shown the physical games are helpful in fighting obesity, similar to how mental activity is beneficial in staving off dementia.

Market research company ESA states that “in 2007, 24 percent of Americans over age 50 played video games, an increase from 9 percent in 1999.” The seniors seem to enjoy games, such as Wii “hockey, bowling, shooting, fishing, and billiards.”

For Nintendo the maker of the Wii, demand from the various demographics continues to outpace supply. “Some analysts have said the company could sell twice as many as it is making available today, even as it puts out 1.8 million units a month.”

The Wii is a brilliant stroke of User-centric enterprise architecture. The Wii is a genuinely a technology product with mass market consumer appeal with users in demographics that range from children to seniors. It is the fulfillment of IT planning by Nintendo, which “had always wanted to appeal to a large consumer base with the Wii.”

Nintendo hit a home run by aligning the Wii technology to the requirements of their users. Nintendo did this by developing a technology solution to handle not only people’s desire for gaming and entertainment, but also their need for physical activity and sports. What’s particularly amazing is that video games, which have traditionally been for kids and teens have extended their reach so much so that “among retirement communities…the Wii is ‘the hottest thing out there.’” That is good User-centric EA in action!

>A Square Envelope and Enterprise Architecture

>

Would you believe me if I told you that the U.S. Post Office has trouble handling square envelopes? Well, it’s true, and moreover, the post office will actually “charge you a 17-cent surcharge for squareness.” This is called “shape-based postage.” (Wall Street Journal, 15 November 2007)

Why the surcharge? Because the post office sorting machines, “built for oblongs, can’t find the address on a square envelope. [Hence,] people have to do it.” In fact, “at a Manhattan post office…a window clerk…took one look at a square envelope and said ‘nonmachinable. I would not use that shape, period.’”

This is crazy isn’t it; we can put men on the moon, but we can’t send a square envelope easily through the mail system of the United States of America! (FYI, squares are not a problem for the mail system in the United Kingdom.)

I knew that being “square” in the seventies was a bad thing, and maybe even an insult, but what’s up with square now and how does this jive with users needs?

Well in the article, an owner from a graphics company states: “Squares…are the most current and most exciting product in paper communications.” Incredible, that the post office can’t meet their customers’ needs.

Even if squares are still a relatively small percentage of the overall mail (and according to the article they are), that may be because the post office can’t handle the shape versus the overall popularity of it with customers. As another sales rep states: “The post office cracked down…people had bad experiences with square cards. [And] if you put a stigma on something long enough, retailers aren’t going to deal with it anymore.”

So when the post office can’t handle the user needs, the card makers have innovated: “the shop has devised an oblong envelope with a middle pocket that squares slip neatly into.”

This is sounding almost like the post office is making us put a square peg in a round hole.

Just for the record, we shouldn’t blame the good men and women of the U.S. Post Office for the problems with the sorting machines. However, I believe this is clearly a job for User-centric Enterprise Architecture to align post office technology solutions for handling square envelopes with the business requirements for them. Clearly, it’s time for square equality.