The no-plan ‘Plan’ for whole-enterprise architecture – a summary

That description of ‘the plan that is no plan’, about the direction that I’m moving into after moving out of mainstream ‘enterprise’-architecture, kind of ended up a bit longer than intended. (No surprise there, unfortunately… 😐 ) Oh well.

In effect, though, it’s also a kind of ‘manifesto’ for whole-enterprise architecture – about what needs to be added to the current so-called ‘EA’ in order to make usable and useful at a whole-enterprise scope. Whatever type of enterprise that might be.

So here’s a quick summary of all the posts in this ‘no-plan Plan that is also a sort-of manifesto’:

• Time for this old toad to move on – on why I’m moving out of mainstream ‘enterprise’-architecture
• Getting down to work in a different garden – setting out the overall scope, and describing what I will and won’t be doing within that scope
• Making plans, sort-of – outlining the overall approach, including the notion that ‘the plan is to not have an explicit plan’
• More on the ‘no-plan Plan’ – outlining the five core themes for this ‘plan that is no plan’, beyond a natural emphasis on deep-structure for the overall enterprise
• The no-plan Plan: the ‘why’ of architecture – creating a better balance between ‘how’ and ‘why’
• The no-plan Plan: architecture as story – providing stronger support for the human narrative
• The no-plan Plan: architecture for change – designing for change and ‘chaos’, rather than against it
• The no-plan Plan: architecture-dynamics – providing stronger support for versioning, lifecycles and other change within the architecture
• The no-plan Plan: people in architecture – ensuring we remember that every enterprise is, foremost and always, about people

Note that there’s a whole lot more that isn’t covered in that ‘manifesto’: about detail-layer stuff, about IT-architecture, mainstream business-architecture, security-architecture, process-architecture, and so on, and so on – lots and lots of lots of it.

The reason why those aren’t in that ‘manifesto’ is simply that there are already many other people working there – most of whom are a lot more competent than I am at that kind of work. There’s no need to extend the architecture in that direction, because it’s already being done, and for the most part done very well indeed – no doubt about that. The only point that is relevant here is that because we’re talking about a much broader scope, we need to ensure that that broader scope does properly incorporate and link to and with all the existing types of architecture-work – and make sure that the latter don’t split off into their own separate domains, much as per the ongoing disaster-area of the ‘IT/business-divide’.

Anyway, that’s the overall ‘plan that is no Plan’: now, back to work to put it all into practice. 🙂

So, over to you: comments/suggestions, anyone?