The bucket-list – a keyword-schema
I’ll admit it: there’s an awful lot of stuff on this website of mine. And there are so many tools and suchlike here that it can be difficult to find one’s way around, or to work out which tools to use for what or where or in each context.
Finding one’s way around is still likely to be difficult for a while yet. I’ve tried a few knowledge-base plug-ins and suchlike, but they just don’t seem to work right for this – or even work at all. Oh well. I’m still working on it, anyway.
But I can do something about ‘what to use for what’. Almost all of the tools are fractal, in that they can be used for just about any context at any level. Which means that one approach we can apply is to use keywords to switch between tools – for example, the tools summarised in the ‘bucket-list’, that in turn came from my post last year on ‘An inventory of sorts‘. If we’re working in some context, and one of the keywords comes up, in effect it points to one or more other tools that we could use to give us more detail or more insight into what’s happening in that context – and then optionally return back to where we were before we came across that keyword, but now with those new details and insights in hand.
Yes, it does take a bit of discipline to keep track of where we are at each point in the exploration – but it works. It’s what I’ve done in my own work for years – it’s just that I hadn’t noticed that I was doing it, or watching out for each of the keywords as I worked.
I’ve roughed out an initial list of keywords that, between them, cover most of the more common concerns in a business context or beyond. It’ll no doubt need some further development and refinement, but it should be enough as a start.
So here’s that alphabetical list of the keywords to date, and the tools (described in more detail below) that could be associated with each of those keywords:
- action: SMDA-loop
- anticlient: Holomap; NOTES
- asset: Tetradian-dimensions
- big-picture/large-scale: RBPEA
- blame: power-model
- capabilities: Enterprise Canvas; SCORE
- challenge: SCORE
- change: Backbone-and-Edge; Five Elements; NOTES; Revised-ADM; Strategic-metamethod (as process)
- collaboration: After Action Review; Skills-Labyrinth
- competence: Maturity Model; SEMPER
- completeness: NOTES
- completion: After Action Review
- complexity: Backbone-and-Edge; Context-Space Mapping; Maturity Model; RBPEA; SCAN
- composition: Extended-Zachman
- context: Holomap
- continual-improvement: After Action Review
- deliverable: Tetradian-dimensions
- disruption: Mythquake; Strategic-metamethod
- education/training: Methods/Mechanics/Approaches; SCAN (on training vs education); Skills-Labyrinth
- effectiveness: Effectiveness-Mapping; SEMPER; Visioning
- efficiency: Effectiveness-Mapping
- error (cognitive-dysfunction): Seven Sins model
- exploration: RBPEA; Strategic-metamethod; The ‘This’-game
- flow/exchange: Enterprise Canvas
- global: RBPEA
- governance: Backbone-and-Edge
- ‘how-to’: Five Elements; Revised-ADM; SMDA-loop (at real-time)
- ‘how’/’what’ (as structure): Enterprise Canvas
- investigation: RBPEA; Strategic-metamethod; The ‘This’-game
- leadership: 5+5+1 Leadership-model
- learning: Skills-Labyrinth
- lifecycle: Backbone-and-Edge
- mapping: Context-Space Mapping; SCAN; SCORE
- maturity: Maturity-Model
- modelling: Enterprise Canvas; The ‘This’-game
- narrative: NOTES
- opportunity: SCORE
- options (for change): SEMPER
- politics: Mythquake; Power-model
- power: Power-model
- priorities (for change): SEMPER
- process: Five Elements; Revised-ADM
- project: Five Elements
- problem/solution: Context-Space Mapping
- purpose: Visioning
- quality: Effectiveness-Mapping; Enterprise Canvas (Validation-services)
- paradigm: Swamp-metaphor
- real-time action: SCAN; SMDA-loop
- relationship: Holomap
- responsibility/’rights’: Power-model; SEMPER
- risk: Mythquake; SCORE
- sensemaking/decision-making: Context-Space Mapping; SCAN; Seven Sins model; SMDA-loop; Swamp-metaphor
- service (product): Enterprise Canvas; Tetradian-dimensions; The ‘This’-game
- skills: After Action Review; Methods/Mechanics/Approaches; Skills-Labyrinth; Swamp-metaphor
- stakeholder: Holomap; NOTES
- story: NOTES
- strategy: Context-Space Mapping
- strategy-to-execution: Extended-Zachman; Five Elements; SCORE
- structure: Enterprise Canvas; Extended-Zachman
- time: future-to-now: SCAN
- thinking-mistakes: Seven Sins model
- TOGAF: Revised-ADM
- transformation: NOTES
- values: Visioning
- vision: Visioning
- ‘what is’: Extended-Zachman (as structure); Tetradian-dimensions
- ‘who’: Holomap
- ‘why’: Visioning
- worldview: Swamp-metaphor
To make it slightly easier to understand what goes where and with what, I’ve edited the list of tools to crossmap them, with some quick comments about their respective role and importance, onto the Five Elements process-sequence frame:
Here’s that matching list of tools, in alphabetical but otherwise arbitrary order:
- 5+5+1 leadership model for situational-leadership [secondary: People; types of leadership (with Five Elements)] – described in one blog-post and in the book SEMPER and SCORE
- Extended-After Action Review [primary: Performance; process to support continual-improvement] – described in various blog-posts and in the slidedeck ‘Whole-enterprise architecture‘
- Backbone and Edge framework for metagovernance [secondary: Preparation; governance of lifecycles and change] – described in various blog–posts and in the slidedeck ‘Backbone and edge‘
- Context-space mapping for strategic/tactical sensemaking [secondary: Preparation; secondary: Process] – described in various blog-posts and in the book Everyday Enterprise-Architecture
- Effectiveness-mapping frame [secondary: Purpose (derive effectiveness-criteria from values); secondary: Preparation (governance, and with SCORE); secondary: Performance (review-criteria for continual-improvement) – described in various blog–posts, in the slidedeck ‘What is effectiveness?‘, and in the book Real Enterprise Architecture
- Enterprise Canvas (‘Enterprise Service Canvas’) suite for service-oriented modelling [primary: Preparation; service-structure, relations, flows] – described in many blog-posts, in the books The Service-Oriented Enterprise and Mapping the Enterprise, and the Enterprise Canvas ebook, and in the slidedeck ‘Bridging Enterprise-Architecture and Systems-Thinking‘
- Extended-Zachman frame (Zachman replacement for whole-enterprise architecture) [secondary: Preparation (usually with Enterprise Canvas)] – described in the books Real Enterprise-Architecture and Bridging the Silos, and the associated reference-sheet
- Five Elements method for change-guidance [primary: all elements, recursively; base-model for change] – described in various blog-posts and in the books SEMPER and SCORE and Real Enterprise-Architecture
- Holomap for stakeholder/interaction mapping [primary: People (stakeholder-mapping); secondary: Preparation (with Enterprise Canvas)] – described in various blog–posts
- Maturity-Model to guide prioritisation of tasks [secondary: Pivot (centre); diagnostic for action-options] – described in various blog-posts, in the book Doing Enterprise-Architecture, and in the slidedeck ‘Stepping-stones of enterprise-architecture‘
- Methods / Mechanics / Approaches skills-map [secondary: People; descriptor for skills-development] – described in various blog–posts
- Mythquake scale and diagnostic to identify factors in small- to big-picture change [secondary: Pivot (centre); metric for risk etc] – described in a blog-post series (content for an incomplete book) and other posts
- NOTES narrative-oriented mapping and transformation [primary: Preparation (guidance on change-process); secondary: People] – described in various blog-posts, in the book The Enterprise As Story, and in the slidedeck ‘Staging the story‘
- Power-model as used in SEMPER and other tools [primary: People] – described in various blog-posts and in books SEMPER and SCORE and Power and Response-ability
- Methods for ‘Really-Big-Picture Enterprise-Architecture’ (‘RBPEA’) [secondary: all elements (application at large scope/scale)] – described in many blog-posts
- Revised-ADM eight-phase architecture method (TOGAF-ADM replacement for whole-enterprise architecture) [tertiary: Preparation; conversion from TOGAF to whole-enterprise] – described in the books Everyday Enterprise Architecture and Bridging the Silos and the associated reference-sheet
- SCAN frame for sensemaking and complexity-mapping [primary: Pivot (centre), Purpose] – described in many blog-posts, the SCAN ebook, the slidedecks ‘The Dung Beetle’s Tale‘ and ‘Same and Different‘, and the in-progress SCAN Sketchbook
- SCORE frame for strategy-development [primary: Preparation] – described in various blog-posts, in the book SEMPER and SCORE, and the slidedeck ‘Introduction to SCORE‘
- SEMPER effectiveness diagnostic [primary: Pivot (centre); secondary: diagnostic at whole-of-context] – described in book SEMPER and SCORE; also as a standalone web-app
- Seven Sins discipline-management model [secondary: Process (as error-diagnostic); secondary: Preparation; secondary: People (as error-prevention); secondary: Performance (as error-review)] – described in a series of blog-posts
- Skills Labyrinth skills-learning map [secondary: People; diagnostic/exercise for skills-development] – described in various blog-posts
- SMDA loop sensemaking/action model [secondary: Process; real-time variant of Five Elements] – described in one blogpost
- Strategic metamethod for high-level architecture [secondary: Pivot (centre); ‘what I do and how I do it’] – described in various blog–posts
- Swamp-metaphor model for guidance of sensemaking [secondary: Process (related to but distinct from SCAN); secondary: Preparation; secondary: People (as diagnostic for mindsets/value-systems)] – described in various blog–posts and in the book Inventing Reality
- Tetradian context-dimensions model (‘asset-dimensions’) [secondary: Preparation (usually with Enterprise Canvas)] – described in various blog–posts, and implicit as underlying structure for book Power and Response-ability
- The ‘This’ game for service-modelling [secondary: Preparation (usually with/as Enterprise Canvas); secondary: Process] – described in various blog–posts and in the slidedeck ‘Innovation – find the gap!‘
- Visioning for strategic mapping [primary: Purpose; development of vision, values, effectiveness-criteria] – as described in the slidedeck ‘Vision, Role, Mission, Goal‘
You’ll see one example of this kind of ‘chaining’ of tools in the recent slidedeck for the IASA/ICS workshop on ‘Tracking value in the enterprise‘, with ten steps from existing concepts of value, to identifying enterprise-stakeholders, to modelling value-flow, and on to mapping balance of value between investors, beneficiaries and all other types of stakeholders.
Hope this is useful to you, anyway – perhaps try it out and let me know how it goes?
Tom
Thanks for providing the “extra” help towards accessing and using your tools in appropriate enterprise settings.
It is interesting (to me) to consider each of these tools as “capabilities” and to explore:
a) the contexts in which they are applicable
b) the outcomes (and hence value) which can be derived from their use.
Sort of prompts an architectural analysis of architectural tools 😉
Very strong agree on all of that, Peter.
And yes, that’s always been one of my tests: that a tool has be to usable recursively upon itself.
(In the next couple days I’ll also post another keyword-type schema which centres everything around services. If tools are capabilities, and capabilities underpin services, then yes, that too should validate and align with what you’ve said above.)