Enterprise
Architecture Overview
Enterprise
architecture is the high-level structure of enterprise systems. It can
be viewed as a layered model:
-
Business
architecture: the business processes and supporting
organizational structure
-
Application
solution
architecture: the architecture of applications that support
the business processes
-
Technology
architecture: addressing the infrastructure that supports the
applications
-
Information/data architecture: addressing the information that supports the
applications
What distinguishes
enterprise architecture from architecture at the business unit and
product/service level, is its enterprise scope. This allows
enterprise architects to create an architectural platform that is the
springboard for resounding competitive advantage. By focusing on
strategic differentiators and working across the enterprise, there is
a unique opportunity to create leverage and synergies, and avoid
duplication and inconsistency across the enterprise.
Workshop
Overview
The objective of this
workshop is to learn:
-
key concepts and
distinctions in enterprise architecture
-
how to create,
update, and manage the evolution of enterprise architecture,
-
how to document
enterprise architecture, and
-
how to gain buy-in
among the various communities within the organization
If you are just
starting out on your Enterprise Architecture project, we will also
create a first cut at your architecture. If you are already working on
your architecture, we will work on filling in gaps and improving the
architecture.
Benefits
What
distinguishes Enterprise Architecture is its enterprise scope.
It crosses internal organizational boundaries, and this presents
opportunities and challenges. Our workshop alerts enterprise
architects to the pitfalls inherent in such large-scoped,
high-level efforts, and provides tools for being successful. It
orients the project and the organization to achieving their strategic
objectives through a minimalist architecture that is the foundation
for significant competitive advantage. By focusing on the most
strategic contribution, and creating "just-enough"
architecture, the business's top technical assets, its architects, are
not squandered on low-priority, low-return, attention-sapping
activities.
Workshop Format
We use lecture time to cover key
concepts and techniques, but we primarily "learn by
doing." Much of the time is spent working in small groups. We also
introduce you to the powerful tool of group graphical facilitation,
demonstrating how to collect, organize and
present the work of the entire group using graphic templates.
This is really as much a consulting engagement as a training
class. You will get help in creating your current architecture, while at
the same time learning an architecting process and associated techniques that
you can apply on other architecture projects.
Audience
This workshop is designed for
enterprise architecture teams. Often it is helpful to you and your
organization to have others participate at certain times during the
workshop. We will work with you to decide if anyone else
should be encouraged to participate, and at what points in the
workshop their participation would be beneficial.
This workshop is highly valuable
as a key part of the kick-off to an architecting project. It is
also useful to architecture teams who want validation of what they are
doing right, and direction in areas they may be ignoring or
over-doing.
Pricing
In-house: Pricing
depends on the number of students taking the workshop. Please contact
us for details.
US Open Enrollment:
The cost for the 4-day workshop is US$2400 per student.
UK Open Enrollment:
The cost for the 4-day workshop is US$3000.00 per student. (Sorry, but
our venue and travel costs, borne in pound sterling, are much higher in the UK. Also, if the dollar weakens again, this
price may have to be adjusted.)
The price includes the workshop binder with
color copies of the slides and notes.
Cancellation Policy
Workshops in the US:
We will refund the registration fee less a 5% processing fee if
cancellations are made more than 30 days in advance of the workshop
start date. Cancellations made 30 days or less from the workshop start
date are not refundable. However, student substitutions may be made
any time prior to the start of the workshop.
Workshops outside
the US: We will refund the registration fee less a 5% processing
fee if cancellations are made more than 6 weeks in advance of the
workshop start date. Cancellations made within 6 weeks of the workshop
start date are not refundable. However, student substitutions may be
made any time prior to the start of the workshop.
All Please Note:
We reserve the right to cancel or
reschedule any workshop if enrollments are below the minimum
necessary to cover costs and provide good class participation. This rarely happens,
and we will keep registrants informed if enrollments are low enough
to cause concern. If we are forced to cancel for any reason (such as
major personal calamity including severe sudden illness or
injury), our obligation will be limited to a full refund of class enrollment fees or
transfer of the registration to a future workshop.
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Workshop
Content
The workshop is a
working session designed to create a good draft of your architecture and a plan for
refining, validating and communicating the
architecture. Lecture
segments focus on:
-
key
concepts. We present organizing models that offer useful ways of
thinking about enterprise architecture, and the architecting
process.
-
techniques
to use in the architecting process. We work through our process
for creating and maintaining architectures at the enterprise level,
and use our Architecture Action Guides for the various steps.
The workshop covers key
concepts and techniques for
-
business
architecture
-
application
architecture
-
technology
architecture
-
information
architecture
as
well as:
architecture
modeling using the Unified Modeling Language (UML)
where appropriate, and introducing other critical models.
architectural
views best suited to the various architectures at the
enterprise scope.
architecture
specification: how (and when) to create architecture
"blueprints".
key
architectural design principles including abstraction, separation of
concerns, postponing decisions, and simplicity, and related techniques such as interface
hiding and encapsulation, as well as system decomposition principles and good interface
design.
The Architecting Process
During the working
sessions, we work through our Visual Architecting Process, covering:
Init/Commit:
how to create an architecture vision;
how to gain the support of all levels of management affected by the architecture;
how to build a cohesive and creative architecture team; how to create a
evolutionary architecture specification and communication plan.
Architectural
requirements: how to integrate business strategy and
objectives, business context including market and technology trends,
competitor moves, and other environmental factors into architectural
strategy; how to elicit and document functional (i.e., behavioral)
requirements and non-functional requirements (i.e., system qualities including run-time
qualities such as performance and reliability, and development-time qualities such as
evolvability/ extensibility and reusability).
Architecture
specification: how to use architectural patterns; how to create architecture principles; how
to model the architecture and document the system using different views;
what views are appropriate to what kinds of architectures; what level of
detail/specificity should the architecture go into, given its scope; how
to manage architecture risk; how to make architecture tradeoffs.
Evaluation:
how to assess the system in terms of the system requirements.
Deployment:
how to ensure that a good (technically sound) and right (meets key
stakeholder objectives) architecture is also a successful architecture; how to assist the
management and developer communities in their use of the architecture to ensure its
successful adoption and appropriate use.
Lifecycle
considerations: how to evolve architectures; when and how to replace
architectures; how to relate architecture to other key business processes
such as strategic planning.
For
an introduction to our approach to enterprise architecture, we recommend
you read "Enterprise Architecture as Strategic
Differentiator," by Ruth Malan and Dana Bredemeyer. It
is published by Cutter Consortium as the June 2005 Enterprise Architecture Executive
Report. You can download a complimentary copy from
http://www.cutter.com/offers/strategic.html.
The Role and Responsibilities of the Architect
This section relates the responsibilities
and associated skills and attitudes of the architect to the architecting
process. To get a sense of what we cover, we recommend you read "What it
Takes to be a Great Enterprise Architect," by Dana Bredemeyer and Ruth Malan.
It is published by Cutter Consortium as the August 2004 Enterprise Architecture
Executive Report. You can download a complimentary
copy of this issue
at
http://www.cutter.com/offers/greatarchitect.html.
Prerequisites
Our prerequisites have to
do with meeting success criteria for the architecture effort.
When we are setting up the workshop, we will informally assess whether
your organization meets a set of critical success factors given the
mission of the architecture team. These include assessing:
-
whether the organization
has a clear business vision and strategic objectives
-
whether there is an
understanding of the organization's core competencies
-
what the
architectural maturity of the organization is, and how this relates
to the architecture charter
Facilitator's
Background
The workshop leader,
Dana Bredemeyer, has over 20 years experience architecting, designing and developing
software systems, including 16 years with Hewlett-Packard. He has
provided architecture consulting and training to architects, architecture teams and their
management at the project, organization and business unit levels, and has helped teams
develop software, firmware, system and enterprise architectures for
manufacturing and service companies. Dana is currently co-authoring a book on architecture
with Ruth Malan.
ABOUT BREDEMEYER
CONSULTING|
Bredemeyer Consulting specializes in training and mentoring enterprise
and software architects. We
typically work with architecture teams, providing training and mentoring to accelerate
their creation or evolution of an architecture. However, we do offer a limited number of
workshops for open enrollment.
Tel: (812) 335-1653
Email: info@bredemeyer.com
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