agile enterprise architecture

Scott W. Ambler Disciplined Agile Fellow

scott [at] scottambler.com

@scottwambler

Agile Enterprise Architecture: Disciplined and Pragmatic Strategies

Scott W. Ambler

•  Pioneered Agile Modeling and Agile Database techniques in the early 2000s

•  Co-creator of the Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) framework

•  Executive Transformation Coach

•  scott [at] scottambler.com •  @scottwambler

© Disciplined Agile Consortium

Helps IT departments around the world become awesome

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Four Important Questions

What is enterprise architecture?

What challenges do you face with enterprise architecture?

How does Disciplined Agile address architecture?

How does Disciplined Agile address enterprise

architecture?


What is Enterprise Architecture?


Potential Enterprise Architecture Activities


Business-Oriented Activities •  Enable long term planning at the portfolio level •  Enable business agility •  Describe the current and future state of the business •  Align business and IT •  Guide the organization on a transformation journey

IT-Oriented Activities •  Describe the current and future state of technology •  Support IT procurement •  Control IT complexity through management of IT as an asset

Development-Oriented Activities •  Coach development teams in architecture activities •  Govern architecture activities of development teams •  Provide guidance to development teams

Overcoming Challenges with Enterprise Architecture


Potential Challenges Faced by Enterprise Architects


Business-Oriented Challenges •  Business complexity •  Business stakeholders who don’t understand how they utilize

IT assets •  Business stakeholders who are unwilling to work with IT

IT-Oriented Challenges •  Technology changes •  Legacy systems and data sources on disparate platforms •  Operations staff who don’t understand the dependencies

between systems

Development Team Oriented Challenges •  The Not Invented Here (NIH) syndrome •  Immature software engineering •  Development teams that don’t understand which systems their

solutions (should) interact with •  Developers who don’t understand which frameworks to work

with or guidelines to follow

Potential Failure Point: Misaligned Perspectives


High-level, hands off

Detailed, hands-on

“Ivory tower” advice

“Lost in the weeds”

What view point does the EA team take?

Solution: Enterprise architects must have a broad understanding of the business and technology while still retaining a grasp of the details “on the ground”.

Potential Failure Point: Misaligned Governance


Rigorous

Laissez-faire

Little flexibility or adaptability

Little commonality or reuse

How strict is the enforcement of rules?

Solution: Enterprise architects must provide coherent, flexible guidance and be prepared to coach and even lead teams in its application.

Potential Failure Point: Misaligned Strategy


Long term

Short term

Teams disconnect from the vision

Organization lurches from crisis to crisis

What is the time horizon of strategic plans?

Solution: Enterprise architects must develop and communicate a long term vision while providing short term value to their stakeholders.

Potential Failure Point: Misaligned Transformations


Quick

Slow

Constant churn

Constantly growing backlog of work

What is the speed of change of business models, processes, and IT systems?

Solution: Enterprise architects must find a sustainable pace of change that is just at the “edge of chaos”.

DisciplinedAgileandArchitecture

Architecture Owner

•  Guides the creation and evolution of the solution’s architecture

•  Mentors and coaches team members in architecture practices and issues

•  Understands the architectural direction and standards of your organization and ensures that the team adheres to them

•  Ensures the system will be easy to support by encouraging appropriate design and refactoring

•  Ensures that the system is integrated and tested frequently

•  Has the final decision regarding technical decisions, but doesn’t dictate them

•  Leads the initial architecture envisioning effort •  Works closely with enterprise architecture team (if one

exists) •  Responsible for technical risk mitigation

14 © Disciplined Agile Consortium

Some “Radical” Architecture and Design Ideas


Defer commitment

Light weight modeling

Reduce the feedback cycle

Model high level ideas

Specify details as tests

Multiple views

Prove it with code

Keep it simple

Disciplined Agile and Continuous Architecture


Initial Architecture Envisioning

Stakeholder Vision

Architecture Owner facilitates

architecture sessions Spikes

Architecture Handbook

Analysis of incoming requests from production

Look-ahead modeling

Prove architecture early with working code

Spikes

Tran

sitio

n

Disciplined Agile and Continuous Design


Stakeholder Vision

Test-Driven Development (TDD)

Spikes

Consider design issues for incoming requests from production

Look-ahead modeling

Spikes Look-ahead

modeling

Explore design during iteration planning

Mob programming

Tran

sitio

n

DisciplinedAgileandEnterpriseArchitecture

Principles for Performing Enterprise Architecture Agilely

1.  Evolutionary collaboration over blueprinting 2.  Communication over perfection 3.  Active stakeholder participation 4.  Enterprise architects are active participants on

development teams 5.  Enablement over inspection 6.  High-level models 7.  Capture details with working code 8.  Lean guidance and rules, not bureaucratic

procedures 9.  Have a dedicated team of experienced, enterprise

architects


Collaboration Strategies for Enterprise Architects

•  Work closely with stakeholders •  Be an active member of a delivery team

•  Enterprise 2.0 strategies •  Support delivery teams via a Kanban approach

•  Provide working examples of candidate architectures

•  Provide high-level models •  Provide detailed models •  Provide white papers


Most Effective

Least Effective

Agile EA: High-Level Process


Enterprise IT Team Example: The Architecture Ownership (AO) Team


•  Responsible for developing the architecture/technology roadmap for your organization

•  Delivery teams will determine who the architecture owner (AO) is, and that person becomes part of the AO team

•  The AO team meets regularly to evolve the roadmap based on the hands-on learnings from the AOs

•  Often called the enterprise architecture team

Principles for Capturing Enterprise Architecture In An Agile Manner?

•  Organizations are complex systems •  Complex systems cannot be managed at a fine

grained level, but only at a meta level (management by rules)

•  Documentation for complex systems should be coarse (high level)

•  Describe how things work in principle •  Predictions should be fuzzy and described as

ranged probabilities •  It is more important to strengthen a system’s

resiliency than it is to document •  Accept some disorder and ambiguity •  Working examples are more valuable than

documents


Top 7 Enterprise Architecture Success Factors

1.  Active involvement of business leaders

2.  Active involvement of IT leaders

3.  Enterprise architects are active participants on project teams

4.  Enterprise architects are trusted advisors of the business

5.  Flexible enterprise architects

6.  Having a business case for EA efforts 7.  Continuous improvement/evolution of EA artifacts


Source: Dr. Dobb’s January 2010 State of the IT Union Survey

Top 7 Enterprise Architecture Failure Factors

1.  Insufficient time provided

2.  Project teams didn't take advantage of the EA

3.  Too difficult to measure benefits

4.  Enterprise architects perceived as "ivory tower“

5.  Development teams couldn't wait for enterprise architects

6.  No perceived benefit of EA program

7.  No executive endorsement


Source: Dr. Dobb’s January 2010 State of the IT Union Survey

The Prime Directive for Enterprise Architecture Success

Deliver real and visible value to your organization

in the short, medium, and long term


Thank You! scott[at] scottambler.com

@scottwambler

AgileModeling.com AgileData.org Ambysoft.com

DisciplinedAgileConsortium.org DisciplinedAgileDelivery.com

ScottAmbler.com

Disciplined Agile Delivery


Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) is a process decision framework The key characteristics of DAD:

–  People-first –  Goal-driven –  Hybrid agile –  Learning-oriented –  Full delivery lifecycle –  Solution focused –  Risk-value lifecycle –  Enterprise aware


Shuhari and Disciplined Agile Certification

At the shu stage you are beginning to learn the techniques and philosophies of

disciplined agile development. Your goal is to build a strong foundation from

which to build upon.

At the ha stage you reflect upon and question why disciplined agile strategies work, seeking to understand the range

of strategies available to you and when they are best applied.

At the ri stage you seek to extend and

improve upon disciplined agile techniques, sharing your learnings with

others.


Would You Like This Presented to Your Organization?

Contact us at ScottAmbler.com


Scott Ambler + Associates is the thought leader behind the Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) framework and its application. We are a boutique IT management consulting firm that advises organizations to be more

effective applying disciplined agile and lean processes within the context of your business.

Our website is ScottAmbler.com

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