agile enterprise architecture
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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
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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?
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What is Enterprise Architecture?
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Potential Enterprise Architecture Activities
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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
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Potential Challenges Faced by Enterprise Architects
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Some “Radical” Architecture and Design Ideas
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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
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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
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sitio
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Disciplined Agile and Continuous Design
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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
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DisciplinedAgileandEnterpriseArchitecture
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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
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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
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Most Effective
Least Effective
Agile EA: High-Level Process
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Enterprise IT Team Example: The Architecture Ownership (AO) Team
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• 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
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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
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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
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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
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Thank You! scott[at] scottambler.com
@scottwambler
AgileModeling.com AgileData.org Ambysoft.com
DisciplinedAgileConsortium.org DisciplinedAgileDelivery.com
ScottAmbler.com
Disciplined Agile Delivery
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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
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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.
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Would You Like This Presented to Your Organization?
Contact us at ScottAmbler.com
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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
We can help
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