Article - Zachman 2013

Question 1

What is EA according to Zachman?

Answer 1

A set of concepts and practices based on holistic system thinking, principles of shared language, and the long-standing disciplines of engineering and architecture.
Many organizational activities are EA-type activities, done in isolation by different groups. EA is about bridging the chasms among these activities, from strategy to operations, and better aligning, integrating, optimizing and synergizing the whole organization.

Question 2

What are the consequences of the trends ‘doing more with less’ and ‘doing IT everywhere’ ?

Answer 2

• Drive the evolution of IT products. Transform devices, societies and organizations.
• Enable some companies to create value and advantage using IT. Others.. not so much.

Question 3

What is the trend / paradigm shift regarding EA?

Answer 3

That information technologies can serve organizations.

This is grounded in:

• Holistic system thinking
• Principles of shared language
• The long-standing disciplines of engineering and architecture.

Question 4

What is architecture and why is is important?

Answer 4

> A set of descriptive representations that are required in order to create and/or manage an object.

• Baseline for changing an object once created.
• Serve as shared vision for stakeholders -> gets the thinking of a group on the same page.
• It is a representation. The real outcome is the implementation of it.

> Important to create Business-IT alignment.

Question 5

When is architecture crucial/imperative?

Answer 5

1. The object is complex. You can not fathom all details of the implementation at once.
2. To accommodate on-going change to the object
3. To communicate those details to others.

Question 6

What are 4 managerial options to deal with complexity if there is no architecture?

Answer 6

1. Try to reverse-engineer the architectural artifacts from the existing object (time and money intensive)
2. Take trial-and-error approach (risk and cost)
3. Make assumptions (can be incorrect -> time and cost)
4. Tear it down and start over.

Question 7

What is the Zachman Framework?

Answer 7

Universal set of descriptive representations for describing any or all industrial products, applied in a framework.

Question 8

What does the IT profession often emphasize on wrongly?

Answer 8

Building and running of systems instead of architecting and engineering them.

–> Makes maintenance, enhancement and integration of such systems costly and time intensive.

Question 9

In the most basic Zachman ontology (4 quadrants), where is IT and where is Management?

Answer 9

Management is in the top two cells: Resource Ideas and Behaviour(processes) Ideas

IT is in the bottom left: Resource Reality.

The bottom right is Behaviour reality.

Question 10

When is Business - IT alignment achieved?

Answer 10

When IT in resource Reality aligns with Management in the Resource Ideas quadrant.

Question 11

What are some basic characteristics of the ZEF?

Answer 11

1. Schema is normalized
2. Tool for thinking and communicating about organizations.
3. Ontology: schema of all information about the enterprise
4. Does not specify which models to use. It does provide a meta model for each cell though.

Question 12

What is the descriptive representation of the What column?

Answer 12

Bills of material

Question 13

What is the descriptive representation of the how column?

Answer 13

Functional specs

Question 14

What is the descriptive representation of the where column?

Answer 14

Drawings

Question 15

What is the descriptive representation of the who column?

Answer 15

Operating instructions

Question 16

What is the descriptive representation of the when column?

Answer 16

Timing diagrams

Question 17

What is the descriptive representation of the why column?

Answer 17

Design objectives

Question 18

What is the perspective of the executive / planner row?

Answer 18

Scope (boundaries)

Question 19

What is the perspective of the business management / owner row?

Answer 19

Requirements (concepts)

Question 20

What is the perspective of the Architect / Designers row?

Answer 20

Design (logic) - Data elements and functions (Information flow)

Question 21

What is the perspective of the Engineer (Builders) row?

Answer 21

Plan (Physics) (More focused on the technologies, and details of programming)

Question 22

What is the perspective of the Technicians (Implementers) row?

Answer 22

Part (Configuration) (More focused on individual modules)

Question 23

Why is it not always good that EA is allocated to IT people?

Answer 23

It is about more than IT: strategies, business models, policies, job descriptions etc.

Question 24

What is the problem of many business activities already being EA activities?

Answer 24

They are often executed by individual teams: cause for dis-integration, dis-connected and mis-alignment.

Question 25

What is Zachman’s ontology at a minimum?

Answer 25

A thinking tool to help decision makers at all levels to verify the completeness of their thinking and their decision models.

Question 26

What is the problem of not having an enterprise architected from the beginning?

Answer 26

Many systems have been implemented and discontinued over time. The overall result is that it is difficult to change, costly to operate and never aligned (business-IT wise) as they desired.

Question 27

How will EA bridge the chasm between strategy and operations?

Answer 27

By capturing all the relevant knowledge about an enterprise and making it available for every management need with a shared ‘language’.