In his book "Essentialism" Greg Mckeown has a little diagram like this, describing what happens to our lives when we don't think about what we are doing, and not deliberately working toward doing those things that we really believe to be of value.

This is not only true of individuals and our inability to focus on what is important, or of essence, it is also of critical importance that organizations do this. 
In organizations it is even more likely to happen to have this divergence, since there are more people, and more ideas, inspirations, and experiments of what could be done, and sometimes what should be done. 
This willingness and ability to experiment is critical for organizations, and some have even institutionalized it by allowing, encouraging a portion of time dedicated to that. (But it cannot be the business model, unless you are in a startup mode, and even then the experimentation is channeled.)

This, however should not lead to an organization that looks like the exploding star above, since it will get you nowhere. 

The real power of goals, strategies, and coherent business models is to define, related, and harness these elements, share them, and ensure that the activities are directed towards everyone moving coherently in the same direction. 

When there are competing goals, you will have forces working against each other and cancelling each other out. Even when there is agreement on the goals, but the strategies are defined poorly, e.g. without clear indications of what product/segments mix, which market we are going after, then there will be diffusion of effort and a blunting effect. 
We also need to ensure that our business model is most suitable to execute the strategy. (The business model is the structure and relationships between your customers, products (value proposition), channels and relationship, income/expenses, processes, and resources, that you apply to successfully engage with the customers. Your industry, products, customers, supply-chain, channels, etc. will all play a role.) Fielding the wrong business model will divert your efforts and energy. 
Once you have the appropriate model in place, then we are making real progress to removing the excess of little, divergent arrows, in favor of more concentrated and clear objectives. However, we also need to make sure that our capabilities are clearly defined, responsibilities assigned, and coordination spelled out. This will include having the appropriate technologies, team members (internal and external) in place, the right processes, and the appropriate information to execute.

First of all, I don’t particularly like the term architecture since it implies something more static than what business and enterprise architecture is (or at least should be!). I think “engineering” or even better “evolutioneering” would be preferable, but I am not in the business of coining those annoying buzzwords. From this it is probably clear what I consider the function of business and/or enterprise architecture. It is a set of models to help us describe the current organization in easy-to-grasp terms to help describe, communicate, share, and develop understanding of our organization, its goals and efforts, and to help inform high quality decisions about technologies, but within a rich, relational, and useful context.
Let me provide a working definition of both these terms.
Business architecture is responsible for describing, through a series of models and definitions, what the structure and relationships between the different parts of the organization are. This includes business models (e.g. business model canvas) business capability maps, goals, strategies, business plans, etc.
Enterprise architecture is responsible for describing through a series of models (business capability maps, app and tech portfolios, enterprise data model, heat maps, road maps, etc.) and definitions, the structure and relationships of applications, technology platforms, data models, processes all in relation to the business capabilities.[1]
Now that we have some of definitions taken care of, what, if anything is the worth of business and enterprise architecture?

Let us consider the decision and execution layers of the organization, and to understand that we need to quickly remind ourselves of what strategies and capabilities are:
Strategy is the decisions of where, when, and how to engage with one's customers. It also includes the decisions, and discipline of what NOT to do.
Capabilities are the combinations of people, process, technologies, and information of how to execute the aspects of the engagement with the customer. E.g. Marketing, Product Management, Customer Management, etc.

In most organizations one sees the following layers (even if they are not formally expressed ):
Strategy – typically the executives, who are responsible for the decisions of where and how to engage with our customers (e.g. decisions which product/market mix will help us achieve our goals);
Management – typically managers and/or team leads, etc. who are responsible for directing the operations of a capability (e.g. marketing to ensure customers are aware of our products);
Operations – people responsible for executing the functions of the capabilities (e.g. copywriters, designers responsible for developing the appropriate material that will resonate with the target audience, campaign development, etc.)
Business architecture definitely falls into the strategy function, while enterprise architecture fits better in the management layer. (Enterprise architecture is virtually impossible without context provided by business architecture.)
 
In the asking of the “worth” question, it seems often to be implied that it has to be a currency answer. It is virtually impossible to answer the question in this way, any more than one can answer the question about the worth of strategy and management.
How much is it worth for an executive to know how her/his organization is structured in terms of capabilities, strategic priority, maturity, and transformational opportunities? How much is it worth to know that we can improve business performance through integration while reducing complexity and cost, making us more responsive to a changing market and customer expectations?
How much is the set of models worth through which the executives, managers, and professionals can develop not only a shared understanding, but also a shared goal, a close-knit team working together with the same purpose?
That is the value of business and enterprise architecture.


[1] In some organizations the term enterprise architect is used to describe someone who is responsible for a platform, or a set of technologies related to a particular domain, technology or business. Perhaps domain or platform architect to describe these roles (as some organizations do) would be more accurate.
 

Another aspect of the chaotic exam was the way the school dealt with it, and this made me think of the responsibility of individuals, managers, and leaders when things go wrong. And how that behavior communicates the value of the people, and the institution.
Back to the wrong exams.

Here is then how it was handled.
We, the students were first told that it might have been a mistake, that it may indeed be a level higher than what we were supposed to do. One of the proctors then checked with administration. The message was they checked, and that there was only this one test. This was either a lie, or they are grossly incompetent: it takes less than 5 minutes with a simple search to determine that there are indeed different exams, and that the one we received was the wrong one. 
We were then told that we signed in for the exam, implying that we should have know better than to sign in. Except that we could not have known when we signed in, that we were about to get the wrong material. They appeared to be laying the responsibility on us as the students for the mistake. To round it off, we were told that if we leave we would fail and be responsible for the additional cost of a retake. 

Here is how it might have been handled. 
First of all, one would expect a process to be in place to prevent this from happening. If it didn't I would expect the administration to have the basic skills to check, and find the mistake. 
The next step is to come out and acknowledge the mistake. I get the awkwardness of this, I have been there enough times, but it actually creates trust when a mistake is acknowledged. Then one could have presented the students with a choice to either take this exam, or not. Those who want to take the exam can stay, and take their chances. Those who would prefer to wait for a rescheduled exam are then also free to leave, with no threat of failing or additional cost. 
The administration could also have recommended that everyone take the exam, even knowing that it is wrong since the students may pass it anyway. But, that a follow-up, corrected exam will be scheduled right away.

The difference is that the first approach will either make you look like a fool or a liar, or both, but either not to be trusted. The second approach will show you as human, as competent even when imperfect, as being a person (and institution you represent) of integrity. 

The fact is that mistakes happen. My first manager said, the only people not making mistakes are the ones not doing anything. 

When it does happen, how do you deal with it?

Yesterday I took part in a language exam. We had been preparing for it for five months, and I had been performing pretty well on the prep-tests. These were in the same format that the exam was going to be. 
Was supposed to be. 
Except it was not. 
When we received the answer booklet, it was clear that the format was different. Then we started getting many and conflicting pieces of information: it was not the same, but one level up; no it is the same, just the format is different; no there is just this one level; no we cannot refuse to take the exam since we will receive an automatic fail, etc.

When facing with a challenge like this, what do we do?
Many of my fellow students spent the next hour trying to convince the administration that it was not an option to take the exam. 
To me the option was relatively simple: I would like to give this a shot, since we have worked on this, I was prepared for the day, and assumed that the skills we developed would be enough to pull me, us through. Yes, it was a surprise, probably unfair, definitely not expected from a language school to make such a basic, and gross error. But these were issues that we were not in a position to resolve since we were already checked in, signed, relieved of everything but our identification papers. 

After we were told what the options were, I suggested we go ahead and take the exam. This led to a howling from most of my fellow students. 

In the end, after they spent more time complaining about it, working themselves up even more, we did do the test. 
As we started it, it was clearly a level up, more demanding, expecting things from us that we did not prepare for. Kind of like life is.
Will I make it? I don't know - I think I might. 
In many ways it is irrelevant whether I pass or not. It is not about whether I passed the German test. It is about whether I learned the German language skills. (So why then even take the exam? It provides a nice end to the chapter, if nothing else. Am I going to value the certificate in a year? Five, ten? Extremely unlikely. )

But this is really about how we deal with the unexpected, the crises, the unfairness of life.
Life is profoundly indifferent to our feelings, even if it is ok, even healthy to occasionally express frustration. Shaking our fists at the gods.
Because of this indifference I try to focus my energy on the things that are in my control. Once something is inevitable through policy, fate, whatever, the best thing for me is then to stand up to the task at hand, fail or succeed. There are no guarantees in life, except that when we don't try, we won't succeed. Figure out which of the issues is the "ball", then keep your eye on it, and keep on playing until the end of the game. 
This is what distinguishes us from seeing ourselves as victims, or as agents of our own destinies. 
Every time that we step into the challenge, not only do we give ourselves an opportunity to succeed, we also test our own boundaries, and virtually always expand these boundaries. Every time we step into the ring, we accept the dance, the match, the fight, the opportunity that the randomness of life provides for us. 

​So go on, step into the ring...

Welcome to my site. It is definitely under construction. 

While the purpose of the blog is related to my work as strategy management consultant and business architect, it will also span whatever it is that I am reading at the moment. 
At the moment it is Antonio Damasio's "Looking for Spinoza". It is a fascinating look into the neurological underpinnings of our existence, survival, and the meaning of life. It is likely that I will share some thoughts as I work my way further through this profoundly interesting book. 

There is no regular plan when this will be updated, but my assumption is that it will be at least once a week. 

Welcome to the start of this journey.