Enterprise Architecture Quarter

Enterprise Architecture Quarter (hereinafter, the Quarter) is the third of four lectures of Project Quadrivium (hereinafter, the Quadrivium):

• The Quarter is designed to introduce its learners to enterprise design, or, in other words, to concepts related to creating architecture for achieving enterprise goals; and
• The Quadrivium examines concepts of administering various types of enterprises known as enterprise administration as a whole.

The Quadrivium is the first of seven modules of Septem Artes Administrativi, which is a course designed to introduce its learners to general concepts in business administration, management, and organizational behavior.

Lecture outline

The predecessor lecture is Feasibility Study Quarter.

Concepts

1. Value engineering (VE). A creative approach used to optimize life-cycle costs, save time, increase profits, improve quality, expand market share, solve problems, and/or use resources more effectively. Value engineering can be divided into portfolio engineering, product engineering, market engineering, and process engineering.
   • Value. The performance characteristics, features, and attributes, and any other aspects of products for which customers are willing to give up resources. In other words, a value is the benefit enjoyed by the stakeholders of the product when the product is in operation.
   • Portfolio engineering.
   • Market engineering.
2. Enterprise. (a) An endeavor undertaken in order to create something or develop somebody, or (b) an undertaking that includes several endeavors and may or may not represent an entire business or organization. The enterprise assumes some level of enterprise effort.
   • Business. Either an individual's regular occupation, profession, or trade, or the practice of making one's profit by engaging in commerce.
   • Departmentalization. The basis by which jobs in an enterprise are grouped together.
3. Segmentation.
   • Sector. The market that a startup companies product or service fits into. Examples include: consumer technology, cleantech, biotech, and enterprise technology. Venture Capitalists tend to have experience investing in specific related sectors and thus tend not to invest outside of their area of expertise.
4. Core competency. An organization's major value-creating capability that determines its competitive weapons.
   • Competitive advantage. What sets an enterprise apart; its distinctive edge.
5. Innovation. Taking change ideas and turning them into new products, product features, production methods, pricing strategies, and ways of enterprise administration.
   • Sustaining innovation. Small and incremental changes in established products rather than dramatic breakthroughs.
   • Disruptive innovation (or disruption). Innovations in products or processes that radically change existing markets including an industry's rules of the game.
6. Value chain. The entire series of organizational work activities that add value to each step from raw materials to finished product.
   • Service profit chain. The service sequence from employees to customers to profit.
   • Technology. The way in which an organization transfers its inputs into outputs.
   • Cloud computing. Refers to storing and accessing data on the Internet rather than a computer's hard drive or a company's network.
   • Internet of things. Allows everyday "things" to generate and store and share data across the Internet.
   • Sharing economy. Business arrangements that are based on people sharing something they own or providing a service for a fee.
7. Optimization. The process of choosing the best alternative that will satisfy the needs of the stakeholders under the constraints given (e.g. cost, schedule and available technology).
8. Exit strategy. This is how startup founders get rich. It's the method by which an investor and/or entrepreneur intends to "exit" their investment in a company. Commons options are an IPO or buyout from another company. Entrepreneurs and VCs often develop an "exit strategy" while the company is still growing.
   • Exit strategy. A business strategy that seeks to withdraw an enterprise out of a particular business at the lowest cost and biggest gain.
   • Buyout. A common exit strategy. The purchase of a company's shares that gives the purchaser controlling interest in the company.
   • Liquidation. The process of dissolving a company by selling off all of its assets (making them liquid).
   • IPO. Initial public offering. The first time shares of stock in a company are offered on a securities exchange or to the general public. At this point, a private company turns into a public company (and is no longer a startup).
   • Harvesting. Exiting a venture when an entrepreneur hopes to capitalize financially on the investment in the future.

Roles

1. Agile team. A work team that is responsible for committing to work, delivering and driving the product forward from a tactical perspective in terms of Agile methodology. Usually, an Agile team is a small, high-functioning group of five to nine people who collaboratively work together to complete an iteration or project. The team has the necessary skills and competencies to work on the project. Scrum teams are cross-functional; Kanban teams can either be cross-functional or specialists. Scrum teams lack any roles. Kanban teams usually have team leads.
   • Agile team member. A member of an Agile team. Often, Agile team include engineers, architects, developers, analysts, QA experts, testers, UX designers, etc.
   • Team lead.
2. Scrum role. One of the following: product owner, Scrum master, Agile team member.
   • Scrum master. A facilitator for the team and product owner. Rather than manage the team, the Scrum master works to assist both the team and product owner in the following ways: (1) Remove the barriers between the development and the product owner so that the product owner directly drives development. (2) Teach the product owner how to maximize return on investment (ROI), and meet his/her objectives through Scrum. (3) Improve the lives of the development team by facilitating creativity and empowerment. (4) Improve the productivity of the development team in any way possible. (5) Improve the engineering practices and tools so that each increment of functionality is potentially shippable. (6) Keep information about the team's progress up to date and visible to all parties. Scrum master is often viewed as the coach for the team.
   • Product owner. A person who holds the vision for the product and is responsible for maintaining, prioritizing and updating the product backlog. In Agile methodology, the product owner has final authority representing the customer's interest in backlog prioritization and requirements questions. This person must be available to the team at any time, but especially during the Sprint planning meeting and the Sprint review meeting. Challenges of being a product owner: (1) Resisting the temptation to "manage" the team. The team may not self-organize in the way you would expect it to. This is especially challenging if some team members request your intervention with issues the team should sort out for itself. (2) Resisting the temptation to add more important work after a Sprint is already in progress. (3) Being willing to make hard choices during the sprint planning meeting. (4) Balancing the interests of competing stakeholders.
3. Customer. The organization or individual that has requested (and will pay for) a product or service.
   • Customer. A stakeholder who uses products or services delivered by an organization.
4. Project sponsor.
   • Sponsor. A stakeholder who authorizes or legitimizes the product development effort by contracting for or paying for the project.

Methods

1. Development methodology.
   • Methodology. A set of processes, rules, templates, and working methods that prescribe how business analysis, solution development and implementation is performed in a particular context.
   • Plan-driven methodology. Any methodology that emphasizes planning and formal documentation of the processes used to accomplish a project and of the results of the project. Plan-driven methodologies emphasize the reduction of risk and control over outcomes over the rapid delivery of a solution.
   • Change-driven methodology. A methodology that focuses on rapid delivery of solution capabilities in an incremental fashion and direct involvement of stakeholders to gather feedback on the solution's performance.
2. Agile methodology (or Agile development methodology). The project management approach of developing increments of prototypes and, eventually, the deliverable in frequent iterations based on evolving requirements. In other words, the Agile methodology is characterized by the division of tasks into short phases of work and frequent reassessment and adaptation of initial objectives. Instead of well-defined projects in the Waterfall methodology, the Agile one suggests a series of development sprints. This methodology emphasizes clearly-defined development rules with regard to both development and continuous feedback to refine the product scope rather than a predefined development process. This feature makes the methodology instrumental in those development that are inherently unpredictable. The Agile Manifesto was the initial public declaration for Agile methodology related to software. Its authors believed that they found "better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it."
   • Agile. (1) Able to move quickly and easily and/or (2) Agile methodology.
   • Scrum. The Agile methodology that features (a) a self-directed team with no specified project manager and no managers at all, (b) a high level of communication between team members especially through daily meetings called standups, and (c) a product owner who is responsible for continuous feeding tasks to the team. In Scrum, iterations are called sprints and are assigned a fixed length—sprints typically last one to two weeks, but can last as long a month.
   • Lean Agile methodology. An example of lightweight Agile methodology applied to project development. Lean Software Development combines the Lean manufacturing approach pioneered by Toyota in the 1950s (also known as just-in-time production) and Lean IT principles, and applies them to software. LSD places a strong emphasis on people and effective communication. LSD is defined by seven principles: (1) Eliminate waste, (2) Create knowledge, (3) Build quality in, (4) Defer commitment, (5) Optimize the whole, (6) Deliver fast, (7) Respect people
   • Lean UX. Inspired by Lean and Agile methodologies, Lean UX speeds up the UX process by putting less emphasis on deliverables and greater focus on the actual experience being designed.
   • Test-driven development (TDD). The practice of designing and building tests for functional, working code, and then building code that will pass those tests.
3. Kanban. A highly visual framework that falls under the Agile umbrella. The Kanban process uses continuous work flow rather than fixed iterations to produce shippable deliverables. When applied over an existing process, Kanban encourages small, incremental changes to the current process and does not require a specific set up or procedure. Kanban focuses on completing entire projects rather than sprints.
4. Waterfall methodology. A sequential design process where progress is seen as flowing steadily downwards through the phases of Conception > Initiation > Analysis > Design > Construction > Testing > Implementation > Maintenance.
   • Waterfall methodology. A product life cycle strategy including Analysis, Design, Development, Testing, and Deployment phases.

Instruments

1. Scrum meeting. One of the following: story time, Sprint planning meeting, Sprint review meeting, Sprint retrospective, daily standup.
   • Sprint planning meeting. A working session held before the start of each sprint to reach a mutual consensus between the product owner's acceptance criteria and the amount of work the development team can realistically accomplish by the end of the sprint. The length of the sprint determines the length of the Sprint planning meeting, with two hours being equivalent to one week of the sprint. Using this formula, the Sprint planning meeting for a two-week sprint would last about four hours, although this can vary.
   • Daily standup. A brief communication and status-check session facilitated by the Scrum Master where Scrum teams share progress, report impediments, and make commitments for the current iteration or sprint. The Daily Scrum consists of a tightly focused conversation kept to a strict timeframe; the meeting is held at the same time, every day (ideally, in the morning), and in the same location. The Scrum task board serves as the focal point of the meeting. During the Daily scrum each team member answers three questions: (1) "What have I done since the last Scrum meeting? (i.e. yesterday)" (2) "What will I do before the next Scrum meeting? (i.e. today)" (3) "What prevents me from performing my work as efficiently as possible?"
   • Story time. A regular work session where items on the backlog are discussed, refined and estimated and the backlog is trimmed and prioritized.
   • Scrum of scrums. A meeting that is a scaling mechanism used to manage large projects involving Scrum multiple teams. A Scrum of Scrums is held to facilitate communication between teams that may have dependencies on one another. One member from each team attends the Scrum of Scrums to speak for the team—this could be the Scrum Master but may be any team member who can effectively relay information and handle questions or concerns for the team.
   • Sprint review meeting. A meeting that a Scrum team holds immediately following the completion of a sprint to review and demonstrate what the team has accomplished during the sprint. This meeting is attended by the product owner or customer, Scrum Master, Scrum team, and stakeholders. The Sprint review meeting is an informal meeting (no Powerpoint slides allowed). The length of the sprint determines the length of the Sprint review meeting, with one hour being equivalent to one week of the sprint. Using this formula, the Sprint planning meeting for a two-week sprint would last two hours, although this can vary.

Practices

The successor lecture is Chief Execution Quarter.