Enterprise Architecture Mapping Artifacts - They are very powerful so be very, very careful

I wrote a blog (found here) describing the relationship from Business Strategy to other Business Architecture concepts and several IT concepts. I also introduced a few new concepts to the traditional view; Business Capabilities, Solution Domains and Data Facets that are fundamental to manage larger enterprise organizations. I’d like to reference that blog and the definitions of the concepts to talk now about how these concepts are used in portfolio mapping artifacts and share with you things that I’ve learned.

The following mappings list is by no means complete. My intention is to start a list and fill it in as I learn more. My intention is to bring awareness of mappings that I've observied having proved useful, mappings that have been less successful and throw in some related risks and assumptions as a way of added education to keep in mind when considering a particular mapping artifact.

One overlaying learning to all of these mappings I’d like to stress “Know what you are doing and clearly understand the goal". Compromises will innevitably happen so remember to avoid being distracted with the realities of the data you must work with. It is easy to lose sight of the goal and end up making compromises because one of the mapping concepts isn’t entirely there or is poorly defined or is inconsistent, etc - you might end up with an artifact labeled correctly but containing data that is totally useless to addressing the goal. Know the risks and assumptions associated with a mapping so that you can make wise decisions what to do with it and how to communicate it so that it isn't misinterpreted downstream.

As always, feedback is very welcome.

Comments

• Anonymous
  August 16, 2007
  PingBack from http://msdnrss.thecoderblogs.com/2007/08/16/enterprise-arch-mapping-artifacts-they-are-very-powerful-so-be-very-very-careful/

• Anonymous
  September 01, 2007
  I realised it had been a long time between postings but just how long surprised me. Since I last blogged

• Anonymous
  September 02, 2007
  What exactly is an Enterprise Architect versus a Solution Architect? I'd like to chat about the difference

• Anonymous
  November 13, 2007
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  July 22, 2009
  Since I am not able to view the entire contents because the table is too wide.  How can I get a copy of this? Thanks,

• Anonymous
  July 23, 2009
  @Amcosentino One option is to copy and paste the blog post into a Word document if changing your screen resolution cannot be increased. I shouldn't have to force others to anything to read these posts. So, from this point forward, I'll post articles at a lower resolution setting to avoid this problem. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.