Innovating strategic management and business design through Interweaving

This seventh article is continuation of the series that address "Ways of Architecting".

The new aspect introduced here provide additional characterisation of architecting by focusing on who performs architecting.

Architecting can be performed in many ways, some ways are recommended by professional enterprise architecture associations, some has evolved through practices, and some exists outside the profession. A strong tradition from the IT, engineering origin of Enterprise Architecture is that a professional organisational unit, or function is responsible for architecting. However looking outside the IT/engineering departments, in the wider enterprise and its organisational units, architects are not commonly found. Instead architecting can be considered as being performed by professionals (CxO, strategist, analysts, organisation designers, managers, etc.) that co-create fundamentals (important, essential enabler, material)elements of the enterprise, make material decisions, and use the same techniques, models as architects. This often unknowingly of that what they do can be called architecting.

This sixth article is continuation of the series that dives into "Ways of Architecting".

The new aspects introduced here provide additional characterisation of architecting by focusing on elements of ways of addressing, thinking about architecture, and ways of working with architectures.

A specific approach to architecture and architecting may involve specific assumptions about the real world and architectures, belief systems, theories, principles, and architecting techniques, methods. These may significantly determine characteristics  and qualities of actual architectures, as well peoples perceptions and conceptions of architectures. 

​This fifth article is continuation of the series that dives into "Ways of Architecting". The new aspects introduced here provide additional characterisation of architecting by pointing to the importance of the object of architecting and what types and kinds of architecture that are relevant to architecting efforts. At the end I include an ide...

From the world of Building architecture, we find the following Timeline of architectural styles.

• Timeline of Architectural Styles.

The next articles covers different architecture styles in history.

• Architectural Styles
• National Register of Historic Places- architectural style categories

 

This third article is continuation of series that dives into "Ways of Architecting" Series. 

The new aspects presented here are tradition, customs, style, taste, and fashion. These important aspects of contemporary architecting are worth considering by organisations applying architecting practices, architects themselves, and scholars. Knowing where the discipline comes from is always valuable, especially in the fast paced and interconnected era of Internet. The ideas of tradition, custom, styles, taste, and fashion promise to enrich the understanding of any particular variant of architecting or architecture, their current impact, future possibilities, and challenges. At the end of the article I am outlining a set of characteristic of a tradition that has evolved in the field of enterprise architecting - Traditional EA.

For the purpose of this series of articles, and not to dwell in details, the definitions of terms are common sense oriented and not formally defined.

The nature of Ways of Interweaving and Architecting can be explored through an interesting thought experiment, involving a reflective question. The answer(s) to this question often provide a good indication on the approach you are likely to prefer, use, and/or advocate.

"What do you believe is the most important feature of interweaving or  architecting?"

a) form and give space to peoples decision making? b) identify and describe capabilities of an enterprise, and use these descriptions to design, build, and run them?

More reflective insights may be gained by answering a followup questions:

"Do you work with architecting in the spirit of the answer(s) to the first question?" or "Do you practice what you think and preach?"

The discipline of Enterprise Architecture is a young way of addressing the manyfold of enterprise concerns compared to older structured disciplines such as building architecture, strategy development, and organizational design. The youth is slowly being transformed into maturity in some areas but into turmoil in others.

This, and the next articles aim at introducing a techniques that can be used to analyse the way people and organisations see and practice interweaving and architecting. This in order to better evaluate how the ideas behind interweaving and architecting can be beneficially applied within an enterprise. Using this technique enables a clearer understanding of where people, and organisation comes from when they advocate a certain way of addressing architecture and architecting.