WARREN SELKOW
H ere’s an old story: Two men are walking in the woods in the early spring when they
accidentally awaken a large, hibernating bear. (It is not a good idea to awaken a large, sleeping bear in
early spring; it will be very angry and very hungry.) One of the men starts to run. The other goes into
his backpack, takes out a pair of sneakers, and puts them on. The first man yells over his shoulder,
“What are you doing? You can’t outrun that bear.” The reply: “I’m not going to
outrun the bear. I’m going to outrun you.”
This parable is greatly applicable to the free market. The bear, of course, is business failure. The
other man is competition. What the man putting on his sneakers was doing, in business technology terms,
was putting a solid infrastructure in place based on an architecture that he knew would improve his
chances of success.
All right, I know I’m stretching the point. I’m just offering a literary device to make you
want to read yet another article about the importance of architecture and infrastructure and how business
rules help put it all into place.
It Works in the Real World
Here are some real-world examples of the importance of having a good architecture in place:
•Several years ago, The Boeing Co. delivered the first entirely new commercial airplane in more than
two decades, the 777. And it delivered the plane exactly to specification. The plane came in less than
200 pounds under the maximum allowable delivery weight — only 200 less than the specification
allowed! The 777 weighs hundreds of tons. Consider the margin of error. Boeing believes the real
challenge was not in building the plane, which is a technological marvel, but in developing and
implementing an entirely new corporate architecture and infrastructure. This plane has an onboard
computer with its entire build and maintenance records. There are no paper drawings of the plane.
Everything about the 777 is new, and it is all computerized. No prototype was built first. It was test
flown in the computer. Consider the architecture and the infrastructure Boeing developed to make all this
happen.
•One of the larger Blue Cross/Blue Shields was experiencing great pressure to handle the
ever-increasing volume of claims. The high transaction volumes greatly degraded the usual good service.
The usual approach would have been to blame the slowdown on the IT systems. Instead, the company examined
its infrastructure and architecture and the rules it was using to run their operations. The result: a
dramatic change in the way it thought about its business and how to operate it. The company discovered
that by making significant changes in its operations, it needed only a small change in its systems. In
weeks, not the usual months or years, it was able to make outstanding progress and was delivering service
levels far in excess of its competition. There is an interesting sidebar to this: What Blue Cross
discovered and documented was, essentially, that bad service is far costlier than good service. The
real breakthroughs in the preceding examples weren’t just in the understanding of the architecture,
infrastructure, and business rules of the enterprise, but in understanding the business motivations. And
it was this understanding that fleshed out all the pertinent issues. You have to know why before
you can hope to resolve the who, how, where, when, and what. But just what does the “why”
really encompass?
Setting the Motivational Tone
At the enterprise or corporate level, five elements determine the motivation for why you are in business
and how you should run it. (See Figure 1.)
FIGURE 1 The enterprise motivation model.
Figure 1 is a simple model, but what it represents in real life is the mindset that will eventually frame
all the business rules, as well as the level of compliance and rule enforcement. This model sets out both
the enterprise environment and what may be considered the master motivation environment. The CEO and the
executive team will create an enterprise that is ambient with this environment.
The model demonstrates
that the corporation will be set in place relative to four external factors: vendors, government,
competition, and customers. These four external entities drive both the motivations and influencers that
determine the corporation’s mindset.
The best way to explain the nuances of what motivations and influencers are is by example. An example of
a motivator would be the SEC. The SEC demands that a corporation submit a report on the first of every
month. The corporation may or may not comply, but generally, the risk of punishment motivates the
corporation to do so. In another example, a new market opportunity presents itself and the corporation is
positioned to get to that market before anyone else. It may or may not move forward, but, with the
motivating factor being a reward, it most likely will. Motivations, by and large, are not subtle in
nature.
Influencers, on the other hand, are subtle. An example of an influencer would be the rumor that a
competitor is about to change its prices. In this case, a corporation may or may not wish to take action,
but its course is not as easily predictable.
You may perceive these externally driven influencers and motivators as affecting the corporation either
positively or negatively. Regardless, these external pressures drive the corporation’s perceptions
and mindset. Perceptions at the executive level then translate into a vision statement,
which sets out for the corporation and the world at large just what the enterprise aspires to be. This
concept is an important one for designing the architecture and enabling the infrastructure. Almost every
motivation (and thus corporate vision) is rooted somewhere outside the corporation.
Measurable and Unmeasurable Aims
When the vision statement is in place, management will set out a group of desired states of corporate
being and business directions. These states are in two categories: measurable and unmeasurable. The
measurable set will include objectives, tactics, and implementations, all of which you can see,
experience, and place metrics against. The unmeasurables will include goals, missions, and strategies.
A measurable state implies identifiable timeframes and units of measure. Quantified standards imply
stringent rules and high levels of comparison and enforcement. When you apply metrics, you can make
performance evaluations because there is something quantifiable at stake. There’s then the issue of
wage increases and “bragging rights” associated with “making the numbers,” which
eliminates all subtlety from the corporation. Motivations begin to become reality, which causes business
rules to appear almost magically. A sales quota is a great example of this measurable-state concept.
Sales people are not compensated on the strength of their winning personalities and good looks; they are
paid on their ability to produce sales. In the real world, Mr. and Miss America don’t last very long
as corporate sales representatives if they don’t produce the numbers. True sales people are those
who generate the company’s income, and thus everyone else’s salary. Unmeasurables include
goals, strategies, and missions. You can’t place timeframes and units of measure on these items,
because they are ongoing and have neither real starting and ending times nor quantifiable results. These
items indicate the general direction toward which the corporation is pointed. They create a sense of
purpose, help establish a sense of unity, and become part of the organization’s ethic.
The Sense of the Organization
How does an organization know when it accomplishes a strategy or mission, or meets a goal? An
organization answers this question through sensory observation more than by what it can measure with a
tool. If a goal is to be an equal opportunity employer and, more specifically, hire physically
handicapped workers, the corporation knows it is meeting its goals by seeing that the handicapped
employees and a diverse work force in action. The corporation has a cultural awareness of having attained
the goal, strategy, or mission.
In the real world, to make unmeasurable aims a reality, the corporation must put physical facilities in
place. For instance, to make hiring the physically handicapped a reality, an effort must be made to hire
and train the physically handicapped. The company also must make the building handicapped-accessible and
enact flexible work conditions. In other words, to be reality, intangibles must be made physical and will
eventually result in business rules. The corporation will impose three levels of enforcement on those
rules: mandated, meaning do it or suffer the consequences; policy, meaning do it, but if you find it
might not apply get approval; and guideline, meaning here are some rules that may or may not apply and
use good judgment. All three types are published in corporate operations manuals.
When the workforce understands the business’s motivations, the business can put the next important
steps of establishing and maintaining the infrastructure in place. For instance, it will be possible to
identify the business events re- quired to accomplish the motivation. These business events will have a
sequence, dependence, iteration, and duration. You will also have to maintain and measure a business
event to see if you need to change it.
The knowledge of what business events the organization wants to occur forces the rest of the process to
fall into place. Knowing what events should happen lets the executives determine how to do the work of
the event, who should do it, and where it will be done. In the designing of all these items, the
corporate architecture will define itself at a high level and the instantiation will create the
infrastructure. This process is not a trivial exercise. As each portion is resolved, the corporation will
generate and enact the appropriate business rules. And to make all this a reality, all the assets (read:
money) will be identified and acquired.
A Last Concept
We have stated empirically that to understand the business, we must understand the business
motivations, most of which have roots outside of the corporation. When the workforce understands
motivations, the organization will define the business events required to satisfy these
motivations. In making the business events a reality, the corporation will put into place the
people, work processes, and physical facilities necessary. To make the
people, work processes, and physical facilities a reality, the corporation will spend assets
(money). These six things (motivation, business events, people, work processes, physical facilities, and
assets) are a finite definition of the enterprise. As such, they represent the artifacts of the
enterprise and the formation of its infrastructure, which is the documentation of its architecture. Taken
as a whole, this creates the knowledge of the enterprise and its environment. The corporate culture is
the fuel that drives the enterprise. So these two men are walking in the woods one early spring when
they awaken a large bear from its long hibernation. The first man starts to run away. The second man
analyzes the environment he is in. He understands all the threats, risks, and rewards. He creates a
vision statement: “I will survive.” He creates an objective: Finish first. He creates a
strategy: Run faster. He puts in place a tactic: Put on sneakers. He implements his tactic: He runs like
the wind. And you know, it doesn’t make any difference what the other guy says because the
bear’s already eaten him.
Guest columnist Warren Selkow has been in “data promising” since 1961. In his
experience he has performed almost every function from DBA to vendor representative. He has been active
on the Business Rules Group since its inception and has worked extensively with the Zachman Framework in
more than 50 clients as a consulting practice manager. You can reach him via email at wselkow@earthlink.com
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