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Using ProVision for

Enterprise Architecture A Proforma Corporation Position Paper

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Enterprise Architecture

© 2003, Proforma Corporation. All rights reserved. Page 1

Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 2

ProVision as a Tool for Enterprise Architects ................................................................................ 3

Strategy Command Center.......................................................................................................... 5

Organization Command Center .................................................................................................. 5

Communication Command Center ............................................................................................. 5

Process Command Center ........................................................................................................... 6

Workflow Command Center....................................................................................................... 6

Data / Class Command Center.................................................................................................... 6

ProVision and the Zachman Framework ........................................................................................ 8

ProVision as a Tool for Other Frameworks.................................................................................... 9

ProVision 4.2 and Enterprise Architecture ................................................................................... 10

Enterprise Architecture and Repositories ..................................................................................... 12

Summary....................................................................................................................................... 14



Introduction

“Enterprise Architecture is a complete model of the enterprise; a master plan which acts as an integrating force between aspects of business planning such as goals, visions, strategies and governance principles; aspects of business operations such as business terms, organization structures, processes and data; aspects of automation such as application systems and databases; and the enabling technological infrastructure of the business such as computers, operating systems and networks.”

Dennis A. Stevenson, section editor for IS World Research

This definition is consistent with the growing view that Enterprise Architecture is more than the architecture of our Information Technology systems. IT architects have historically used databases containing IT information to assess the impact of change or to understand how diverse systems could interact with each other. As the IT world has grown in complexity, this architecture function has become even more vital. Now the same principles that IT architects have used for years must be applied to a broader combination of both IT and business information.



ProVision as a Tool for Enterprise Architects

Proforma has, from its inception, specialized in gathering business information for three primary purposes:

1. Documenting our clients’ business operations. This seems almost trivial, but amazingly few organizations actually create and document strategic business plans, relate them to the fundamental business processes that they perform every day, and communicate this to the stakeholders who perform the work, or who are to benefit from it. If this level of documentation is not created, there is no way to assure that the work they do is relevant to the business strategy.

2. Improving our clients’ business processes. Once the strategy and processes are documented, one can look for ways to make fundamental improvements. Visual models can often reveal redundant work or inefficient processes. A matrix relating business activities to enterprise goals can identify unimportant work that might be eliminated. Theories for improvement can be tested by building “as is” and “to be” models, estimating costs and timing for each step, and running simulations.

3. Defining the business requirements for application systems, whether built or bought, that are to support new or improved business processes. This work usually involves defining data requirements, understanding how technology will support the business activities, mapping the exchange of information among existing or proposed systems, and defining both automated and manual activities and procedures.

Proforma uses its award-winning software, ProVision, to accomplish these purposes. In using ProVision, one builds a series of visual models that represent views of the enterprise from a variety of vantage points. One can define:

• Organizational goals, opportunities and problems – all aspects of setting enterprise strategy.

• Organizational components, such as divisions, departments or job roles. • Maps of the interactions among the organizational components • Equipment, hardware and software systems. • Maps of the interactions among the systems and the organizations. • Maps of the processes that make up the business. • Data that is used by the enterprise. • … and more

As one defines this fundamental information about the business, it is all being kept in ProVision’s repository -- a well-defined database that ties all of this information together.

ProVision has historically been used for documenting or seeking improvements on a portion of our client’s business. Indeed, it can be used on almost any level. One of its models is actually used to define the scope of each project. Information on individual projects can be merged to view larger areas of the business. With some advanced planning, this can be the basis for creating an enterprise-wide repository of business information. Whether using this bottom-up



approach, or adopting a top-down strategy, the resulting repository can act as the primary tool for Enterprise Architecture.

Recently, ProVision was used by the Hewlett-Packard / Compaq team, planning for the largest IT merger in history. One of the many uses of ProVision was documenting the existing computer systems and relating them to the business functions they supported. From there, redundant systems could be identified and decisions could be made on which should be eliminated. Then planning the migration of work to the surviving systems could take place.

ProVision proved quite useful in this work, yet the Enterprise Architecture team wanted to extend ProVision’s support for certain areas. Based on this customer feedback, Proforma is now delivering new functionality for Enterprise Architects in releases 4.1 and 4.2 of ProVision. These new capabilities will be useful for those architects who need to document and understand the make-up of their enterprise’s networks, hardware and applications, and how they are used by various business functions. This information is useful in assessing impact when planning for change or disaster recovery.

First in ProVision 4.1, the user view of ProVision has been enhanced to align it with the six basic business questions, “who, what, when, where, why and how”. This user view is now presented as a web-like portal as shown below.

ProVision’s main command center, organized around primary dimensions of the enterprise architecture.



The ProVision Enterprise Portal is a powerful graphical user interface for the ProVision tool set. This easy-to-use web-like portal provides an intuitive way to graphically model, view and improve all aspects of an enterprise. With the Enterprise Portal an organization can focus on each of the fundamental business dimensions—who, what, why, where, when and how—through six integrated command centers.

The different dimensions of the organizational architecture supported by the ProVision Command Centers are briefly described in the following.

Strategy Command Center The Strategy Command Center consists of a set of modelers that define and show the related

impacts of Goals and Metrics, Problems, and Opportunities. In addition current business Rules (or policies) along with Environmental Influences can be documented along with their impact on the other strategic components.

By documenting and analyzing these strategic components, process redesign, process improvement, organizational alignment, and technology decisions will be consistent with the strategic direction and initiatives of the enterprise.

Organization Command Center The Organization Command Center consists of a set of modelers to define and structure the

organizational components of the enterprise along with their fundamental inter and intra business interactions. The organizational components supported are Markets, Organizations, Roles, and People.

Organization Models specify the vertical organizational hierarchy or reporting structure of an enterprise or a portion of the enterprise. Business Interaction Models provide a horizontal view of peer organizational components along with the named interation that exist between the organizational components.

Communication Command Center The Communication Command Center consists of a set of modelers that specify the important

communication and operational relationships that exist among organizational components (Markets, Organizations, Roles, People), process components (Business Domains, Processes, Activities), physical assets (Locations, Facilities, Equipment), and system components (Systems, Stores, User Interfaces).

Included in this Command Center is an overall Communication Model, Location Model, System Model, and Storyboard (or User Interface) Model. These models, along with their supporting components, provide the means to define complex communication patterns and networks that support the enterprise.



Process Command Center The Process Command Center consists of a set of modelers that define functional Processes and

Activities of a defined Business Domains of the enterprise. Included in this set of models is a Process Model to show a functional hierarchy and a Use Case Model to show process components and their organizational usage requirements.

Once inventoried and defined, these process components can be used to construct process Workflow Models to show when and how the Activities are performed and what they consume in inputs and deliver as outputs.

Workflow Command Center The Workflow Command Center consists of a set of modelers that define the flow of work, the

actors responsible for performance, initiating events, and the resulting deliverables produced by the Activities of a Process. “As Is” and “To Be” models may be built for purposes of redesigning and improving the Processes.

Once modeled in a Workflow Model, a Process may be simulated to analyze its performance in terms of cost, timing, and resource usage.

Data / Class Command Center The Data / Class Command Center consists of a set of modelers used to structure Classes within

the Business Domain. Classes are those people, places, things, or concepts that retain information and provide functionality for a Process. All Processes use, produce, or add value to a collection of Classes (e.g., customers, orders, products). Classes are intended to be reused in multiple contexts throughout the business.

The modelers of the Data / Class Command Center are based on the UML standard and provide the means for showing the major characteristics of objects of interest to the business users and how these objects interrelate.



ProVision’s model inventory view is an excellent way to view and understand the enterprise architecture by viewing combinations of models across all dimensions of the enterprise. Collectively these models represent the architecture, or framework, defining the enterprise's strategy, operation, technology, and decision-making structure.

The Model Inventory page for ProVision’s EnterprisePro. All current models of the enterprise are

easily viewed by Command Center.



ProVision and the Zachman Framework “Who, what, when, where, why and how” are the same six questions that form the columns of the popular Zachman Framework, the most popular tool for Enterprise Architects. Zachman himself defines this Framework as:

“A logical structure for classifying and organizing those elements of an enterprise that are significant to both the management of the enterprise and the development of its information systems. Since its first publication in 1987, the Zachman Framework has evolved and become the model around which major organizations view and communicate their enterprise information infrastructure. Enterprise architecture shows the business as it is today, depicts it as it would like to be in the future, and provides a ‘blueprint’ for getting there.”

ProVision 4.1 includes a copy of this Framework, which can be used as an interactive guide for architects who wish to navigate from model to model using its structure. Here is a view of this Framework, clipped from a ProVision screen.

The Enterprise Framework view. This page is available in ProVision EnterprisePro.



ProVision as a Tool for Other Frameworks While the Zachman framework is probably the most popular framework for Enterprise Architects, it is by no means the only way to view the world. Indeed Zachman invites organizations to modify his framework to suit their unique characteristics. Proforma recognizes this and has made ProVision flexible enough to build tailored frameworks that fit the needs of different enterprises. For example the C4ISR framework, popular in the US Defense Department, can be represented in ProVision. Organizations with their own frameworks can modify ProVision to represent their unique architectures.

One could even create an architecture for specific enterprise initiatives. As an example, many organizations use Six Sigma as their primary initiative for quality improvement. Six Sigma uses a well-defined series of steps to gather and analyze information: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. The Six Sigma methodology can be viewed as a framework and represented in ProVision as illustrated here:

The project phases and supporting models for Six Sigma.



ProVision 4.2 and Enterprise Architecture Additional enhancements for Enterprise Architects are available in ProVision 4.2 with the release of two new modelers designed to support enterprise architects. The first of these is the Strategy Modeler, which allows a user to build a model that includes goals, problems, opportunities, rules and environmental influences on the same model.

The ProVision Strategy Modeler in version 4.2 showing a Balanced Scorecard model.

The impact relationships among strategic components can be visually charted and better understood. For example, the impact of problems on attaining goals, the impact of opportunities in solving problems, the impact of environmental influences on achieving goals, etc. This model can be used for a variety of purposes, such as supporting the balanced scorecard (see above diagram) approach for setting goals and measuring performance.

The second modeler is the Communication Modeler. Like the Strategy Modeler, it will allow a diverse set of object types to be shown on the same model -- in this case, organizations, facilities, locations, systems, processes, activities, and equipment. The Communication link which ties these objects together relates the avenues of communication that exist (or should exist) between these objects. As an example, this model can show the communication links that must exist between locations, the communication that people have with processes, and relationships between organizations where products or other deliverables are passed.



The ProVision Communication Modeler in version 4.2

From this model, it will be simple to assess the impact of losing a system or removing a location from a network. It will be easy to answer such questions as “Which users will be affected?”, “Which business processes will be degraded?”, or “If I make changes to this system, who might be impacted?”

In 4.2, reporting will also be enhanced to allow users to easily answer these questions through both matrixes and reports.

By adding the two new modelers, ProVision will be able to produce 20 different types of models. No competitive tool offers this range of modelers. Every model updates the repository with new information as it is being built.



Enterprise Architecture and Repositories Developing and documenting the architecture of an enterprise is a comprehensive data capture and knowledge management exercise. A semantically robust repository is a substantial aid. The repository should, in effect, become a virtual representation of the enterprise, storing and managing the important objects and relationships that comprise the enterprise. A sophisticated repository provides a number of substantial advantages to enterprise and business architects and modelers.

1. Objects stored in the repository can be reused in other models. Once they are defined in the repository, they will retain their fundamental enterprise definition and properties.

2. Models may be semantically merged. This allows modeling teams to build their models independently. They can then merge their results together to develop a consolidated view of the enterprise while retaining the integrity and definition of any common objects.

3. Objects can be accurately analyzed and reported on, based on the definition and usage properties “understood” by the repository. The repository, in effect, becomes a virtual representation of the enterprise that can answer key questions about the enterprise and its operations quickly and efficiently.



The Opportunity-to-Organization association matrix in ProVision is shown on the right. This is one of more than 20 different associations that an Organization object may participate in that is managed by the ProVision repository. Objects and their associations are represented in the repository based on their true definition within the enterprise.

An enterprise repository should “understand” the real world semantics of the objects and models that are maintained by the repository in order to make effective use of the information. This provides the ability to analyze and report on the relationships between components of the enterprise.

It is important to note that tools providing “generic” modeling capabilities do not fill the need for enterprise architecture. Although they offer flexibility in allowing the user to create models at will for any purpose, they are little more than drawing or presentation tools.

Generic modeling or diagramming tools lack the ability to understand the meaning of the objects represented in their diagrams. Their underlying repository is deficient and will introduce numerous long and short term issues. Primarily, objects and associations created in a generic modeling tool are not “understood” by the repository and thus lack meaning outside of the context of a single model or diagram. This characteristic effectively eliminates any opportunity for reuse, accurate analysis and reporting, and integrated team development.



Summary Proforma has a long history of collecting both business and IT information. We built ProVision as a software tool that holds this information in a robust, responsive repository. This information was historically used to solve a business problems, such as making a supply chain more efficient, or designing a better process for student registration. This same information, when collected across an enterprise is precisely what is needed by Enterprise Architects.

Based on the use of ProVision as an Enterprise Architecture tool in the largest merger of IT companies in history, we have extended our capabilities. In planning for the 4.1 and 4.2 releases Proforma has addressed the question “What additional facilities would Enterprise Architects need to do their job and what questions do they need to answer?” Our experience has enabled us to design new capabilities in ProVision that will make it the leading tool for Enterprise Architects, as it already is for Business Analysts, Management Consultants and Process Improvement Practitioners.

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