Architectural Thinking
Architectural Thinking is vital for our 21st century world.
I would go further and say that architectural thinking is critical for the health of our planet and for our survival as a species. If you are wondering "why?", then I'd like to explain...
We are on the edge of a significant world-wide change - where the power of social technologies and the media lead to collaborative decisions that are based more on opinion, propaganda, and misconception than on fact, analysis, or reason.
In 2016 included two, largely unexpected, political upheavals that reflected this change - the UK referendum that returned a vote to leave the European Union, and the US vote for a business and property magnate who had never held elective office as its new President.
What is staggering is how frequently voters based their decisions on trivia, myth, or impossibility. In a recent TV debate an audience member cited a European directive to grow straight bananas as the deciding factor in her vote to leave the EU (you can read about this and other Euromyths here). Many more votes were persuaded to leave the EU by a false claim made famously on the Vote Leave bus that £350 million a week paid by Britain to the EU would instead go to the National Health Service.
If these two political events aren't enough to convince you of this significant change in collaborative decision making, then bear in mind that the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2016 is post-truth – defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’.
Others have referred to a post-factual society and fake news. While British journalist and writer Paul Mason has written in detail about the existential threat to capitalism by the digital revolution! (I would agree with this review of his book: Postcapitalism: A Guide to our Future - it introduces some thoughtful and fascinating arguments for anyone concerned with the impact of human life on our planet, and for this reason I would include it on my recommended enterprise architecture reading list).
So what is going on here? And what does it have to do with Architectural Thinking?
In a recent Cutter Business Technology Journal devoted to "Technology Trends, Predictions, and Reflections 2017" I wrote that:
...we have reached a tipping point in our use of information, communications, social, and Internet technologies. In some situations, facts and understanding don’t matter; only opinions and emotions do. This is actually quite a radical change!
And here's the point about architectural thinking - maybe it can really help us to improve our understanding of what we are doing to our planet; maybe it can help us to make better decisions about our future on this planet.
Architectural thinking involves thinking about things holistically; seeing how changes in one domain impact other domains; understanding interdependence; leveraging chaos, complexity and emergence.
Enterprise architecture operates on the boundaries between prediction and uncertainty; between considering the big picture and including partisan viewpoints; between planned and emergent change; between globalisation and localisation...
So enterprise architecture, and architectural thinking, are ideally suited to explaining the big picture, and explaining the interconnectedness of everything.
Architectural thinking can show that leaving the EU doesn't mean that £350 million will divert into the coffers of the NHS. Architectural thinking can explain the deeper workings of globalisation, capitalism, and our economic, political, social, and environmental systems.
And my hope is that architectural thinking will explain the complexities of modern life, so that ordinary people will have a balanced perspective on the future that includes emotions and facts, opinions and reality.
Charles Rosenbury - I agree with your comment that included.."By the time someone is in "power" where they can influence the design, the "components" they need to design are two generations younger and have "attributes" which are simply not understood well enough to use them in the design." This lead-lag condition - EA adopted what was seen as patterns of the 1970s IT industry and placed that as the reference point in the 1980s.. By that time the those in the IT business moved into the 90s and explosive expansion of our global networking and information sharing and the follow on decades into social networking naturally supporting freedom of speech. The theory of EA architecture became the value system by which architects assessed those that in many cases had gone into the next generations values, and even into the one after that to match this online-business social world. However, there was and perhaps is a phase where govt - business-IT developments - in keeping up with the new society do think the latest and the greatest and the smallest designs are the way to go.. But what we have with aging populations is there are two generational sectors or may be 4 generations of humans , say young and old that have lifestyle issues that they want solving, the young want jobs and education and a purpose , the older want health and care and some purpose too. EA frameworks and theories does not even get close to the generational needs re architectural material and value systems.. EA frameworks and have a lag of a decade while the patterns emerge, and survive in the belief that these patterns are correct - say for another 20 years.. In EA we should really see the patterns and materials of architecture and keep them current.
Hi again -- can i highlight the issue.. I came on the EAN talking information systems... My experience and understanding of the obviously totally different to that of the 1980s era which seemed the current architecture reference point , hence the administered "architectur picture" thought I was down in the IT bits.. Different value systems,different architectural material too.. So an architect is not just about the richness, completeness, order and correctness - quantitative characteristics of the architecture perhaps, but the qualitative aspects - its materials and are they contemporary, correctly applied..demonstrate value and its this aspect where the architect has to put there commercial decision making hat on. Is it possible for the EAN journey to explore - materials, value systems, decision making at the architectural level.. and in those discussions we can not focus on the principles of architecture but on the nature of using it a practical way.
What happened to the good old fifth discipline of systems thinking? Why invent a new name for something that has been around for the past 25 years? I admit it doesn't get the attention it deserves, but does another name change the basic shortsightedness of selfishness and going for the quick wins? However, I fully concur! Holistic thinking, whatever the name you give it, will be critical for our future, even in the short run.
Thanks for sharing..