So one of my many ideas on Enterprise Architecture is that it is basically storytelling. It is trying to explain or illustrate a complex system of multiple underlying forces and dynamics that drives a system in constant but seemingly incomprehensible way to a complete degree.
Better stories makes us better equipped to navigate the future. But all my current models and stories have shortcomings. Like navigating one of those bikes where the steering is reversed, but only sometimes. We struggle when the apparent model we navigate on suddenly no longer works, or yields a different result than expected.
I thoroughly enjoy Gideon Slifkins humorous and sometimes provocative post on EA, and the many others who contribute to this discussion. But the many discussions on the pros and cons and inadequacies of certain EA constructs, is more to do with how far we have come and how much we try to explain. We see what we can, but we want more.
I think, as I the late this evening was talking to my son on the theory of general relativity, that there are similarities across the fields.
While EA may be infinitely smaller and less majestic than theoretical Physics and Cosmology, there are elements of the attempts to produce theories and models that try to encompass more and more of the seemingly random and everchanging results we may see in the world, that looks a little like the more scientific role model.
We struggle and toil, because our EA models and understanding are, like those physics, incomplete. We make mistakes and take bad decisions because like science we are constantly stuck working in theories and models that we have, not necessarily the ones we want. Models we know no longer will adequately predict or guide us, but we stay with them due to fear, lack of knowledge, loss of control over the narrative or because it is still the best model we have.
Great EA is not about only the models you use, it also about the courage to keep evolving your models, to add dimensions, layers, forces and factors to make better stories. To challenge your core assumptions to make better ones, and then challenge those again.
EA is being both the theoretical physicist, the experimental physicist, the engineer, the contractor and the teacher.
We get to invent new theory, use and test that theory and bring that knowledge it brings us to all others in our business, often all in one day.