Complex Enterprise Architecture

Formal enterprise architecting frameworks tend to emerge in a systems engineering context. As a result, they have an analytical bent that is often ineffective at the enterprise scale, especially as IT continues to dis-integrate into finer-grained composable chunks (e.g., services).

This post by Dion Hinchcliffe reflects a growing realization that enterprise-level architecting must be capable of operating in a Complex (Cynefin) domain....where the key issues are better addressed by orchestrating boundaries and attractors than by sophisticated analysis. Key issues mentioned include COIs, adaptable policy/governance frameworks, and edge-driven capabilities.

Exactly where this is headed is unclear. Experienced architects understand that the enterprise is a mixture of the Complex, Complicated, and Simple, and that our tools for effectively engaging the Complex are immature and few. And, as the boundary between IT and decisions becomes more fractal, the fundamental impedance mismatch between the analog world of human decision making and the binary world of IT becomes increasingly problematic.