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If you have been involved in an Agile transformation, you have likely seen the struggle to implement Cadence and Sync. This ability to deliver in Cadence and Sync means that usable Features can be deployed within Value Streams and ultimately across Value Streams. deliver working Features within a short period. It can be hard enough for an Agile Release Train to finalize Features within a Program Increment. But, in a sizeable Lean-Agile organization, the ability to quickly deliver working Features across several domains in multiple Release Trains is needed to accomplish Cadence and Sync.
Without Cadence and Sync, Alignment through short feedback loops will halt. And without the short fast feedback loops, the dream of Business Agility flies out the window. The new digital age is characterized by a value network in constant movement and long-term planning and big deliveries are not an option.
A huge obstacle to reaching the Alignment cross-domain alignment, is the legacy structure, including supporting systems. Especially in large organizations that produce complex products, the development of supporting systems is a challenge. Regardless of how well you succeed in Agile abilities, the tale of legacy is far too long to be organized around value with effective Development Value streams that can execute in cadence and sync.
While the whole world is talking about Digitalization and the Fourth Industrial Revolution where Value Networks have an entirely different shape and scope.
An Enterprise Macro Structure is overlaying business ideas and the formation of business units and their interfaces to external parties.
A strategic obstacle is the long tail of legacy systems and outdated structures
An Enterprise’s foundational structure, Macro Structure, is the strategic prerequisite that controls the workings of an organization. form Business Models, Value Streams, and other fundamentals needed to develop and operate a business.
This article will touch on typical challenges when transforming a business and how Enterprise Jet Streams can reduce the complexity of a legacy structure to enable success in the new digital era. I will show how well-known architectural patterns can be used at the highest management level.
Cadence and Sync.
The solution to a very complex enterprise setup cannot be to work harder on defining value streams and continue to accelerate the Product Development flow. Instead, a macro-level view on value streams and the formation of modularized business entities can clarify business targets and create far better options for a successful Lean enterprise.
Modularization with viable business interfaces will reduce the complexity and remove the limitations any system ultimately will reach. The strategic forming of new business entities requires decisions on the highest level of authority and must be supported by business architecture competency.
This article will touch on typical challenges when transforming a business and how Enterprise Jet Streams can reduce the complexity of a legacy structure to enable success in the new digital era. I will show how well-known architectural patterns can be used at the highest management level.
Background
Large organizations that produce complex cyber-physical systems have, like all other organizations, a need to transform their ways of working. Typical industries where development speed and quality are essential are automotive, aircraft, aerospace, and defense. New competitors with less legacy are just around the corner to introduce entirely new services. The all too well-known disruptive pattern will play faster in the digital age.
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Enterprise and business architecture frameworks offer little support for the high-level models needed. The frameworks seldom cover strategic relations and interfaces between entities within a corporate group.
An Enterprise’s foundational structure, Macro Structure, is the strategic prerequisite that controls the workings of an organization. form Business Models, Value Streams, and other fundamentals needed to develop and operate a business.
At most companies, IT support for business processes has been cobbled together in a series of unrelated IT projects. Some projects build application silos; others link them together. The result is a highly inflexible IT architecture. Most IT and business executives agree that a more modular architecture—where IT-enabled business processes are plug-and-play components that can be used to meet changing business demands—provides far more capability for companies to grow rapidly and profitably. But inflexible legacy systems and processes are impeding progress in building modular IT and business capabilities. Firms wanting to move toward a modular enterprise architecture face a multi-year evolutionary process.2 Building modular capabilities is a gradual process and is often slowed down by the tendency to invest in immediate business needs rather than long-term capabilities. As a consequence, few companies have achieved a modular IT and business environment.
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