Create an Enterprise Architecture Blueprint - Big Five #1

On this page, we provide a tutorial to create Blueprints. First, we introduce a bit of the open Dragon1 EA Method theory about creating a Blueprint and next, we lay out the steps to create a Blueprint on the Dragon1 Platform.

As an architect you normally are required to create landscapes, blueprints, and roadmaps for your stakeholders. Therefore Dragon1 is optimized to build these three types of visualizations.

Learning Objectives

The learning objectives of this Tutorial are:

  • What is Enterprise Architecture and what is its function?
  • What is a Blueprint and why do we create one?
  • What are the main tasks of an enterprise architect?
  • How to create an Interactive Blueprint?

Enterprise Architecture Blueprint, Big Five #1

Dragon1 has, as part of its EA Method, defined an open EA Framework containing reference models and architectures.

The five most important blueprints have been named The Big Five, out of which the EA Blueprint is the most important one. And that one we are going to discuss here.

Before creating a Blueprint, be sure to start with the first tutorials as advised on the Jump Right In page of the Getting Started area.

Why create a Blueprint?

There are many different types of organizations like enterprises, companies, schools, and governmental bodies. All these are organizations because they are groups of people using means and resources to achieve goals together.

The better you know how the people, means and resources are organized, the better you can manage them to achieve goals. By managing we mean: setting goals, checking progress, and (re)directing projects or work.

Organizations, though, often lack an overview and dependencies of the structure. This is because organizations are constantly innovating and adapting to their changing environment (in terms of changing client needs, technology, and legislation). A blueprint is a best practice for creating overviews and insights in the presence of interrelationships or dependencies between the parts that an organization consists of.

Structure (Total Element)

Enterprise Architecture as a field of work and the Dragon1 open EA Method look at organizations as fluid systems.

At the logical level systems consist of elements. There is not one second that the organization is the same as another second. All elements in the system are directly or indirectly connected with other elements. This means that if you are going to change elements in the organization, you will change more than the direct structure. You will also change related parts you did not intend to or want. Or even the other way around, other parts can block or frustrate your intended change.

Architecture (Total Concept)

Knowing how an organization exists of elements and how they are related, is knowing about the structure of the organization. It is a physical (technical) or logical (functional) level view of the organization. But when you know how groups of elements work together as a concept producing results, then you know, what concepts (and their principles) the organization consists of. In other words, you know the enterprise architecture of the organization. Why is this important to know? Well, if you change an element (at the logical level) or component (at the physical level) you might either be disturbing or enabling the group collaboration of elements (i.e. the principle of a concept).

Suppose your organization is printing books, but the newly bought clean recycled paper is thicker than the previously used paper. Then the printing may not succeed with the current printers and also new printers have to be bought. So the new paper disrupts the current organization's printing principle: By always using cheap and thin paper we can make use of any low-cost printer and produce a huge amount of books for profitable prices.

As an architect you can be of great added value by communicating about the current state of concepts and principles, what new concepts and principles are needed by the strategy, and how transformation affects concepts and principles in the organization. In other words: You definitely should create an Enterprise Architecture Blueprint to increase your added value.

Designing a Blueprint

The Dragon1 open EA Method defines architecture as a special total concept for a structure, like an organization. And the architect is defined as a designer of that total concept and the supervisor of its realization. So to create a Blueprint, the architect must select and group concepts. But to know what concepts an organization needs, an architect must know where architecture fits in the governance of the organization. Architecture is defined by Dragon1 as the Bridge between Strategy and Transformation. So any total concept (=architecture) makes sure that the right transformation is carried out to enable the strategy. Architecture provides an integrated design or blueprint for all the programs and projects that carry out the transformation.

The architect must go to the strategic stakeholder of the organization and get information on the strategy (mission, vision, ambition, starting points, issues, concerns, objectives, needs and requirements, etc...)

With this, he collects, selects, groups, modifies, and adapts concepts because they are required by the strategy. On an EA Blueprint, an architect draws the concepts, principles, elements, and or components as an integral design. The parts are often grouped into layers and domains. In an EA blueprint, it is common to visualize the layers: market & client, governance, business, information (or data and application), and technology or any combination of these layers. The layers are filled with the elements or components that come from the concepts. Like process, function, and unit in the business layer.

Next, the architect defines the parts of the transformation: Programs, projects, stages, phases, milestones, and deliverables.

So before starting to build blueprints on Dragon1, it is a good thing to know all this: Why, What, and How to create EA Blueprints.

Creating an Enterprise Architecture Blueprint

Here are the steps to take in the Visual Designer to create a blueprint. Below you will see a screenshot showing an example blueprint that can be used by you as a template to edit.

To create a blueprint, do the following:

  • Collect the strategy, architecture, and transformation data in a spreadsheet
  • Create a folder structure
  • Import the data automatically or enter the data by hand
  • Enrich the data - if data is missing fill that data in
  • Create a model - Create an enterprise model that contains all the data or create several models that together form an enterprise model
  • Create about 20 views of the data in the model: stakeholder view, concerns view, product view, process view, application view, programs view, deliverables view, etc...)
  • Create a Visualization
  • Draw per view a Visual Item on the Visualization
  • Link the Visual Items with the views
  • Switch the blueprint in normal mode and watch your blueprint (having the visual items being interpreted)
  • You can, of course, design a separate Strategy and Transformation blueprint or design a solution blueprint or roadmap for a certain project or solution.
  • Also you can build an AS-IS Blueprint or TO-BE Blueprint and define the GAP between them and present that GAP.
  • Anyway there are lots of things to do once you have created a Blueprint.
  • Publish the blueprint to the Viewer and share it with your stakeholders.
  • Ask them to add comments in the Viewer.
  • Process the comments to improve the blueprint.
  • Educate the stakeholders where they can use the blueprint and how to use it.
  • The next time you want to create an EA Blueprint use this blueprint to get a design assignment from a director, being your owner/client as an architect.

Below we are detailing all the steps from above.

Create Folder

To create a folder structure for an EA Blueprint:

Import Data

To import the data automatically or enter the data by hand:

Create Model

Create an enterprise model that contains all the data or create several models that together form an enterprise model.

To create an enterprise model for an EA blueprint:

Create Views

Create about 20 views of the data in the model: stakeholder view, concerns view, product view, process view, application view, programs view, deliverables view, etc...)

To create a view:

Create Visualization

We now have data, a model, and views. These views in the end need to be made visible on a visualization canvas to form a visualization. So first we are going to create a visualization canvas.

To create a Visualization Canvas:

Draw Visual Items

A Visual Item is a shape/data placeholder that is placed on a visualization and linked to a view. The Visual Designer will interpret the rule configured in the visual item in Normal Mode to show the data of the linked view on the visualization canvas.

Draw per view a visual item on the Visualization.

To insert a visual item on the visualization canvas:

It is a good practice to draw the Visual Item containing a background color, at the exact place where you want the data of the view to be generated on the visualization canvas.

The visual items need to be linked to the views.

Make sure you have done this.

Switch to Normal Mode

Switch the blueprint to normal mode and watch tracking and tracing your blueprint

To switch the blueprint to normal mode:

  • Go to the player bar and switch the Edit Mode into the Normal Mode

Now the visual items will be interpreted and, if all settings are done correctly, will show the data of the views at the correct position.

Publish

Publish the blueprint to the Viewer and share it with your stakeholders.

To publish the blueprint:

Add Interactivity

If you want to add interactivity to your Blueprint, you can do the following. You can have Popup Dialog Boxes generated on mouse over or mouse click on a shape. You can insert click-through links from this blueprint to other visualizations. For instance to go to a detailed visualization of a process or application, if you click on it.

To have Popup Dialog Boxes generated:

To insert click through links:

A third standard piece of interactivity is tracking and tracing. For tracking and tracing you do not have to do anything extra. Via the switches on the player bar in the Visual Designer and the Viewer, you can switch tracking and tracing on and off.

Blueprint template screenshot

Enterprise Architecture Blueprint Big Five#1 template.

This EA Blueprint is also available as a template in the Visual Designer. This blueprint is only a reference model. Be sure to adjust it to your specific needs.