Enterprise Architecture: Documentation 2.0

A lot of our problems with documentation come from the significance we invest in it. Culturally speaking, we tend to believe what is written down somehow must have more truth than something learned through other means...



Last year I asked the question: Is it possible to create too much documentation? Now I am asking whether one should even bother reading existing documentation.

Is it wise for an otherwise logical group of IT professionals to believe in something that they know is almost never true? What if we simply started with a simple guide as to what documentation is used for and more importantly what doesn't have fiscal return in documenting (If you have documentation in a contract, you are already a loser).

• All documentation is to be distrusted as out of data and subjectively biased


• Always favor a conversation over reading documentation...Its out of date, subjective and conversations may uncover insights that documentation would have missed


• If you don't know who to talk to, look at the documentation to see who writes the most notes about the bit of the application you're interested in


• Use a slick editor and hide all the code. Simply read the comments left by previous developers. If you are wondering why some function doesn't work and you run across the infamous TODO comment then things become clearer

Have you heard of McGovern's law of documentation which states: The likelihood of keeping all or part of a software artifact consistent with any corresponding text that describes it, is inversely proportional to the square of the cognitive distance between them. For those who like things more simple, this translates into out of sight, out of mind....

Characteristics of great leaders

Throughout my career, like anyone else I have had both good and bad bosses. Today, I will share a few characteristics of the good ones...



Sometimes, a boss suffers from power poisoning. They become selfish and oblivious to those around them. They have the ability to insulate and protect those below them, but otherwise choose not to. The best of bosses serve as a metaphorical condom and is savage in protecting their people especially in situations where perception management has gone awry.

Enterprise architecture when practiced correctly does require not only the positive aspects of championing ideas that lead to sustained competitive advantage but also attempting to destroy ideas that can lead an organization in the wrong direction. When an enterprise architect strives to be a steward of the enterprise, others may frequently take his/her actions as personal attacks. Protection of people at this stage is vital not just for the individual but the overall success of the organization.



At the time you make a decision, no one knows whether it is right or wrong. But research shows that if you, as the authority figure, act confident about implementing the decision, it increases the odds of success. If you lack confidence, people will be less committed to your decision. They have less faith in you as a leader.

A leader will champion your ideas and help amplify them in order to increase the potential for success. Those who are simply managers, may see this as an opportunity to be an emotional vampire.



Have you ever ran across employees who love being martyrs for their abusive bosses. People who, if they didn't have their boss to complain about, wouldn't know what to do with themselves. But in the end, even people who are masochists are going to suffer all kinds of physical and emotional health issues if they stay in a toxic environment.

The best of leaders are thoughtful not just about delivery of work products, but the physical and emotional health of their employees. Many haven't thought about this as just a casual observation, but as a deliberate action to improve. Some have encouraged employees to get out of the office and to do meetings outside when the weather is nice while others encourage employees to take walks while meeting with others.

There are probably other characteristics I am not thinking off, but these are at the top of my mind right now...

Enterprise Architecture: Leadership and Emotional Vampires

The biggest difference between a great organization and a mediocre one is the fact that leadership recognizes the emotional vampires amongst its ranks and slays them...



Emotional vampires come in various shapes and sizes. Despite the several sub-types, one factor that they all have in common is that you feel emotionally drained after spending time with them. Besides feeling drained, they often take up your time and in some cases money as well. Emotional vampires tend to run in families. If you encounter one, you will want to avoid it and their family members as well.

There are people in this world who do everything in their power to boost your spirits and fill your heart with hope and joy, but then there are also people who will do everything in their power to bring you down and drain you of all your hope and joy, and those are the ones who can be considered 'emotional vampires.'

It is not unusual for emotional vampires to be in crisis and have ways of ‘hooking’ you into their crisis. Once hooked a kind of bonding takes place. Since you went through a crisis with them, they expect you to stay with them. Other vampires use coercive tactics to get you to agree with them, even in situations where you know better.

Vampires aren't concerned with your overall well-being and will be the first to cause you to lose work/life balance, often employing tactics that make otherwise simple tasks harder than they should be. Sometimes, vampires hide behind more altruistic sentiments by championing goals larger than themselves but otherwise are solely focused on their internal demons.

Inversion of control is also used by many vampires. Imagine a scenario where you are frequently given tasks that have been known to take say eighty hours yet the vampires place a demand to have them done in forty. One could chalk this up to a form of blissful ignorance but vampires take it much farther.

In today's workplace, whether you work for the largest of employers or the smallest, the increasing importance of getting culture right trumps the best of methodologies. The number one and two companies in industry vertical also tend to excel at having the best cultures while the bottom companies the inverse is true.

While financial metrics tend to be the yardstick, they mirror the culture of an organization. Too many executives are focused on the finances and not enough on the culture. If employees feel drained, then how can productivity and innovation occur? Can we all acknowledge that quality of delivery is increased when morale is rising and that we all feel positive about ourselves and those who surround us?

I remember a conversation with Calvin Hudson, who was EVP of Claims at The Hartford. He talked about how he had to slay a vampire within his organization that was draining the souls of employees in his organization. As a leader, he was fiscally responsible but also kept an eye on how he wanted his organization to feel. He frequently met with employees of all levels and worked constantly to slay vampires.

If your organization isn't hitting its numbers, employees are starting to leave now that the job market is making a turn or otherwise IT delivery continuously lags, then I suspect your leadership hasn't spent sufficient time figuring out who are the vampires in the organization and slaying them...