Gartner’s View of Enterprise Architecture, Part 2

Two weeks ago I wrote about a Gartner seminar on Enterprise Architecture I attended. I wrote that Massimo Pezzini (of Gartner) “listed three levels of architecture, where city planning was the third” and highest, and where many architects worked autonomously of other architects, within an overall “city plan.” This is where I want to continue this post.

Pezzini stressed that “we can’t eliminate heterogeneity,” which is otherwise one of the goals of architecture, to create homogenous systems. An enterprise architecture, a “city plan,” is needed “to bridge differences,” he said, to lower heterogeneity as much as possible. To illustrate this, I want to bring up the picture of Chicago from my last post again:

This is clearly a heterogeneous city, but I don’t know if it’s a well-planned one. Perhaps heterogeneity should have been kept down? Or perhaps this indicates a conceptual gap between city planning and enterprise architecture. Perhaps homogeneity isn’t what primarily determines the quality of a city? What are the merits of using city planning as a metaphor for enterprise architecture?

Until I have time to finish my notes on the seminar, I want to point to a few more of my older posts on city planning and software architecture. First, a post on “self-destructing diversity,” which perhaps might be interesting in the context of heterogeneity/homogeneity, titled “Compensating For Lack of Feedback,” then some notes from reading Death and Life. Finally, it would be interesting to watch the EPCOT film again, because it might be an effective metaphor for people involved in managing an enterprise “city plan.”