Tom Graves

The Enterprise As Story: the Role of Narrative in Enterprise-architecture Tom Graves

Most current approaches to enterprise-architecture describe everything in terms of structure. Yet people work better with story than with structure - and people are the enterprise. As we expand the architecture towards a true whole-of-enterprise scope, we need to describe the enterprise as story. Story is everywhere in the architecture - even the enterprise itself is a story. This ground-breaking book places story at centre-stage for the architecture, itself using a narrative structure to explore the role of narrative in enterprise-architecture. Via business story-structures such as the Market-Cycle, and genres such as We Sell Certainty, it shows how stories underpin every aspect of the enterprise - and how we can use story within the architecture to enhance overall enterprise effectiveness. Topics covered include: - how to use story and narrative to assist in sensemaking for architecture - how to create engagement in the architecture through story - how to balance structure and story for better business results - how to identify and use business-story genres to guide overall architecture - how to change the organisation's relationships with its 'anti-clients' from business-risk to business-opportunity - how to use story-patterns to identify and resolve strategic business-issues - how to leverage your own experience to create stronger architecture stories If you want to create real engagement in the architecture and the enterprise, this is one book you'll definitely need. Tom Graves has been an independent consultant for more than three decades, in business transformation, enterprise architecture and knowledge management. His clients in Europe, Australasia, and the Americas cover a broad range of industries including banking, utilities, manufacturing, logistics, engineering, media, telecoms, research, defence and government. He has a special interest in architecture for non-IT-centric enterprises, and integration between IT-based and non-IT-based services. The Tetradian Enterprise Architecture Series presents new developments on theory, principles and practice of enterprise architecture - moving beyond IT to the whole enterprise.