Metamodels

The Danish Agency for Digitisation has announced some coming updates of the national enterprise architecture framework and reference models. In a consultation draft about these, Et fælles overblik, the agency also introduces the OIO EA metamodel. The consultation also involves an update to STORM, the Service and Technology Reference Model. All documents are in Danish. Interested parties can submit comments to the agency until 14 February.

I may well return to the metamodel and the reference models in later posts, but want to raise one issue here.

Looking at the Strategic layer, the metamodel mention Mål (Goals), Love og regler (Legislation and rules) and “Forret…” which I assume stands for Forretningsregler (Business Rules):

In my view, Business Rules should not be located at the strategic level at all, so I obviously have issues with the metamodel. Like Uffe Donslund, our local BR-geek, I would argue that Business Rules primarily “belongs” to the Business sub-architecture domain.

The metamodel at the strategic level should either way reflect several more concerns than it currently does. By comparison, the EA3 strategic metamodel is also focusing on Goals, but then has another scope by connecting to performance measures and investments:

In the Common Approach to Federal Enterprise Architecture, the Strategy domain deals with a number of central questions:

The questions that should be asked for this domain begin with “for what purpose does the enterprise exist” (usually expressed in the mission statement) and “what does the enterprise want to do and be known for” (often given in the vision statement). Include artifact – mapping of initiative to appropriate performance goals or objectives. The questions then move to “what are the primary goals (strategic goals) of the enterprise” and “what then are the strategic initiatives (ongoing programs or new projects) that will enable the enterprise to achieve those goals”, and “what are the measures of success (outcome measures) in each initiative area.”

I have drafted the following model (omnigraffle source) to represent these questions (well, I twisted it a bit and sneaked in “Investment” from the EA3 model):

I guess we should all consider adopting the Object Management Group‘s Business Motivation Model (BMM), the emerging standard in this field:

With BMM, we for example learn that goal amplifies vision.