27 november 2008
Posted in Artikelen - Computers

Inhoudsopgave
The Architecture Process for Agile Organisations
Architects and Managers
Architectural Process
The architecture process and project management
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This article attempts to describe a possible implementation of an architecture process in organisations that strive towards greater agility.

 

The RACI matrix

Before diving into the architecture process itself, we think about roles and responsibilities in organisations. For this we often employ a matrix that we find helpful: the RACI matrix.

Person/Role	Accountable	Responsible	Consulted	Informed
Jackson	x
Smith		x
...			x
...				x

The matrix as shown above shows a possible situation for a specific project or organisational unit. We see that Smith is Responsible, Jackson is Accountable, and some others who are Consulted or Informed.
What is the meaning of these terms?

• Responsible - means a person or role with the skills and or expertise to understand and explain, and to peers (other Responsible persons or roles) defend a specific policy or action
• Accountable - means a person or role with the assigned final right to decide, with the mandate and usually the funding to start or stop a certain organisational activity such as a project. Equivalent to an executive responsibility.
• Consulted - means a person or role that is consulted for the activity, because their input is necessary or desirable. The input is in the area of knowledge, skills or expertise, rarely on the executive level.
• Informed - means a person or role who should be informed of the proceedings or decisions taken, but is not directly involved in the process.

We focus in this chapter on the first two roles.
We state that, for an organisation to be operating in clear, auditable and transparent processes, it is imperative, in the context of a project or policy, for any person or role in the organisation to be exclusively assigned to one of these aspects in the RACI matrix. This is especially critical for the Responsible and Accountable roles:


We are talking about roles here, and in the context of a specific project or policy implementation (for example an organisational unit). This means that concrete persons can have more than one role, when looking at their activities across the boundaries of projects or organisational units.
Usually the boundaries between executive responsibilities (which we call Accountable), and those responsibilities that are based on knowledge or skills on the content of a strategy or decision (which we call Responsible), are vague, undefined, or not deemed important in any way.
In fact, most organisations have a relatively well defined executive process, implemented in an executive hierarchy, but pay no attention at all to skills and knowledge management of the highly trained professionals on which the entire organisational operation is depending. This leads to what is often called “brain drain”. Expertise is often hired, the bearers of which are part of the organisation for a delimited period. These individuals may learn a lot and thus increase their value to the organisations that hire them, but their knowledge is not incorporated into the organisations that hire them, except indirectly in the implemented systems or policies.
Often, after these individuals have left the organisation, the system they implemented begins its slow decay as if the heart has been taken from it.
Another symptom is that there is no well defined career path for persons who do not desire or lack the skills for managerial functions. These persons can be exceptionally gifted and productive, and the lack of a career path for these persons implies that the organisation will eventually lose these valuable assets.
In these organisations there is a severe imbalance between Accountable and Responsible behaviour.
We state that it is important for the successful enterprise to operate from a balance between the two.

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