My father-in-law has a theory on child-rearing. For the well-rounded development of a child at least four minimum sustained skills are necessary: Reading, a sport, a cultural skill such as music or dance and a hobby.
Reading is the ability to voraciously consume any form of printed or typed material – from the labels of medicine in the bathroom medicine cabinet to the newspaper that arrives at the breakfast table every morning. Readers talk to other readers, easily. Readers are raconteurs of tales well spun. Readers are dreamers and dare to dream big dreams. Readers are humble as they read about other people’s exploits and daring. Reading is the natural antidote to boredom. Reading is a habit that stays when you are bedridden, stricken with terminal disease or simply tired. Reading brings out the curiosity in a person.
A sport, well developed is a level of skill at playing, competing, practicing and demonstrating a level of play that attracts other sportsmen to engage. Sportsmen learn to deal with winning and losing. Sportsmen automatically drift towards other sportsmen. Sportsmen are able to watch other sportsmen play and enjoy the demonstration of their skills. Sportsmen are constantly striving to improve their game. Sports bring out competitiveness and aggression in a person in a format that is more like staged warfare with clear rules of engagement. In a lifetime solo sport like swimming or golf, the warfare is more against your internal self rather than some tangible opponent.
A cultural skill is essential for the appreciation of the arts. And appreciation of the arts brings a softening of the harshness of life. Music and dance enter the soul and are bubbling out hourly, daily and in every movement of a person. Musicians and dancers drift towards each other. Music and dance bring the performer face to face with both the excellence and the limitations of their skill.
A hobby is your friend when your working life has ended and the daily trips to the office are over. If you have spent your life without hobbies, retirement is more a sentence than a reprieve. A hobby is the reason for meeting fellow enthusiasts and hobbyists – for sharing a rare collection, or for learning tips and techniques. Hobbies are the raisins in the pudding of daily life.
My father-in-law believes, that with these four skills in hand, a person is well-equipped for life’s journey. He/she will have no difficulty in striking up conversations, spending time, enjoying and absorbing new experiences and establishing long lived relationships.
So what does this have to do with enterprise architecture or enterprises? For a healthy enterprise there are some essential skills that together form a complement like the four skills above. In my opinion and experience from three start-ups, at a minimum, these are sales and marketing, financial discipline, quality product and service development and excellent teamwork and human relations. Put a team together with these skills and you have a recipe for a very successful enterprise.
What is the magic “covering set” of skills that successful enterprise architecture work needs? Not an easy answer.
Traditionally we have defined these as skills in understanding information and data management, applications and systems functions management, technology platforms and infrastructure management. These are end states of application development and deployment. There are skills that relate to the actual development process itself such as methodology, modeling, lifecycle process support, documentation, usability and ergonomics.
But boiling down the skills needed for enterprise architecture into four tight comprehensive ones still eludes me.
Oh, and in passing, my father-in-law’s two children reflect his upbringing philosophy and the four steps.
Reading is the ability to voraciously consume any form of printed or typed material – from the labels of medicine in the bathroom medicine cabinet to the newspaper that arrives at the breakfast table every morning. Readers talk to other readers, easily. Readers are raconteurs of tales well spun. Readers are dreamers and dare to dream big dreams. Readers are humble as they read about other people’s exploits and daring. Reading is the natural antidote to boredom. Reading is a habit that stays when you are bedridden, stricken with terminal disease or simply tired. Reading brings out the curiosity in a person.
A sport, well developed is a level of skill at playing, competing, practicing and demonstrating a level of play that attracts other sportsmen to engage. Sportsmen learn to deal with winning and losing. Sportsmen automatically drift towards other sportsmen. Sportsmen are able to watch other sportsmen play and enjoy the demonstration of their skills. Sportsmen are constantly striving to improve their game. Sports bring out competitiveness and aggression in a person in a format that is more like staged warfare with clear rules of engagement. In a lifetime solo sport like swimming or golf, the warfare is more against your internal self rather than some tangible opponent.
A cultural skill is essential for the appreciation of the arts. And appreciation of the arts brings a softening of the harshness of life. Music and dance enter the soul and are bubbling out hourly, daily and in every movement of a person. Musicians and dancers drift towards each other. Music and dance bring the performer face to face with both the excellence and the limitations of their skill.
A hobby is your friend when your working life has ended and the daily trips to the office are over. If you have spent your life without hobbies, retirement is more a sentence than a reprieve. A hobby is the reason for meeting fellow enthusiasts and hobbyists – for sharing a rare collection, or for learning tips and techniques. Hobbies are the raisins in the pudding of daily life.
My father-in-law believes, that with these four skills in hand, a person is well-equipped for life’s journey. He/she will have no difficulty in striking up conversations, spending time, enjoying and absorbing new experiences and establishing long lived relationships.
So what does this have to do with enterprise architecture or enterprises? For a healthy enterprise there are some essential skills that together form a complement like the four skills above. In my opinion and experience from three start-ups, at a minimum, these are sales and marketing, financial discipline, quality product and service development and excellent teamwork and human relations. Put a team together with these skills and you have a recipe for a very successful enterprise.
What is the magic “covering set” of skills that successful enterprise architecture work needs? Not an easy answer.
Traditionally we have defined these as skills in understanding information and data management, applications and systems functions management, technology platforms and infrastructure management. These are end states of application development and deployment. There are skills that relate to the actual development process itself such as methodology, modeling, lifecycle process support, documentation, usability and ergonomics.
But boiling down the skills needed for enterprise architecture into four tight comprehensive ones still eludes me.
Oh, and in passing, my father-in-law’s two children reflect his upbringing philosophy and the four steps.
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