“Understanding Your Current State No Longer Makes Sense”?

LinkedIn Conversation with Tony Sutherland and Scott Comte

In a response to Scott Comte, Tony Sutherland said:

“Spending lots of time and money on current state analysis and target state design … no longer makes sense.”

Tony, I’m going to separate the above statement into two components.

With respect to the part where you said:

“Spending lots of time and money on target state design … no longer makes sense”

I agree — if that statement means “big solution requirements up front” and “big solution design up front” no longer makes sense.

No one does big solution requirements or design up front anymore? Do they? In 2017? :-)

However, I’m not sure I agree with the statement “spending lots of time and money on current state analysis … no longer makes sense”.

But to understand your intended meaning, I have to understand your point of reference. I.e., what context — what architecture layer — are you thinking of when you say this?

I’m making an inference here — correct me if I’m wrong — that your focus is “current state solution architecture”.

Also, you seem to be saying that you would not expect the architecture function to have a useful prior understanding of “current state” at any level (enterprise, segment, capability). Ie, the architecture function always starts from zero — no knowledge — when it comes to understanding “current state”.

So my interpretation of your position runs like this:

“When the business commences any urgent change program, the architects are always caught flat-footed. They’re always unprepared for business change. And because business change initiatives are always urgent — there is no time — once a change program has started — for the architects to try to gain an understanding of any aspect of the current state. This would take too long, and the business can’t wait for the architects to catch up.”

Let me know if I’ve got your drift correct with the above. Or whether I’ve misunderstood. Then we’ll continue the discussion.