David Clark posted this on LinkedIn this morning, a diagram he had pulled together to share how everything is connected and driven by strategy.
The diagram could keep a group of Enterprise Architects entertained for hours.
1. Are the layers in the right order? And are any layers missing? How does it compare to other similiar models?
2.Who around a leadership team owns each of the layers and do they see the connections?
3. What layer does a leadership team want to spend the most time discussing?
4. How will external factors over the coming years change what can be achieved in each layer and trigger the next wave of change?
5. How can you use it to scope change? And do all layers get factored into change programmes effectively enough?
6. As an architect profession which layer do we tend to have developed the skills and competencies to address the most?
7. Does this pull into question how as architects we need to work with others more to drive the changes across the layers to get results?
I can see how the diagram would land well with a leadership team. And how it could be used to continually scope and shape change cycles for a business.
I’d probably add in a “market and customer” layer and use that layer to emphasise how connected and integral customers are becoming in the design of processes, data, and applicational changes as businesses drive far greater self service operating models .
And, I’d be stressing how much I have found that much of the effort and focus is given to the application and tech layer which is understandable based on the extent of change in the tech world (and the background of many EAs) but that the focus on data, process and the people layers has to be so much greater.
What would your thoughts be if you were part of the Enterprise Architect group discussing David’s model?
What Ever Next 
As you note, we could spend a lot of time discussing that diagram. I like the questions you pose too. I think my points relevant to this article are
1. I would want to see the why as part of strategy
2. I think there any many outside factors that influence strategy, so perhaps your point about market and customer comes in there?
3. Whilst I can see strategy driving the business capabilities, the rest of the inferred hierarchy is not a given
4. Each layer will probably have a strategy of its own, though these should align to the overarching business strategy
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