FEA TU RED A RTI CL ES:
Reconciling Enterprise Architecture and Systems Engineering These two disciplines have both shared history and shared opportunity to improve the functioning of organizations. By Thomas Manley Copyright © 2021 by Thomas Manley. All rights reserved. Authored for PPI SyEN.
Abstract: Enterprise architecture (EA) and systems engineering (SE) have similar history, but there is present-day inconsistency in their descriptions, associated job titles, and perceived relationship. Usage of the terms, “architecture” and “engineering” is widely variant and often ambiguous, further fueling uncertainty as to whether EA is “merely” a sub-discipline of SE. Side-by-side comparison of EA, SE, and project management (PM), aligned against a hierarchical model of an enterprise, reveals the fundamentally complementary nature of EA and SE. Combining EA and SE creates a conceptual methodology that leverages both to achieve desired transformation within the enterprise. Introduction
Etymologies and Geneologies
The term, “architect” has emerged as a job title within the technology industry in recent decades, typically prepended with a descriptor that identifies either the object or the purpose of that architecture. There has been some confusion as to the actual meaning of these titles, as they are applied inconsistently, and their associated role descriptions vary greatly. Particularly, there is confusion surrounding the distinction between enterprise architects, enterprise engineers, and systems engineers. Is enterprise architecture a discipline or just a sub-discipline within systems engineering?
Architecture in the more traditional sense (the design of buildings and structures) has been around as a human activity since the end of the last ice age (and possibly before). The earliest known structures are the ruins of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey and date from around the 10th millennium BC. As we can see from Figure 1, the word, “architect” has its origin in the mid16th century, from French architecte, from Italian architetto, via Latin from Greek arkhitektōn, from arkhi- (chief) + tektōn (builder). This suggests that the activities of architecture and engineering (at least of
Figure 1: Etymology of “architect” 14
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