Is Central Planning impossible?

My friend (and sometimes office mate) Harry Pierson blogged a quote from Christoph Schittko and added to it:

[Christoph] "wonder[s] how many more attempts for “enterprise wide” thingies we need for people to figure out that there’s too much complexity involved to coordinate anything enterprise wide." I couldn't agree more, though I think it's more than just complexity at work here. There are significant forces driving decentralization in society in general and IT in particular, and anything enterprise wide is by definition centralized.

I agree and disagree, depending on what you mean by "central."  (As you may expect, since I work for a 'central' architecture team).

When Walmart moved in to my neighborhood two years ago, they went to the city council and zoning board and asked for a permit.  Of course, no one had to issue the permit, but it was in the best interest of the city to do so, so they did.  They didn't have to change the structure of the city to allow them to come in.  There were already roads and electricity, because the planning board had already planned on the existence of a retail hub. 

Could you consider the zoning board to be central?  I would.

I live in a small-ish suburban area.  What about the zoning board(s) for larger cities?  Are they 'central'?  Is there "too much complexity to coordinate anything enterprise wide" in the case of a city zoning board?  I don't think so.  They regularly deal with zones for industrial, single and multifamily housing, retail, distribution, roads, utilities, etc.  Zoning works.  (If you think otherwise, spend some time in Houston, where there is no zoning board.)

So why does central control work for city zoning boards but fail for IT?

1. Most IT architects don't understand the boundary between solution architecture and enterprise architecture.  City planning decides that a shopping area needs to sit next to a housing area in order to meet the growth goals and trends of the town.  It does not decide who the builders are, what stores will be built, and what products will be sold.  The board does help decide where water, electricity, sewer, rainwater, and pollution mitigation needs to play into the bigger picture.   Solution architecture should take on the role of 'architecture within the land' and let Enterprise Architecture take on the role of 'architecture within the city.'
    
2. Most companies have not completely embraced Enterprise Architecture.  As a result, there isn't an acceptance either of it's value, or of the need to seek the 'permit' process, much less the need to comply with it.  Imagine a zoning board in a wild west town.  Now you get most IT departments.
    
3. Most companies don't have an EA permit process, so even if an IT team "wants" to play, they can't.  Where the company may have a process, it is rarely as well managed as a city permit process.  For some reason, Enterprise Architects think that their work is somehow "different" from other large environment planning positions, when it is not.  It is time for EA to take a page from central planning models that work.
    

Central planning works, but not in a vacuum and not with a heavy hand.  We haven't figured it all out yet, but that doesn't mean we throw in the towel and live in the wild west.

Comments

• Anonymous
  April 16, 2007
  Nick Malik has a great blog on Central Planning , comparing a city council's zoning board to enterprise

• Anonymous
  April 16, 2007
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  April 17, 2007
  Hello UC, I would say that central planning is not so much like how the human body works but how the human body develops from an embryo to birth That is a process that is poorly understood by science but, in my very limited knowledge, there does appear to be some form of 'biochemical' messaging that allows a cell to define itself in the overall scheme of things and mature into a group of cells that eventually becomes an organ.  (My apologies to scientests who are alternatively laughing at me and pitying me right now). In a sense, I hesitate to say that we can adopt the natural model for growth when we understand it so poorly. --- Nick

• Anonymous
  April 19, 2007
  Well, Nick, I do think you're on to something there,  perhaps a different something than I was talking about, but definitely related. The fact that these ideas are based on incomplete science (the study of DNA) shouldn't prevent us from thinking about them, however. While these ideas may not be specifically useful at this point, most good ideas do not begin their evolution as more than this, an intuition, a germ, something worth more investigation. I have often thought (since I am a programmer) that there is something fractal about DNA. How else could all of the detailed information about the immensely complex structure of, say, a human being, be stored in a single molecule, regardless of its' size? Like the Mandelbrot algorithm, a small process can give birth to infinite and unique complexity. Generally, good software starts as a simple concept, well-thought-out, and lacking in "features." If it is well-built, it evolves, and eventually reaches the realm in which you, for example, operate. Managing the evolution of software is, I think, what you're talking about. Perhaps we may learn from the way that DNA evolves.

• Anonymous
  April 20, 2007
  Hi UC, That's a pretty cool idea: fractal control of the generation of a software ecosystem.  I'm going to let that one percolate for a while. Thanks. --- N

• Anonymous
  April 27, 2007
  You're assuming central planning works, when in fact it is largely a way to prevent rich people from having to live near poor people by blocking market solutions.  Look no further than Portland, Oregon, the bastion of modern central planning, to see the effects: soaring property prices, soaring taxes, declining traffic throughput and massive flight away from the area.

• Anonymous
  April 27, 2007
  The comment has been removed