Enterprise Architects are to jump across loops (Bruce Beasley)
When push comes to shove, deciding on a development process is to decide between instant or delayed returns, namely focusing on users needs with agile development, or taking extended features into consideration and weighting the benefits of reuse against additional costs, e.g.:
Designs to be reused as patterns.
Profiling configurations.
Structuring business process models so that they could be designed as business functions.
Formatting business logic for automated code generation.
The intricacies of stakes and decision-making processes can be set forth by applying the Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action (OODA) loop to the four views of changes: enterprise, business domains, business applications, systems:
At enterprise level the loops are triggered by changes in business environments pertaining to business model and objectives. They are supposed to affect different business domains.
Observations: Business opportunities
Orientation: Assessment of business opportunities with regard to business objectives.
Decision: Committing resources to changes in organization and processes
Action: Achieving changes in organization and processes
Changes initiated from business domains can be derived from enterprise level or the result of more specific objectives. They are supposed to affect different applications.
Observations: Business analysis
Orientation: Functional feasibility and assessment of transformation benefits.
Decision: Committing changes in functional architecture.
Action: Development, integration, tests
Changes at application level are initiated by organizational units, business or otherwise. They are supposed to be self-contained.
Observations: Users requirements
Orientation: Engineering feasibility and assessment of development options.
Decision: Choice of a development model.
Action: Development, integration, tests
Changes at system level are initiated by organizational units, including business ones (quality of service). They are supposed to affect different applications.
Observations: Process mining and operational requirements
Orientation: Operational feasibility and assessment of configurations.
Decision: Development model.
Action: Deployment and acceptance.
Given that sizeable companies with differentiated organization and business have to manage these different threads continuously and consistently, old fashioned imperative processes can only lead to paralysis. Hence the need of a declarative approach to EA workflows.
The immersion of enterprises into digital environments and the merging of business and engineering processes are bound to impact traditional approaches to strategic planning.
Strategic planning can be summarily defined as the alignment of two kinds of horizons:
External horizons are set on markets, competition, and technologies, with views and anticipations coming through data analytics and game theory.
Internal horizons are set on enterprise architectures, with business models and policies on one hand, organization and systems on the other. Both are set on purposes, the former aiming at specificity and edge, the latter at sharing and stability.
How to manage the alignment of controlled enterprise horizons with anticipated external ones
As far as the strategic alignment of means (internal horizons) and ends (external horizons) are concerned, time is of the essence; that’s where is the fault line: whatever enterprise planned time-frames, they can only be mapped to fuzzy or unreliable ones outside. As a corollary, alignments have to be carried out either as a continuum, or through discrete and periodic adjustments to predictive models.
The future begins now
As suggested by Lewis Carroll’s Red Queen, the survival of enterprises in their evolutionary arms race doesn’t depend on their absolute speed set against some universal time-frame but on the relative one set by markets and competitors. Taking into account the role of a reliable and up-to-date basis for decision-making, strategic schemes can be characterized in terms of virtual and augmented reality:
Strategies set along predefined time-frames are by construct loosely tied to business environments since discrepancies are bound to develop during the intervals between anticipations (virtual reality) and realizations (actual reality). Hence the need of overall and planned adjustments.
By contrast, strategies set dynamically through OODA (observations, orientation, decision, action) loops can be carried out without overall anticipations; like augmented reality (AR) they mix fine-grained data observations and business intelligence with additional layers of information deemed to be relevant.
A seamless integration of OODA & Economic Intelligence
The first category has for long been a cornerstone of established strategic planning, with its implicit assumption of a conceptual gap between ‘Here and Now’ and future visions. But the induced latencies and discrepancies may become liabilities if enterprises have to continuously adjust representations and policies.
For mammals such awareness is a biological capability: any discrepancy between perceived movements and their counterpart in the vestibular system is to generate motion sickness or vertigo.
Enterprises have no such built-in mechanism yet their awareness is nonetheless contingent on the alignment of representations with observations and orientations. As a corollary, out-of-kilter time-frames and outdated schemes may remain unnoticed, introducing governance dizziness and strategic missteps.
Obsolete representations (grey) are bound to generate dizziness and missteps
Such drawbacks can be limited with decision-making set along differentiated time-frames, e.g:
Operational decisions, to be carried out within processes time-frame (a).
Architecture decisions, for changes in assets affecting the design of business processes and supporting platforms (b).
Organizational decisions, for changes affecting roles and processes (c).
Weaving fine-grained threads across enterprise architectures and consistent time-frames.
That would allow the weaving of fine-grained policies across enterprise architectures and along consistent time-frames, mixing actual observations, representations of current and planned assets and resources, and anticipations of markets changes a competitors moves.
On that basis strategic alignments would not have to be set at fixed time for overall models, but could be managed continuously, with decision-making finely tuned for targets and timing:
External horizons: business decisions could be balanced by the need to know with the reliability of available information.
Internal horizons: decisions about organization and systems could be taken at the “last responsible moment”, i.e until not taking side could change the possible options.
Strategic planning could then be defined by crossing these rationales at the relevant granularity.
The digital transformation induces fundamental changes for the exchanges between enterprises and their environment.
To begin with, their immersion into digital environments means that the traditional fences surrounding their IT systems are losing their relevance, being bypassed by massive data flows to be processed without delay.
Then, the induced osmosis upturns the competition playground and compels drastic changes in governance: less they fall behind, enterprises have to redefine their organization, systems, and processes.
Strategies are meant to draw passageways between current circumstances and conjectured horizons (Kader Attia)
New playground
Strategic thinking is first and foremost making differences with regard to markets, resources and assets, and time-frames. But what makes the digital revolution so disruptive is that it resets the ways differences are made:
Markets: the traditional distinctions between products and services are all but forgotten.
Resources and assets: with software, smart or otherwise, now tightly mixed in products fabric, and business processes now driven by knowledge, intangible assets are taking the lead on conventional ones.
Time-frames: strategies have for long been defined as a combination of anticipations, objectives and policies whose scope extends beyond managed horizons. But digital osmosis and the ironing out of markets and assets traditional boundaries are dissolving the milestones used to draw horizons perspectives.
New perspectives
To overcome these challenges enterprises strategies should focus on four pillars:
Data and Information: massive and continuous inflows of data calls for a seamless integration of data analytics (perception), information models (reasoning), and knowledge (decision-making).
Security & Confidentiality: new regulatory environments and costs of privacy breaches call for a clear distinction between data tied to identified individuals and information associated to designed categories.
Innovation: digital environments induce a new order of magnitude for the pace of technological change. Making opportunities from changes can only be achieved through collaboration mechanisms harnessing enterprise knowledge management to environments intakes.
Distinctions must serve a purpose and be assessed accordingly. On that account, what would be the point of setting apart data and information, and on what basis could that be done.
From Data Stripes to Information Structure (Victor Vasarely)
Until recently the two terms seem to have been used indifferently; until, that is, the digital revolution. But the generalization of digital surroundings and the tumbling down of traditional barriers surrounding enterprises have upturned the playground as well as the rules of the game.
Previously, with data analytics, information modeling, and knowledge management mostly carried out as separate threads, there wasn’t much concerns about semantic overlaps; no more. Lest they fall behind, enterprises have to combine observation (data), reasoning (information), and judgment (knowledge) as a continuous process. But such integration implies in return more transparency and traceability with regard to resources (e.g external or internal) and objectives (e.g operational or strategic); that’s when a distinction between data and information becomes necessary.
Economics: Resources vs Assets
Understood as a whole or separately, there is little doubt that data and information have become a key success factor, calling for more selective and effective management schemes.
Being immersed in digital environments, enterprises first depend on accurate, reliable, and timely observations of their business surroundings. But in the new digital world the flows of data are so massive and so transient that mining meaningful and reliable pieces is by itself a decisive success factor. Next, assuming data flows duly processed, part of the outcome has to be consolidated into models, to be managed on a persistent basis (e.g customer records or banking transactions), the rest being put on temporary shelves for customary uses, or immediately thrown away (e.g personal data subject to privacy regulations). Such a transition constitutes a pivotal inflexion point for systems architectures and governance as it sorts out data resources with limited lifespan from information assets with strategic relevance. Not to mention the sensibility of regulatory compliance to data management.
Processes: Operations vs Intelligence
Making sense of data is pointless without putting the resulting information to use, which in digital environments implies a tight integration of data and information processing. Yet, as already noted, tighter integration of processes calls for greater traceability and transparency, in particular with regard to the origin and scope: external (enterprise business and organization) or internal (systems). The purposes of data and information processing can be squared accordingly:
The top left corner is where business models and strategies are meant to be defined.
The top right corner corresponds to traditional data or information models derived from business objectives, organization, and requirement analysis.
The bottom line correspond to analytic models for business (left) and operations (right).
Squaring the purposes of Data & Information Processing
That view illustrates the shift of paradigm induced by the digital transformation. Prior, most mappings would be set along straight lines:
Horizontally (same nature), e.g requirement analysis (a) or configuration management (b). With source and destination at the same level, the terms employed (data or information) have no practical consequence.
Vertically (same scope), e.g systems logical to physical models (c) or business intelligence (d). With source and destination set in the same semantic context the distinction (data or information) can be ignored.
The digital transformation makes room for diagonal transitions set across heterogeneous targets, e.g mapping data analytics with conceptual or logical models (e).
That double mix of levels and scopes constitutes the nexus of decision-making processes; their transparency is contingent on a conceptual distinction between data and information.
Data is used to align operations (systems) with observations (territories).
Information is used to align categories (maps) with objectives.
Roles of Data (red) & Information (blue) in integrated decision-making processes
Then, the conceptual distinction between data and information is instrumental for the integration of operational and strategic decision-making processes:
Data analytics feeding business intelligence
Information modeling supporting operational assessment.
Not by chance, these distinctions can be aligned with architecture layers.
Architectures: Instances vs Categories
Blending data with information overlooks a difference of nature, the former being associated with actual instances (external observation or systems operations), the latter with symbolic descriptions (categories or types). That intrinsic difference can be aligned with architecture layers (resources are consumed, assets are managed), and decision-making processes (operations deal with instances, strategies with categories).
With regard to architectures, the relationship between instances (data) and categories (information) can be neatly aligned with capability layers, as represented by the Pagoda blueprint:
The platform layer deals with data reflecting observations (external facts) and actions (system operations).
The functional layer deals with information, i.e the symbolic representation of business and organization categories.
The business and organization layer defines the business and organization categories.
It must also be noted that setting apart what pertains to individual data independently of the information managed by systems clearly props up compliance with privacy regulations.
Architectures & Decision-making
With regard to decision-making processes, business intelligence uses the distinction to integrate levels, from operations to strategic planning, the former dealing with observations and operations (data), the latter with concepts and categories (information and knowledge).
Representations: Knowledge Architecture
As noted above, the distinction between data and information is a necessary counterpart of the integration of operational and intelligence processes; that implies in return to bring data, information, and knowledge under a common conceptual roof, respectively as resources, assets, and service:
Resources: data is captured through continuous and heterogeneous flows from a wide range of sources.
Assets: information is built by adding identity, structure, and semantics to data.
Services: knowledge is information put to use through decision-making.
Ontologies, which are meant to encompass all and every kind of knowledge, are ideally suited for the management of whatever pertains to enterprise architecture, thesaurus, models, heuristics, etc.
That approach has been tested with the Caminao ontological kernel using OWL2; a beta version is available for comments on the Stanford/Protégé portal with the link: Caminao Ontological Kernel (CaKe 2.0).
Conclusion: From Metadata to Machine Learning
The significance of the distinction between data and information shows up at the two ends of the spectrum:
On one hand, it straightens the meaning of metadata, to be understood as attributes of observations independently of semantics, a dimension that plays a critical role in machine learning.
On the other hand, enshrining the distinction between what can be known of individuals facts or phenomena and what can be abstracted into categories is to enable an open and dynamic knowledge management, also a critical requisite for machine learning.
In line with the Symbolic Systems paradigm, events are best understood in terms of interactions between systems (or enterprises) and the environment they represent (or live off).
Events with regard to nature and coupling
On that account events are to be associated with four kinds of notifications:
Actual (aka non symbolic) changes in the state of objects.
Actual (aka non symbolic) changes in the state of activities.
Changes in the state of expectations (e.g requests/acknowledgments).
Neutral changes in symbolic representations (e.g messages).
It must be noted that while synchronization constraints (e.g UML’s calls vs signals) characterize events’ communication semantics, they say nothing about events themselves.
That distinction is of a particular importance for the definition of time as a change in a dedicated physical device, ensuring that, according to Einstein, events don’t happen at once.
The primary aim of ontologies is to bring under a single roof three tiers of representations and to ensure both their autonomy and integrated usage:
Thesauruses federate meanings across digital (observations) and business (analysis) environments
Models deal with the integration of digital flows (environments) and symbolic representations (systems)
Ontologies ensure the integration of enterprises’ data, information, and knowledge, enabling a long-term alignment of enterprises’ organization, systems, and business objectives
To ensure their interoperability, tiers should be organized according to linguistic capabilities: lexical, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic.
To ensure their conceptual integration, ontologies must maintain an explicit distinction between:
Concepts: pure semantic constructs defined independently of instances or categories
Categories: symbolic descriptions of sets of objects or phenomena: Categories can be associated with actual (descriptive, extensional) or intended (prescriptive, intensional) sets of instances
Facts: observed objects or phenomena
Documents: entries for documents represent the symbolic contents, with instances representing the actual (or physical) documents
As for technical integration, it is can be achieved through graphical neural networks (GNN) and Resource description framework (RDF).
Turning thoughts into figures faces the intrinsic constraint of dimension: two dimensional representations cannot cope with complexity.
Making his mind about knowledge dimensions: actual world, descriptions, and reproductions (Jan van der Straet)
So, lest they be limited to flat and shallow thinking, mind cartographers have to introduce the cognitive equivalent of geographical layers (nature, demography, communications, economy,…), and archetypes (mountains, rivers, cities, monuments, …)
Nodes: What’s The Map About
Nodes in maps (aka roots, handles, …) are meant to anchor thinking threads. Given that human thinking is based on the processing of symbolic representations, mind mapping is expected to progress wide and deep into the nature of nodes: concepts, topics, actual objects and phenomena, artifacts, partitions, or just terms.
What’s The Map About
It must be noted that these archetypes are introduced to characterize symbolic representations independently of domain semantics.
Connectors: Cognitive Primitives
Nodes in maps can then be connected as children or siblings, the implicit distinction being some kind of refinement for the former, some kind of equivalence for the latter. While such a semantic latitude is clearly a key factor of creativity, it is also behind the poor scaling of maps with complexity.
A way to frame complexity without thwarting creativity would be to define connectors with regard to cognitive primitives, independently of nodes’ semantics:
References connect nodes as terms.
Associations: connect nodes with regard to their structural, functional, or temporal proximity.
Analogies: connect nodes with regard to their structural or functional similarities.
At first, with shallow nodes defined as terms, connections can remain generic; then, with deeper semantic levels introduced, connectors could be refined accordingly for concepts, documentation, actual objects and phenomena, artifacts,…
Connectors are aligned with basic cognitive mechanisms of metonymy (associations) and analogy (similarities)
Semantics: Extensional vs Intensional
Given mapping primitives defined independently of domains semantics, the next step is to take into account mapping purposes:
Extensional semantics deal with categories of actual instances of objects or phenomena.
Intensional semantics deal with specifications of objects or phenomena.
That distinction can be applied to basic semantic archetypes (people, roles, events, …) and used to distinguish actual contexts, symbolic representations, and specifications, e.g:
Extensions (full border) are about categories of instances, intensions (dashed border) are about specifications
Car (object) refers to context, not to be confused with Car (surrogate) which specified the symbolic counterpart: the former is extensional (actual instances), the latter intensional (symbolic representations)
Maintenance Process is extensional (identified phenomena), Operation is intensional (specifications).
Reservation and Driver are symbolic representations (intensional), Person is extensional (identified instances).
It must be reminded that whereas the choice is discretionary and contingent on semantic contexts and modeling purposes (‘as-it-is’ vs ‘as-it-should-be’), consequences are not because the choice is to determine abstraction semantics.
For example, the records for cars, drivers, and reservations are deemed intensional because they are defined by business concerns. Alternatively, instances of persons and companies are defined by contexts and therefore dealt with as extensional descriptions.
Abstractions: Subsets & Sub-types
Thinking can be characterized as a balancing act between making distinctions and managing the ensuing complexity. To that end, human edge over other animal species is the use of symbolic representations for specialization and generalization.
That critical mechanism of human thinking is often overlooked by mind maps due to a confused understanding of inheritance semantics:
Strong inheritance deals with instances: specialization define subsets and generalization is defined by shared structures and identities.
Weak inheritance deals with specifications: specialization define sub-types and generalization is defined by shared features.
Inheritance semantics: shared structures (dark) vs shared features (white)
The combination of nodes (intension/extension) and inheritance (structures/features) semantics gives cartographers two hands: a free one for creative distinctions, and a safe one for the ensuing complexity. e.g:
Intension and weak inheritance: environments (extension) are partitioned according to regulatory constraints (intension); specialization deals with subtypes and generalization is defined by shared features.
Extension and strong inheritance: cars (extension) are grouped according to motorization; specialization deals with subsets and generalization is defined by shared structures and identities.
Intension and strong inheritance: corporate sub-type inherits the identification features of type Reservation (intension).
Mind maps built on these principles could provide a common thesaurus encompassing the whole of enterprise data, information and knowledge.
Intelligence: Data, Information, Knowledge
Considering that mind maps combine intelligence and cartography, they may have some use for enterprise architects, in particular with regard to economic intelligence, i.e the integration of information processing, from data mining to knowledge management and decision-making:
Data provide the raw input, without clear structures or semantics (terms or aspects).
Categories are used to process data into information on one hand (extensional nodes), design production systems on the other hand (intensional nodes).
Abstractions (concepts) makes knowledge from information by putting it to use.
Conclusion
Along that perspective mind maps could serve as front-ends for enterprise architecture ontologies, offering a layered cartography that could be organized according to concerns:
Enterprise architects would look at physical environments, business processes, and functional and technical systems architectures.
Using layered maps to visualize enterprise architectures
Knowledge managers would take a different perspective and organize the maps according to the nature and source of data, information, and knowledge.intelligence w
Using layered maps to build economic intelligence
As demonstrated by geographic information systems, maps built on clear semantics can be combined to serve a wide range of purposes; furthering the analogy with geolocation assistants, layered mind maps could be annotated with punctuation marks (e.g ?, !, …) in order to support problem-solving and decision-making.
Given the digitization of enterprises environments, engineering processes have to be entwined with business ones while kept in sync with enterprise architectures. That calls for new threads of collaboration taking into account the integration of business and engineering processes as well as the extension to business environments.
Collaboration can be personal and direct, or collective and mediated (Wang Qingsong)
Whereas models are meant to support communication, traditional approaches are already straining when used beyond software generation, that is collaboration between humans and CASE tools. Ontologies, which can be seen as a higher form of models, could enable a qualitative leap for systems collaborative engineering at enterprise level.
Systems Engineering: Contexts & Concerns
To begin with contents, collaborations should be defined along three axes:
Requirements: business objectives, enterprise organization, and processes, with regard to systems functionalities.
Feasibility: business requirements with regard to architectures capabilities.
Architectures: supporting functionalities with regard to architecture capabilities.
Engineering Collaborations at Enterprise Level
Since these axes are usually governed by different organizational structures and set along different time-frames, collaborations must be supported by documentation, especially models.
Shared Models
In order to support collaborations across organizational units and time-frames, models have to bring together perspectives which are by nature orthogonal:
Contexts, concerns, and languages: business vs engineering.
Time-frames and life-cycle: business opportunities vs architecture stability.
Harnessing MBSE to EA
That could be achieved if engineering models could be harnessed to enterprise ones for contexts and concerns. That is to be achieved through the integration of processes.
Processes Integration
As already noted, the integration of business and engineering processes is becoming a key success factor.
For that purpose collaborations would have to take into account the different time-frames governing changes in business processes (driven by business value) and engineering ones (governed by assets life-cycles):
Business requirements engineering is synchronic: changes must be kept in line with architectures capabilities (full line).
Software engineering is diachronic: developments can be carried out along their own time-frame (dashed line).
Synchronic (full) vs diachronic (dashed) processes.
Application-driven projects usually focus on users’ value and just-in-time delivery; that can be best achieved with personal collaboration within teams. Architecture-driven projects usually affect assets and non-functional features and therefore collaboration between organizational units.
Collaboration: Direct or Mediated
Collaboration can be achieved directly or through some mediation, the former being a default option for applications, the latter a necessary one for architectures.
Both can be defined according to basic cognitive and organizational mechanisms and supported by a mix of physical and virtual spaces to be dynamically redefined depending on activities, projects, locations, and organisation.
Direct collaborations are carried out between individuals with or without documentation:
Immediate and personal: direct collaboration between 5 to 15 participants with shared objectives and responsibilities. That would correspond to agile project teams (a).
Delayed and personal: direct collaboration across teams with shared knowledge but with different objectives and responsibilities. That would tally with social networks circles (c).
Collaborations
Mediated collaborations are carried out between organizational units through unspecified individual members, hence the need of documentation, models or otherwise:
Direct and Code generation from platform or domain specific models (b).
Model transformation across architecture layers and business domains (d)
Depending on scope and mediation, three basic types of collaboration can be defined for applications, architecture, and business intelligence projects.
Projects & Collaborations
As it happens, collaboration archetypes can be associated with these profiles.
Collaboration Mechanisms
Agile development model (under various guises) is the option of choice whenever shared ownership and continuous delivery are possible. Application projects can so be carried out autonomously, with collaborations circumscribed to team members and relying on the backlog mechanism.
Projects set across enterprise architectures cannot be carried out without taking into account phasing constraints. While ill-fated Waterfall methods have demonstrated the pitfalls of procedural solutions, phasing constraints can be dealt with a roundabout mechanism combining iterative and declarative schemes.
Engineering vs Business Driven Collaborations
With collaborative engineering upgraded at enterprise level, the main challenge is to iron out frictions between application and architecture projects and ensure the continuity, consistency and effectiveness of enterprise activities. That can be achieved with roundabouts used as a collaboration mechanism between projects, whatever their nature:
Shared models are managed at roundabout level.
Phasing dependencies are set in terms of assertions on shared models.
Depending on constraints projects are carried out directly (1,3) or enter roundabouts (2), with exits conditioned by the availability of models.
Engineering driven collaboration: roundabout and backlogs
Moreover, with engineering embedded in business processes, collaborations must also bring together operational analytics, decision-making, and business intelligence. Here again, shared models are to play a critical role:
Enterprise descriptive and prescriptive models for information maps and objectives
Environment predictive models for data and business understanding.
Business driven collaboration: operations and business intelligence
Whereas both engineering and business driven collaborations depend on sharing information and knowledge, the latter have to deal with open and heterogeneous semantics. As a consequence, collaborations must be supported by shared representations and proficient communication languages.
Ontologies & Representations
Ontologies are best understood as models’ backbones, to be fleshed out or detailed according to context and objectives, e.g:
Thesaurus, with a focus on terms and documents.
Systems modeling, with a focus on integration, e.g Zachman Framework.
Classifications, with a focus on range, e.g Dewey Decimal System.
Meta-models, with a focus on model based engineering, e.g models transformation.
Conceptual models, with a focus on understanding, e.g legislation.
Knowledge management, with a focus on reasoning, e.g semantic web.
As such they can provide the pillars supporting the representation of the whole range of enterprise concerns:
Taking a leaf from Zachman’s matrix, ontologies can also be used to differentiate concerns with regard to architecture layers: enterprise, systems, platforms.
Last but not least, ontologies can be profiled with regard to the nature of external contexts, e.g:
Institutional: Regulatory authority, steady, changes subject to established procedures.
Professional: Agreed upon between parties, steady, changes subject to established procedures.
Corporate: Defined by enterprises, changes subject to internal decision-making.
Social: Defined by usage, volatile, continuous and informal changes.
Personal: Customary, defined by named individuals (e.g research paper).
Cross profiles: capabilities, enterprise architectures, and contexts.
Ontologies & Communication
If collaborations have to cover engineering as well as business descriptions, communication channels and interfaces will have to combine the homogeneous and well-defined syntax and semantics of the former with the heterogeneous and ambiguous ones of the latter.
With ontologies represented as RDF (Resource Description Framework) graphs, the first step would be to sort out truth-preserving syntax (applied independently of domains) from domain specific semantics.
RDF graphs (top) support formal (bottom left) and domain specific (bottom right) semantics.
On that basis it would be possible to separate representation syntax from contents semantics, and to design communication channels and interfaces accordingly.
That would greatly facilitate collaborations across externally defined ontologies as well as their mapping to enterprise architecture models.
Conclusion
To summarize, the benefits of ontological frames for collaborative engineering can be articulated around four points:
A clear-cut distinction between representation semantics and truth-preserving syntax.
A common functional architecture for all users interfaces, humans or otherwise.
Modular functionalities for specific semantics on one hand, generic truth-preserving and cognitive operations on the other hand.
Profiled ontologies according to concerns and contexts.
A critical fifth benefit could be added with regard to business intelligence: combined with deep learning capabilities, ontologies would extend the scope of collaboration to explicit as well as implicit knowledge, the former already framed by languages, the latter still open to interpretation and discovery.
P.S.
Knowledge graphs, which have become a key component of knowlege management, are best understood as a reincarnation of ontologies.
An often overlooked benefit of artificial intelligence has been a renewed interest in seminal philosophical and cognitive topics; ontologies coming top of the list.
The Thinker Monkey, Breviary of Mary of Savoy
Yet that interest has often been led astray by misguided perspectives, in particular:
Universality: one-fits-all approaches are pointless if not self-defeating considering that ontologies are meant to target specific domains of concerns.
Implementation: the focus is usually put on representation schemes (commonly known as Resource Description Frameworks, or RDFs), instead of the nature of targeted knowledge and the associated cognitive capabilities.
Those misconceptions, often combined, may explain the limited practical inroads of ontologies. Conversely, they also point to ontologies’ wherewithal for enterprises immersed into boundless and fluctuating knowledge-driven business environments.
Ontologies as Assets
Whatever the name of the matter (data, information or knowledge), there isn’t much argument about its primacy for business competitiveness; insofar as enterprises are concerned knowledge is recognized as a key asset, as valuable if not more than financial ones, and should be managed accordingly. Pushing the comparison still further, data would be likened to liquidity, information to fixed income investment, and knowledge to capital ventures. To summarize, assets whatever their nature lose value when left asleep and bear fruits when kept awake; that’s doubly the case for data and information:
Digitized business flows accelerates data obsolescence and makes it continuous.
Shifting and porous enterprises boundaries and markets segments call for constant updates and adjustments of enterprise information models.
But assessing the business value of knowledge has always been a matter of intuition rather than accounting, even when it can be patented; and most of knowledge shapes up well beyond regulatory reach. Nonetheless, knowledge is not manna from heaven but the outcome of information processing, so assessing the capabilities of such processes could help.
Admittedly, traditional modeling methods are too stringent for that purpose, and looser schemes are needed to accommodate the open range of business contexts and concerns; as already expounded, that’s precisely what ontologies are meant to do, e.g:
Systems modeling, with a focus on integration, e.g Zachman Framework.
Classifications, with a focus on range, e.g Dewey Decimal System.
Conceptual models, with a focus on understanding, e.g legislation.
Knowledge management, with a focus on reasoning, e.g semantic web.
And ontologies can do more than bringing under a single roof the whole of enterprise knowledge representations: they can also be used to nurture and crossbreed symbolic assets and develop innovative ones.
Ontologies Benefits
Knowledge is best understood as information put to use; accounting rules may be disputed but there is no argument about the benefits of a canny combination of information, circumstances, and purpose. Nonetheless, assessing knowledge returns is hampered by the lack of traceability: if a part of knowledge is explicit and subject to symbolic representation, another is implicit and manifests itself only through actual behaviors. At philosophical level it’s the line drawn by Wittgenstein: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world”; at technical level it’s AI’s two-lanes approach: symbolic rule-based engines vs non symbolic neural networks; at corporate level implicit knowledge is seen as some unaccounted for aspect of intangible assets when not simply blended into corporate culture. With knowledge becoming a primary success factor, a more reasoned approach of its processing is clearly needed.
To begin with, symbolic knowledge can be plied by logic, which, quoting Wittgenstein again, “takes care of itself; all we have to do is to look and see how it does it.” That would be true on two conditions:
Domains are to be well circumscribed.
A water-tight partition must be secured between the logic of representations and the semantics of domains.
That could be achieved with modular and specific ontologies built on a clear distinction between common representation syntax and specific domains semantics.
As for non-symbolic knowledge, its processing has for long been overshadowed by the preeminence of symbolic rule-based schemes, that is until neural networks got the edge and deep learning overturned the playground. In a few years’ time practically unlimited access to raw data and the exponential growth in computing power have opened the door to massive sources of unexplored knowledge which is paradoxically both directly relevant yet devoid of immediate meaning:
Relevance: mined raw data is supposed to reflect the geology and dynamics of targeted markets.
Meaning: the main value of that knowledge rests on its implicit nature; applying existing semantics would add little to existing knowledge.
Assuming that deep learning can transmute raw base metals into knowledge gold, enterprises would need to understand, assess, and improve the refining machinery. That could be done with ontological frames.
A Proof of Concept
Compared to tangible assets knowledge may appear as very elusive, yet, and contrary to intangible ones, knowledge is best understood as the outcome of processes that can be properly designed, assessed, and improved. And that can be achieved with profiled ontologies.
As a Proof of Concept, an ontological kernel has been developed along two principles:
A clear-cut distinction between truth-preserving representation and domain specific semantics.
Profiled ontologies designed according to the nature of contents (concepts, documents, or artifacts), layers (environment, enterprise, systems, platforms), and contexts (institutional, professional, corporate, social.
That provides for a seamless integration of information processing, from data mining to knowledge management and decision making:
Data is first captured through aspects.
Categories are used to process data into information on one hand, design production systems on the other hand.
Concepts serve as bridges to knowledgeable information.
To be of any use for enterprises, ontologies have to embrace a wide range of contexts and concerns, often ill-defined for environments, rather well expounded for systems.
And now that enterprises have to compete in open, digitized, and networked environments, business and systems ontologies have to be combined into modular knowledge architectures.
Ontologies & Contexts
If open-endedbusiness contexts and concerns are to be taken into account, the first step should be to characterize ontologies with regard to their source, justification, and the stability of their categories, e.g:
Institutional: Regulatory authority, steady, changes subject to established procedures.
Professional: Agreed upon between parties, steady, changes subject to accords.
Corporate: Defined by enterprises, changes subject to internal decision-making.
Social: Defined by usage, volatile, continuous and informal changes.
Personal: Customary, defined by named individuals (e.g research paper).
Assuming such an external taxonomy, the next step would be to see what kind of internal (i.e enterprise architecture) ontologies can be fitted into, as it’s the case for the Zachman framework.
The Zachman’s taxonomy is built on well established concepts (Who,What,How, Where, When) applied across architecture layers for enterprise (business and organization), systems (logical structures and functionalities), and platforms (technologies). These layers can be generalized and applied uniformly across external contexts, from well-defined (e.g regulations) to fuzzy (e.g business prospects or new technologies) ones, e.g:
Ontologies, capabilities (Who,What,How, Where, When), and architectures (enterprise, systems, platforms).
That “divide to conquer” strategy is to serve two purposes:
By bridging the gap between internal and external taxonomies it significantly enhances the transparency of governance and decision-making.
By applying the same motif (Who,What, How, Where, When) across the semantics of contexts, it opens the door to a seamless integration of all kinds of knowledge: enterprise, professional, institutional, scientific, etc.
As can be illustrated using Zachman concepts, the benefits are straightforward at enterprise architecture level (e.g procurement), due to the clarity of supporting ontologies; not so for external ones, which are by nature open and overlapping and often come with blurred semantics.
Ontologies & Concerns
A broad survey of RDF-based ontologies demonstrates how semantic overlaps and folds can be sort out using built-in differentiation between domains’ semantics on one hand, structure and processing of symbolic representations on the other hand. But such schemes are proprietary, and evidence shows their lines seldom tally, with dire consequences for interoperability: even without taking into account relationships and integrity constraints, weaving together ontologies from different sources is to be cumbersome, the costs substantial, and the outcome often reduced to a muddy maze of ambiguous semantics.
Knowledge graphs have tackled the difficulty by setting apart representation (e.g RDF) and contents semantics (aka ontologies), and their impressive performances across a wide range of domains bear witness of the soundness of the approach.
The governance-driven taxonomy introduced above deals with contexts and consequently with coarse-grained modularity. It should be complemented by a fine-grained one to be driven by concerns, more precisely by the epistemic nature of the individual instances to be denoted. As it happens, that could also tally with the Zachman’s taxonomy:
Thesaurus: ontologies covering terms and concepts.
Documents: ontologies covering documents with regard to topics.
Business: ontologies of relevant enterprise organization and business objects and activities.
Engineering: symbolic representation of organization and business objects and activities.
Ontologies: Purposes & Targets
Enterprises could then pick and combine templates according to domains of concern and governance. Taking an on-line insurance business for example, enterprise knowledge architecture would have to include:
Medical thesaurus and consolidated regulations (Knowledge).
Principles and resources associated to the web-platform (Engineering).
Description of products (e.g vehicles) and services (e.g insurance plans) from partners (Business).
Such designs of ontologies according to the governance of contexts and the nature of concerns would significantly reduce blanket overlaps and improve the modularity and transparency of ontologies.
On a broader perspective, that policy will help to align knowledge management with EA governance by setting apart ontologies defined externally (e.g regulations), from the ones set through decision-making, strategic (e.g plate-form) or tactical (e.g partnerships).
Open Ontologies’ Benefits
Benefits from open and formatted ontologies built along an explicit distinction between the semantics of representation (aka ontology syntax) and the semantics of context can be directly identified for:
Modularity: the knowledge basis of enterprise architectures could be continuously tailored to changes in markets and corporate structures without impairing enterprise performances.
Integration: the design of ontologies with regard to the nature of targets and stability of categories could enable built-in alignment mechanisms between knowledge architectures and contexts.
Interoperability: limited overlaps and finer granularity are to greatly reduce frictions when ontologies bearing out business processes are to be combined or extended.
Reliability: formatted ontologies can be compared to typed programming languages with regard to transparency, internal consistency, and external validity.
Last but not least, such reasoned design of ontologies may open new perspectives for the collaboration between cognitive humans and pretending ones.
