Architect Your Life

Related article: Dynamics of the Quality of Life

My inspiration for this post came from two sources. The first was Clayton M. Christensen’s article on “How Will You Measure Your Life” on Harvard Business Review (Christensen, 2012). The second was the class “16.855/ESD.38 Enterprise Architecting” taught by Professor Deborah Nightingale (Professor of the Practice of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Professor of Engineering Systems at MIT), as well as Dr. Donna Rhodes (Senior Lecturer, Engineering Systems at MIT). The first source triggered my thoughts on life in general, while my heuristics assignment in the enterprise architecting class (Nightingale & Rhodes, 2012) motivated me to pen this.

In layman terms, heuristics are rules of thumb, educated guesses, common sense, and advice from experience. Enterprise architecting refers to designing business organizations for success. What is success in business? What is happiness in our lives? How about sadness and disappointment? How do we diagnose and architect our lives? I relooked into my heuristic assignment for inspiration. Here are the final heuristics that made my list, with two very important caveats.

Legend:

E: Heuristic for enterprise architecting

L: Heuristic for architecting our lives

H: Heuristic that applies to both E and L

P: Prescriptive

D: Descriptive

Caveat 1

[P] Decide what you stand for. Uphold it, always. [D] 100% of the time is easier than 98% of the time.  (Christensen, 2012)

Caveat 2

[P] Be humble. [D] Everyone knows something you don’t.

[1] Impetus for Change

H1: [P] Good enough? Think again. [D] It never hurts to be better.

[2] Sponsorship

E2: [P] Champion from the top, reconcile from the bottom. [D] Togetherness is the road to success. Otherwise is the road to mess.

L2: [P] You are the champion of your life, but find a few (not one) good mentors. [D] You think you know what you want, but your mentors may think otherwise.

Mentors can be anyone. They form your panel of judges. They can be virtual in your mind or physically present, as long as you can predict how they would behave in a given situation and their advice.

[3] Understand the Landscape

E3: [P] Invest effort to understand the business. [D] Slow is smooth, smooth is better.

L3: [P] Diagnose yourself and your surroundings. [D] Slow is smooth, smooth is better.

An accurate diagnosis of the current circumstances is the prerequisite for formulating  good strategies. Focus on both internal and external factors. External factors such as economic fluctuations are hardly within your control but worth your attention. Internal factors for enterprises include strategy, organization, processes, infrastructure, knowledge, information, outputs (products and services). 


All the internal factors can be readily applied to an individual. What are your goals (objectives)? Who is in your network (organization)? What are your steps (processes) and equipment (infrastructure)? Do you have the knowledge and information required? What is your output?

[4] Understand your Stakeholders

E4: [P] Build an insider (stakeholder) network. [D] Insights beat tons of market research.

L4: [P] Think of people that matter and (don’t matter) to you. [D] They don’t necessary value things you do.

Stakeholders of enterprises include shareholders, leadership, employees, partners, suppliers, customers, unions, society, etc. Stakeholders of individuals include family, relatives, mentors, friends, spouse, children, neighbors, bosses, subordinates, colleagues, classmates, public etc. The significance of various stakeholders may change over time. One stakeholder can be more important than another now, but that can change with time.

[5] Capture As-Is (Current) State

H5: [P] Define your meaning of success. [D] You are what you measure. The definition of success must reconcile the landscape, metrics, processes, and stakeholders.

Know exactly what is success and how you are measuring it. Be very specific. Metrics drive behavior.

[6] Create Vision

H6: [P] Be sure to reconcile your vision with the landscape. [D] Coherence is key.

[7] Generate Ideas

E7: [P] Ignore the proxy for creativity. [D] Baggage stifles new perspectives. 

L7: [P] Ask for another opinion (not your mentor, but someone you trust). [D] A new pair of eyes and ears offers new perspectives.

[8] Derive To-Be (Future) Architecture

H8: [P] Fuse the best concepts. [D] Synergies exist between them.

Architecture refers to how all the factors related to internal and external landscape fit together. 

[9] Validate To-Be (Future) Architecture

E9: [P] Bounce your To-Be Architecture off the proxy. [D] Intricacies will emerge to complete the picture. 

L9: [P] Bounce your To-Be Architecture off your mentors. [D] Intricacies will emerge to complete the picture. 

Proxy refers to an enterprise representative.

[10] Formulate Action Plan

H10: [P] Transform talk into actions! [D] Journey satisfies, destination satiates.

The journey is more important than the destination? They are equally important. We learn most during the journey, but destinations/milestones/"small wins" motivate us to do better and march on. We need both. If we touch our hearts, the destination matters more than we think.

[11] Work in Progress

H11: [P] Think, action and check. Keep repeating. [D] Journey to success is constant hard work, measurement and adjustment. Beware of disturbances.


Nothing is achieved without labor. Get moving.

My friend and classmate Ming Fai wrote an interesting article "Architecture of my life". Check it out!

Thanks very much for reading.

P.S. My synthesis of enterprise architecting and control theory. (Teo, 2012)

Works Cited

Christensen, C. M. (2010, July). How Will You Measure Your Life? Retrieved May 15, 2012, from Harvard Business Review: http://hbr.org/2010/07/how-will-you-measure-your-life/ar/pr

Nightingale, D., & Rhodes, D. (2012). 16.855/ESD.38 Enterprise Architecting Class Materials at MIT. Cambridge, MA, USA.

Teo, K. S. (2012). 16.855/ESD.38: Enterprise Architecting Heuristics Assignment. MIT, ESD.