I presented a 5 year plan to the board last week. One aspect of the presentation that seemed to resonate really well was an adaptation from the Pragmatic EA Framework's Enterprise Debt. However, I re-badged the terms Remedial, Tactical and Strategic as Deficient, Temporary and Permanent.
I found the term Remedial a bit ambiguous - is it a remedy or in need of a remedy? The intent is 'in need of', but to avoid confusion I chose deficient. We live with deficiency in all aspects of our lives - I have a headache, but I soldier on; the handle on the toilet is wonky, but it still flushes OK so I leave it be; we are a headcount down in our department; our systems don't integrate. Some deficiencies obviously more severe than others.
To address deficiencies we find a remedy, which can either be temporary or permanent. I prefer this to tactical and strategic, largely because tactical has become associated with quick, dirty and cheap, and strategic with expensive and (potentially) over engineered - at least they have in my mind.
So the distinction I draw is whether the remedy will no longer be used, replace by a different solution, at a planned point in time, or one with no foreseeable event that will trigger replacement, even if a desirable replacement exists. Many solutions are built with every intention to replace them, but that replacement never comes - hence the emphasis on a known point in time or triggering event.
Putting this into the presentation gave the roadmap a sense of pragmatic commercial awareness, which can often be lacking when the focus is on technology. It acknowledges that in all areas, technology included, we manage the mix of deficiencies and remedial measures (temporary and permanent). Each section of the roadmap referred to the changes in terms of deficiencies and temporary or permanent remedies.
I didn't get into the ratio measurement proposed in PEAF, partly because the application inventory doesn't use this language yet and partly to take small steps in introducing this new language/model; let it gain traction and then develop it.
I encourage you to read PEAF. How have you used this concept?
UPDATE: So I abused the PEAF terms, doing something a bit different. Made sense in the context of painting current state. I'll have to read over the PEAF material again.
