There are essentially three fundamental types of data we
need to maintain and manage in an EA tool:
¨
Entities - These are the
“things” that we gather information about such as Objectives, Business
processes, Applications, Goals, Locations, Departments, Databases.
¨
Relationships - There are the
“linkages” between the entities such as relating Business Processes to Departments
or applications
¨
Views - These are the
illustrations of one or more Entities and one or more Relationships drawn in a
particular kind of notation. Views can also be assembled into dashboards. Note
that a diagram could be pictorial, tabular or text based.
“The value is in the lines, not the boxes.”
- Kevin Smith
While Entities and Views are very important, it is the
Relationships that provide us the real value and power, and it is the
Relationships that are the primary reason for us adopting a tool. Without
relationships, all we have is lists.
People can cope with a small number of Relationships between
a small number for Entities but the human brain reaches its limit at maybe
three Entities and 5 Relationships. Anything more than that and you just cannot
keep it in your brain. With literally thousands of relationships, our brains
need help!
A Tool will allow us to keep all these relationships and
give us the ability to surf through them depending on the task at hand. A kind
of Just-In-Time-Intelligence.
