Tuesday, June 05, 2012

Terms I'm using ...

Thought I'd write a note on the general terms that I use.

  • Activities are what we do.
  • Activities evolve through discrete states - genesis, custom built, product & rental services, commodity & utility services.
  • Practices are how we do it.
  • Practice evolve through discrete states - novel, emerging, good and best.
  • The evolution of an activity can cause the co-evolution of a practice i.e. the shift of computing infrastructure from from product to utility services has caused the development and evolution of a new set of architectural practices.
  • Both activity and practice states can be characterised into common phases which have common properties - chaotic, transitional and linear.
  • For activities these phases are
    • Genesis is chaotic
    • Custom, Product & Rental Services are transitional
    • Commodity & utility services are linear.
  • For practices these phases are
    • Novel is chaotic
    • Emerging and Good are transitional
    • Best is linear.
  • The largest inertia barriers to change are found in the evolution of activities from the transitional to the linear phase i.e. the shift from product & rental services to commodity & utility services.
  • Inertia barriers are instrumental in controlling the shift between different economic eras - known as the peace, war and build era.
  • The eras make up a repeating cycle of change which maybe specific to an industry or have wider economic effect.
  • The largest of these cycles of change are known as Ages.