CLIP Mapping

In this blog entry, we will try to get a better handle on some of the relationships the CLIP Framework has to the actual business itself. Without having tangible Business Outcomes, the framework has no value to the business.

C is Conceptual

Down the middle of the diagram, we see the hierarchy of the framework. As we have seen in previous entries, the top of the hierarchy is the Strategy. The term strategy is defined as a plan of action or policy to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty. These are the Outcomes the framework seeks to achieve. The next line is the Capability, which for our purposes is synonymous to the Objective - note that there could be multiple Objectives ! In business terms, the Capability aligns to the things the business does to offer its products or services. The Strategy & Capabilities are the foundation of the Conceptual Architecture. If the Strategy is to provide an Omni-Channel means of selling to customers, the Capabilities are to deliver the shopping experience in multiple ways - through both store-front operations and through an eCommerce web-site. The Conceptual architecture provides a means of delivering those Capabilities to meet the overall Strategy.

L I for Logical and Informational

The business will develop Processes for repeatability. Multiple Processes bundled together become the Capability. For example, an eCommerce web-site is a Capability - it is a means of selling products or services to a customer. There might be more than one Capability, such as brick and mortar stores as well as the eCommerce web-site. But the Capability must encompass a number of Processes, like being able to browse the selection, add them to a virtual shopping cart, calculate the price, taxes and a running total. All of these Processes sum up to a Capability. And, just as every process sums up to a capability, a number of Services sum up to a process. Discrete services are often reusable. The process of building a virtual shopping cart in an eCommerce web-site is exactly the same as checking out a client at a cash register in a store. Informational Architecture is about transformation. A number of services need to work together to form a process. Those services are all dependent on information (raw data which has been processed into a usable format) which may come from disparate sources. And each of these sources will have their own way of storing, manipulating and serving that information, so often there is some form of translation (transformative process) which makes the information usable to the services. When building out the systems to support the Capabilities, the Processes & Services provide the Functional Requirements. These describe how the system and the associate interact to perform the Processes.

P for Physical

The Activities and Stories are important to the Framework, as they describe the manual steps required to perform a set of tasks. For example, a store associate might receive an item from a client. They find and scan the barcode on the label, check that the description matches the garment, the system adds the garment to a virtual shopping cart and calculates price, discount and taxes, which are displayed on the screen for the customer and the associate to see. They then make decisions about which activity is next, depending on the form of payment a client wishes to use. So the Stories describe how the associate interacts with both the client and the system to perform all of the activities. The Activities drive out the Non-Functional Requirements. These are usually about the time it takes to perform a transaction, or how many transactions a system can handle in a given time-period.

Framework Flexibility - From CLAP to CLIP

As many readers may have noticed, there are some fairly significant gaps in the CLAP Framework. In the perfect world, it is really intended as a guide for how to execute Business Goals into practical IT Projects. But there  may be some flexibility in the simplicity of that framework.

A colleague pointed out that maybe the missing component wasn't necessarily the Application, as those needs are covered off in the Functional Requirements. He suggested that instead the framework should consider the Information Architecture itself.

For the purposes of this framework, lets consider that data is the raw input of a process, and information is the output. Information needs to have a defined structure and each element has a distinct meaning. Consider the difference between distance an speed. Distance is a unit of measure, denoting how far something is. Speed is the distance divided by the time taken to travel the distance. Speed is the result of a process. applied to the data.

In the CLIP Framework, the notion of Information Architecture is added. It describes the processed data, its flow from system to system, and its attributes. For example, is information synchronous (live from a source) or asynchronous (delivered by a different process). Further, we see where the Requirements and Standards get applied, and how Security Requirements need to be considered through every step of the process.

Finally, we see the Validation step happens just before the solution is transitioned to Operations. It asks the question "Did the final physical solution deliver what was designed ?". Arguably, there is another validation step, which asks the question "Does the Solution Architecture satisfy all of the requirements ?".

The validation is key, as this largely waterfall process needs to map the entire solution all the way back to the original Business Activities, described in the functional & non-functional requirements. As you can see, the framework is flexible enough to be applied to many IT Goals, and not so rigid as to be unmanageable.

CLAP Framework for IT

Many Enterprises struggle with IT frameworks. These frameworks are meant to help turn Business strategy into executable plans. Some frameworks, such as TOGAF or Zachmann will help an Enterprise IT group understand WHAT it needs to do to achieve its goals. Other frameworks, like COBIT or ITIL will further explain HOW to achieve those goals. When an Enterprise does not follow any of the established frameworks, they will often try to devise their own. The diagram above illustrates one such framework - the "CLP" framework (the "A" was added later, after missing information was identified).

Conceptual - this stage of the framework takes the Business Activities into account. Each discrete activity can be mapped out as a few elements in a process, describing a single activity. An example might be "calculate price".

Logical - this stage maps the discrete activities required. To calculate price, we need some information from a number of sources, such as the gross price, a taxation rate, a discount and a profit margin. Further, architectural governance (standards) are applied, such as use of a Linux operating system, or mandating a particular security framework. Finally, Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs) are described, such as how quickly a system must respond or how many transactions per minute the system must satisfy.

Application - this stage is where we begin to apply some business logic about what to do with the information. It maps out what the information should be expected to look like, such as expressing numbers in Currency notation, with two decimal points of precision. It will also describe any user interfaces and other means of accessing information. It specifically maps business activities to Functional Requirements.

Physical - this final stage helps identify all of systems that are required. Items such as CPU utilization and storage requirements are calculated to determine how best to implement the system into a computing environment. It describes systems interactions in terms of protocols and transports.

This is not an exhaustive look at frameworks, and many Enterprise Architects will keenly assess missing elements from this simplistic framework. But, executed properly, a framework such as this one could be sufficient for an Enterprise to begin taking advantage of IT to realize their business strategy.

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