Enterprise Engineering

There are quite a few books for sale on organizational behavior in general, and management of change in particular. One would expect that those trees were cut for a good reason—in short, that we would know by now what the best change program and what its best implementation strategy is. But sadly more than 70 % of the change programs worldwide do not achieve the desired return [1–3]. This percentage is even higher according to some researchers, and there are even researchers who claim that not a single change program has had the desired effect [4]. Also 96 % of all the mergers and takeovers are very problematic (research Hewitt and Associates, 2009) apparently as a result of ‘cultural problems’. These are rather shocking findings, and one thing is for sure: there is something wrong despite the willingness of all the parties involved.

In the introduction I referred to Enterprise Engineering as a paradigm change. A paradigm is the reference framework from which we interpret reality. Enterprise Engineering allows us to change the reference framework and look at organizations in a whole different way. But before we look further into the new paradigm, we first need to establish what our old reference framework was. We will therefore discuss the current approach in this chapter, whereby the organization is seen as a black box. Many managers, experts on change and others involved in the functioning of organizations often don’t realize they look at organizations in this way. However it is clear from their actions that they do.

New paradigms don’t just fall from the sky. They are the result of different development in various areas, science being the most important one. The most famous example is that of Galileo; Galileo defended Copernicus’ theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun and is not the center of the universe. The new paradigm we will discuss in this chapter is maybe not as great, but does have substantial consequences for organizational science. But before discussing this new paradigm, we will first take a look at the three important scientific theories on which Enterprise Engineering is based.

Although Enterprise Engineering provides a lot of insight into the organizational construction, the insight is never a goal in itself. Insight in the organizational construction is the way to track and correct, for example, Elementary Construction Flaws (ECFs—see Chap. 5). Optimization of current business processes is however just one of the applications. Having an insight into the organizational construction can also help achieve better results in various other organizational areas. In this chapter I will discuss the most important ones: mergers and takeovers, reorganization, complexity control and reduction, (the implementation of) ERP packages and the implementation of methods. The common denominator of these areas of application is that it involves organizations on the move; organizations that are partially or fully subject to change. Enterprise Engineering can then be used to introduce these changes and adjustments correctly in one go, without wasting time and money on experiments—and the trial and error that comes with them—the effects of which are not clearly defined beforehand.

In this chapter we will discuss a number of cases to illustrate how Enterprise Engineering works in practice. But first we will look at the cooperation between software architects and software developers within a department, and then the cooperation between a development department and an ICT Operations department, followed by a case on purchasing building materials. This is followed by a case on complexity control and then one concerning the implementation of Agile/Scrum in a large organization. The last case is one involving a reorganization of a government body.

In Chap. 6 I have shown that there are many areas in which Enterprise Engineering can be applied. The Construction Model allows all the Elementary Construction Flaws (ECFs) in the organization to be restored (see Chap. 5 for the ECFs). The model also provides an excellent tool for takeovers, reorganizations, outsourcing processes and reduction of complexity. However, this does not mean that Enterprise Engineering can’t be useful in other areas, which at first glance have little to do with the construction of the organization. We will see that the construction of the cooperation forms a solid excellent basis to deal with problems regarding corporate culture and HRM. It is even an excellent starting point from where to deal with political games and increase the satisfaction of employees. In this chapter, I will shed light on the link between Enterprise Engineering and various other subjects that play a role in organizations.