One of my favorite metaphors to aid in the creative search for sustainable systems and architectures is the ecosystem. Although much is written nowadays about organizational ecosystems, SOA ecosystems, ecosystems of webservices etc. the most important part is missing in almost every buzz cascade: the answer to the question »What the heck is an ecosystem?«.

The thoughts of Fritjof Capra provided the desperately needed de-buzzing for my part. Although having absolutely nothing to do with IT or business systems, his basic principles of ecology provided what I was looking for.

Capra assigns five basic attributes to ecosystems:

1. There is no waste. The waste of one member of an ecosystem is the food of another.
2. Matter cycles continually through the web of life.
3. The energy driving these cycles flows from the sun.
4. Diversity assures resilience.
5. Life thrives not by combat but through cooperation, partnership, and networking [1].

All principles together culminate in a sustainable system of cooperating but essentially independent (sub-)systems.

To get the most out of this metaphor we have to interpret it for the context at hand.

What does principle number 4 e. g. mean for the field of enterprise architecture? One interpretation could be that there is no need searching for the one technology to serve them all. Treat the separate units and divisions as the individual organisms they are and specify just the interfaces and cross-cutting concerns (web of life, no waste) connecting them. If you interpret the sun as an orientation point towards the single organisms can navigate by, the governance bodies and the sponsorship needed to organize such a web of life bring principles 3 and 2 to life.

The interpretations and possibilities of these principles are seemingly endless and powerful. As with every powerful thing the danger of misusing (misinterpreting?) them are there, too and can’t be denied. As a tool to break out of internalized mindsets and (in this case) transfer knowledge between different domains, metaphors are essential.

What are your favorite metaphors?

Read Capras original paper here. Get the slides on the subject from OOP2009.

Update:

[1] It always seemed to me that a sort of »proof« was needed for this statement:

»In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned
to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed«
Charles Darwin

Great overview over the roots and main branches of complexity science inlcuding actual hot topics like self-organization, emergence and ecologies.

Found at Wikimedia.

All those latest been there – done that management fads by well-know gurus based on the scheme 7 or 10 simple steps to illumination/success/world-domination/greatness or things like that want to make you believe that cause and effect is exploitable to your favour in any system.

What is your guess? Is an enterprise architecture deterministic? Yes or maybe?
Ok, lets add all the partners, customers, suppliers, competitors to grab a bigger picture. If that is still not enough please remember that even in IT we deal with people, lots of people.
Those people tend to have multiple identities besides their identity as an employee in the system you are trying to control.

Lets think of a complex adaptive system as something which behaviour can only be explained in hindsight as cause and effect is not stable over time. How much sense does it make to try controling the future behaviour of the system with best practices from the past and from a different environment? Not so much I think.

What could be a solution to this? To gain as many perspectives as possible by studying the system and then test incremental changes one at a time to better understand the current nature of the system. No bold movements here!

Fight your must-win-battles with a strategic 10 step master plan elsewhere in a known and simple territory. All bold managers please climb your carreer lader this way.

Your smartest brains on the other hand should exactly do the opposite and try to work out complex adaptive problems and make small steps daily in pushing the output of the system in any desired direction as far as possible.

The slides of our talk »SaaS Ecosystems« can finally be found on our homepage (zip).

As always it was a great experience for all of us. If you have any questions left please don’t hesitate to use the comments or contact us directly!

Hope to see all of you again at OOP 2010!