Architect For Extreme Uncertainty

Enterprise architecture is now at a critical tipping point. New digital business models and an unrelenting focus on customer engagement are unlocking new exciting initiatives and projects for architects. But these new opportunities are also creating extreme uncertainty around how to evolve enterprise architecture to deal with future wild shifts across digital channels and customer segments as well as entering into new markets. To deal with extreme uncertainty, enterprise architects will need to balance large scale business change against smaller, faster moving experimentation efforts that focus on critical enterprise "hotspots" that can generate new revenue and drive better engagement with customers. This report outlines the key pillars of an emerging technique, systemic design, which enterprise architects are beginning to use to design flexible architectures that leave room for uncertainty and the "unknown unknowns."