Posted by Jurgens Pieterse on February 18, 1998 at 10:49:28:

In Reply to: Re: Enterprise Architecture & Knowledge posted by Yogesh Malhotra on February 14, 1998 at 10:09:23:

Enterprise architecture is the basis for Knowledge managment. The enterprise architecture consist off a strategy architecture, process architecture and resource architecture. An enterprise architecture is a representation of how the organisation is structured and organized. It is a representation of where the organization is going and how it operates.

I stated the difference with the Zachman framework because it is well known and normally viewed as the example of an enterprise architecture. The difference between the enterprise architecture as I see it and Zachman is that Zachman's approach is directed at developing information systems while my approach is focused on business design. Because it is business focused the enterprise architecture contains fundamental knowledge on the organizational design. Knowledge mapping without being supported by a enterprise architecture is flawed and does not address the organisational knowledge requirements as a whole.

Meta-knowledge is knowledge on what the basic design structure, objects and relations within the organization. Subsistence knowledge is knowledge on specific instances of objects or activities. Let me explain by example. In the business architecture we know that there is a role A responsible to execute an activity Z. Meta knowledge is knowledge that describe the know what , know-how and know-why of the activity in general. Subsistence knowledge will look at a specific occurance of activity Z within predetermined conditions ie. if activity Z is performed for client C then there are a next level of knowledge on top of the general knowledge that needs to be known. Client C might require the activity to perform at different performance parameters than what is considered to be the norm.

By making the enterprise architecture directly available to employees they are able to learn on how the organisation function (even in functional areas which is outside the scope of the employee) as well as why the company function in a specific way. We publish the enterprise architecture normally directly to an intranet framework where all employees with access to the intranet can look and comment on the organisational direction and design via E-mail.

Again this is a short reply. I do not know if this explains the validity of my original message or not. I do hope that it does help to answer your specific questions. If not then reply or send me personal E-mail and we can do some more explaining.

The bottom line is that enterprise architectures are fundamental component to knowledge managment because it is a key source of knowledge in an organisation. (Please note from my message that enterprise architecture is a component and not knowledge management itself.)

• Cyclic progression to Value creation

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