C.3.1
Practical questions
Some practical questions will be asked first, in order to get some more information about the participant and to properly classify them as a stakeholder.
1. What is your current role in your organization? 2. How long have you been active in your current role? 3. Can you briefly elaborate your daily tasks?
4. What role does Enterprise Architecture play in your job?
C.3.2
Scoping questions
Setting definitions and a scope for the interview make sure the interviewer and interviewee understand each other. Therefore, the scope is first set on the three important definitions of the interview organiza- tion,(enterprise) architectureandcomplexity.
1. In what organizational context do you usually work? With what part of the organization do you interact at least on a weekly basis?
2. What aspects do you consider to be part of an enterprise architecture? Do you work with actual elements of the architecture, or do you usually consider a model of the architecture?
3. What is your idea of complexity? When talking about the complexity of an architecture, what aspects of the architecture do you consider?
C.3.3
Key questions
In order to answer the main research questions, six key questions have been identified based on existing literature. These questions will be asked during the interview in order to answer the main research questions. With each key question, additional in-depth questions (listed) and probes (bullets) have been listed in order to acquire more information or further engage the participant. If deemed necessary or helpful, additional questions can be asked during the interview. For each question, a substantiation is provided in italics.
According to Cant et al. (1995), complexity consists, partly, of psychological complexity. Psychological, or cognitive, complexity is based on the ease of understanding or the property of comprehension (Singh & Misra, 2006). Therefore, it is important to first ask the interviewee about his understanding of the architecture.
1. Do you feel like you understand the architecture of your organizations IT landscape?
• If not: why? What factors influence this? E.g. is it not explained well or just too complex? (a) Tell me about the architecture of your organizations IT landscape.
(b) How can the architecture be altered to improve understandability?
(c) How do you think the understanding of the architecture, or lack thereof, influences your orga- nization?
• Do you know of any problems arising from a lack of understanding? (d) What would help you to better understand the architecture?
According to Abran (2010), it is important to identify whether we measure the measurand itself, or a model of it. In the case of EA, this can vary based on the role of the stakeholder. Whereas users probably mostly interact with the actual architecture, facilitators are likely to interact more with a model of the architecture. Therefore, when questioning the understandability of the IT landscape, it is important for question its documentation as well. An important aspect in notational clarity is correct representation mapping, meaning all notational elements correspond to a single architectural element, and vice versa (Moody, 2009). This aspect of subjective complexity is called representational complexity (Cant et al., 1995).
2. How is the architecture of your organization documented? (a) Is het documentation easy to read and understand?
(b) Does this documentation make the architecture simpler, or more complex? (c) Is there a model of the architecture? Is it easy to interprete?
(d) Are all notational elements clearly corresponding to an architectural element?
After asking about the understandability of the architecture and its model, we move on to the complexity of the IT architecture. According to Figure 1.4, the subjective complexity of an architecture is dependent on the objective complexity and stakeholder perception. By asking their opinion of the complexity, we can assess how the understandability asked previously relates to their opinion of, i.e. the subjective, complexity.
3. What is your opinion on the complexity of the IT architecture in your organization? (a) Does the complexity of your IT landscape impact you in your job?
(b) What are some positive/negative influences of the complexity? How much do you know about the architecture of the IT landscape?
• Please elaborate on your knowledge
(c) Do you feel the architecture is too complex or too simple? • Why?
• How does this influence you in your role in the oragnization?
(d) In you opinion, what would help to reduce the complexity of you IT architecture? • What would help to reduce your perception of complexity?
(e) What is the influence of the organization’s environment on its complexity?
Previously, we questioned understandability as one of the big influences on stakeholder perception. Next, we try to identify additional variables influencing subjective complexity by directly asking intervie- wees for their input on this.
4. In your opinion, what variables influence the complexity of an Enterprise Architecture? (a) What objective variables influence complexity?
(b) What other variables influence complexity?
(c) What aspects of the architecture make you feel like it is complex? (d) How do you feel about the architects of the IT landscape?
• Do they have a positive influence on its complexity? • What could they do better?
In order to work with an architecture, information processing is an important aspect influencing stake- holders, which influences understandability as well. According to Wang (2007), information acquisition has four categories: knowledge, behavior, experience and skill. In order to assess the influence of stake- holder characteristics on subjective complexity, we will ask for these variables. Behavior and skill will be associated with different roles.
5. How does your role in the organization influence your view on EA complexity? (a) How would you feel about the complexity if you had a different role? (b) How does your experience influence your view on complexity?
(c) How does your knowledge on architectures influence your view on complexity?
The goal of complexity management is to achieve the appropriate level of complexity for the architectures context and purpose. Therefore, subjective complexity is most likely influenced by the personal purpose of the architecture. This question verifies required architectural complexity as a variable.
6. Do you need the current level of architectural complexity to carry out your job? Or should it be more simple or complex?