Creating a compelling visual story
One thing that I’ve become fascinated with over the past few years is the difference between people who have good ideas, and people who use good ideas to bring about change. I’m not alone to notice that the folks who originate a concept are usually NOT the ones who get the credit for it… it is the person most associated with sharing that idea with the widest number of people in the most consumable manner. We see this in all fields: technology, industry, science, math, politics, etc. No matter what field you are in, the ability to create an original idea is not the most important thing: the ability to make that idea understandable, compelling, and consumable is. In fact, the idea does not have to be new to be made new through a compelling and interesting presentation. For Enterprise Architects, this is a huge concern. Most EA folks rise through the ranks of technology or business, in fields that traditionally value accurate and specialized outputs. For a technologist, this could be source code, a BPMN business process model, an excellent project plan, or a UML architectural diagram with very specific semantics. For a business person, this could be a financial analysis, a process dashboard, or a quality control performance review. Specific technical outputs like this are rewarded and people rise through the ranks, many landing in business management, planning, or enterprise architecture positions. But now, a new skill is required: the ability to influence your peers . Business and Enterprise Architects frequently find that their transition into this role is a rocky one, because they go from a world of detailed, well-defined, well ordered artifacts that people use to perform their jobs, to a near-cacophony of variable deliverables that are useful because they motivate leaders and SMEs to change things. Technical architecture roles are usually design roles. EA and BA are change-agents. Talented architects can stop their forward progress at this point, and many will. Using your considerable technical skills to convince people is not appealing to everyone, and many folks prefer to stay in the world of specific, accurate, and measurable artifacts that well-motivated people are simply expected to use. We need to go from presenting data to telling stories
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Creating a compelling visual story
