Switching to the official ArchiMate User Community Platform ?

[Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie]

Hi All,

4 years ago, Gerben Wierda, Phil Beauvoir and I decided to create this ArchiMate Google Group as an alternative to the ArchiMate LinkedIn Group because at that time we though it was important for people to be able to exchange questions, answers and ideas about ArchiMate in a way that makes discussions easy with the ability to quickly add images or attachments and vote for answers.

This has proven to be really useful and we've had very interesting discussions.

In the meantime, I've had the chance to be elected Chair of the Open Group ArchiMate Forum. Since then, I've been working on the idea that the core team leading the evolution of the standard should be able to leverage feedback from the user community, and the idea that the user community should play a role in the creation of guidance documentation about ArchiMate.

This led us, Chair, Vice-Chair and Open Group Officers to the creation of the ArchiMate User Community Platform which was announced some weeks ago (you can see the video of the announcement here).

In short: the ArchiMate User Community Platform (accessible here) is open to any practitioner who wants to discuss ArchiMate Specification. People are encouraged to share models, examples, and viewpoints by opening a new discussion. It is also possible for self-organized community workgroups to work on documents or models that will be hosted into the ArchiMate Model Repository (a specific space inside the platform).

There are several advantages in using this platform, one of the big one being to be independent of any major social network (LinkedIn, Google, Facebook....) and hosted by The Open Group itself which generously sponsors it. Of course, being able to better tag discussions and curate content is also a big plus as this will be key in providing feedback to the official Open Group ArchiMate Forum.

This ArchiMate User Community Platform supports everything we wanted in the first place, so I now wonder if it still makes sens to keep this Google Group open. My personal opinion is that it should be switched to read-only and (if possible) its content migrated to the new platform.

Of course I will not take this decision alone, so if we decide to do so it should be a shared decision taken by the whole group of people posting here. So please, take some time to provide feedback about this idea.

Regards,

JB

[Phil Beauvoir]

I think that the important features of any ArchiMate community are:

- Open

- Presence of experts - JB, Gerben, Marc, and others

- Vendor neutral (no Archi questions please!)

- Easy access

So I think the new place fulfils these requirements. Anything that gets out of the grip of G**gle, MS, etc is good.

Phil

[Mastering ArchiMate]

I find one problem of the community for me to be that the step to go there is too much given the pressures I am under. This list (as you may have noticed) does trigger responses from me because what happens in it gets noted as it ends up in an mail account that I read. So, just now, I looked at the community again for the first time since it was launched (because I was triggered here).

My presence in the LinkedIn Group has also waned when LinkedIn stopped sending me notifications for posts there. WIthout notifications, I tend not to get around spending time on forums like these.

Besides, my writing-oriented models are generally not created as real organisation-usable clean models. E.g. in my models you will often find multiple solutions for a single question as I write about those different solutions. The model itself then has all these elements and relations and is a mess as it supports all those — sometimes contradictory — diagrams with a single model. So, there is little I actually can usefully share model-wise.

On 26 Nov 2020, at 20:33, Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie <jean-b...@sarrodie.org> wrote:

Hi All,

4 years ago, Gerben Wierda, Phil Beauvoir and I decided to create this ArchiMate Google Group as an alternative to the ArchiMate LinkedIn Group because at that time we though it was important for people to be able to exchange questions, answers and ideas about ArchiMate in a way that makes discussions easy with the ability to quickly add images or attachments and vote for answers.

And also because the LinkedIn group had strict limitations such as the rule that you were not allowed to discuss tools. I don’t think it is strictly enforced these days, though. 

This has proven to be really useful and we've had very interesting discussions.

In the meantime, I've had the chance to be elected Chair of the Open Group ArchiMate Forum. Since then, I've been working on the idea that the core team leading the evolution of the standard should be able to leverage feedback from the user community, and the idea that the user community should play a role in the creation of guidance documentation about ArchiMate.

This led us, Chair, Vice-Chair and Open Group Officers to the creation of the ArchiMate User Community Platform which was announced some weeks ago (you can see the video of the announcement here).

In short: the ArchiMate User Community Platform (accessible here) is open to any practitioner who wants to discuss ArchiMate Specification. People are encouraged to share models, examples, and viewpoints by opening a new discussion. It is also possible for self-organized community workgroups to work on documents or models that will be hosted into the ArchiMate Model Repository (a specific space inside the platform).

There are several advantages in using this platform, one of the big one being to be independent of any major social network (LinkedIn, Google, Facebook....) and hosted by The Open Group itself which generously sponsors it. Of course, being able to better tag discussions and curate content is also a big plus as this will be key in providing feedback to the official Open Group ArchiMate Forum.

I wonder about the ‘curate’ part...

This ArchiMate User Community Platform supports everything we wanted in the first place, so I now wonder if it still makes sens to keep this Google Group open. My personal opinion is that it should be switched to read-only and (if possible) its content migrated to the new platform.

My personal feeling would be not to push people but to pull people.

This list has the advantage of beeing the most free/open one content-wise. LinkedIn has the advantage of having the most members, more than 10,000 (the community currently seems to have 8, of which at least 3 can be counted as staff, this list has seen about 200 messages in 4 years, so about one message per week). The community has the advantage of being a model-repository with development based on git and possibility of really working together (but I tend to work alone, not really requiring the active help of others — and I guess everyone who gets experienced has their own patterns and also really doesn’t need much help too).

G

Of course I will not take this decision alone, so if we decide to do so it should be a shared decision taken by the whole group of people posting here. So please, take some time to provide feedback about this idea.

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Regards,

JB

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[Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie]

Hi Gerben,

This list (as you may have noticed) does trigger responses from me because what happens in it gets noted as it ends up in an mail account that I read. So, just now, I looked at the community again for the first time since it was launched (because I was triggered here).

I fully agree that's a great plus over LinkedIn (I am less active on LinkedIn for the exact same reason). But you can enable email notifications as well in the AUC platform (connect, go to your account settings, and then the notifications section). In fact you should also be able to comment simply by sending a mail, but I've just tested and it doesn't seem to work, so I'll check with Open Group team to check what's wrong on the configuration.

Besides, my writing-oriented models are generally not created as real organisation-usable clean models. E.g. in my models you will often find multiple solutions for a single question as I write about those different solutions. The model itself then has all these elements and relations and is a mess as it supports all those — sometimes contradictory — diagrams with a single model. So, there is little I actually can usefully share model-wise.

That's not at all an issue, people have (and still) learn a lot from your answers and examples, that's the value you provide. Providing the model file is not mandatory in this context, but it can be useful for some people though (let''s imagine that I want to comment what you shared, it's easier if I can simply "patch" your model instead of recreating the full view by hand).

I wonder about the ‘curate’ part...

That will of course take some time to take off, but that's something I'll contribute with some people I know (at least some colleagues and former colleagues).

My personal feeling would be not to push people but to pull people.

I tend to think the same, but people will come only if there is some content and activity, so I'm trying to reach a consensus on this (and that's also why I'd like to migrate existing discussions).

This list has the advantage of beeing the most free/open one content-wise.

So is the goal of the AUC.

The community has the advantage of being a model-repository with development based on git and possibility of really working together

True it also makes the content easier to work with, which could help the Forum getting real feedback from real users.

Regards,

JB