I was trained as an engineer and economist. I worked nearly 25 years as an engineer, manager, executive and social change catalyst. During my career, one thing had remained constant.  I always thought my job was to optimize what we have, transform what we can using known good practices/technologies, innovate new and make the current value chain dramatically more productive than current, not just for shareholders but for all stakeholders.

For the last fifteen years, my work has been recognized as an Enterprise Architect. My peers have granted me the highest EA Distinction – Open CA Level 3 certification – Chief Architect. During this period, I witnessed many trends, fads, new shiny objects such as  IT Architecture, Business Architecture, Solution Architecture, Drawing Boxes and Arrows Architecture, Blue Sky Thinking Architecture.. to just name few. With all this churn and noise, one wonders – are these noises created in self-serving mode or  are we going after some larger goal .

This brings me to the current topic in hand – if we want to be recognized as professionals like engineers, doctors, accountants, even lawyers, electrician and plumbers, we need to define what it is that we do and how does it serve the public. Only then can we have our effort recognized as a profession and find a way to get ourselves entrenched in legislation.

Here is my proposal, and I would welcome the  opportunity to hear your ideas:

Proposal - Uppal Act

Good Organization Index : Our workforce has changed, but the workplace remained the same. If you need proof  go speak with a 60 year old and ask him/her their expectation when they graduated from colleges and ask a college student today. These two worlds are miles apart. Today we need to find a way to measure  Goo Organization Index.  A place where productive dialogue takes  place and work place is exciting and innovative. Everybody wants innovation, but culture in most organizations is anything but innovative. My last workplace, all team members had food testers.

Method – just like accountants have figured out how to create financial governance index we can create a good organization index and governance framework . We apply our architecture thinking and develop this process, implement broadly and then get the political  elite to put it into a legislation. All politicians want to be cool, they just know how. Imagine – Trump with first legislative agenda – Good Organization Index – Uppal Act.

By doing this, we would have taken first steps towards us being a profession and do common good – we can stop wasting our young talent.

Looking forward to your feedback

Jason Uppal