Coherent behavior must be governed by an enterprise model that codifies the corporation s intent and how we do things around here . The ideal manage-by wire implementation uses an enterprise model to represent the operations of an entire business. Creating a robust model of a large business organization is an extremely challenging undertaking. But the empowered, decentralized teams of the information economy need a unified view of what s happening within an organization. When one force dominates an organization, it is drawn toward a coherent, established form, described as configuration .
Configuration refers to any form of organization that is consistent and highly integrated.
With configuration, an organization achieves a sense of order, of integration. There is internal consistency, synergy among processes, fit with the external context. The degree of synergy, consistency and integration required by a configuration would only be achievable in a large complex organisation if there is a high degree of consensual understanding of all the parts of the organisation and their interconnectedness. Such understanding is unlikely in the absence of a rigorously defined model of the business such as an Enterprise Architecture. A configuration is sometimes faced with converting from one dominant form to another.