Case 5: Certifying Without Anatomy - What 1820 Medicine got wrong. And what Today’s Government Ministry EA Programs still do.

What was delivered: certificates, EA teams, and documentation. What was missing: a structural model of how government actually functions.

Industry Context & Claimed EA Success

In a move to modernize public sector operations, a national ministry launched a Government Enterprise Architecture Certification Program.

The claim?

• Agencies across government would now be “EA certified”

• A structured maturity model (Build → Develop → Operate → Integrate → Improve) would guide adoption

• EA teams would be trained and accredited

• A unified, mature, enterprise-wide architecture practice would emerge
  

According to the narrative, this program positioned the government as a leader in public sector EA maturity — where agencies could align digital strategy, system integration, and service optimization through structured EA.

What Was Really Done

In practice, this program became more about bureaucratic compliance than structural change.

What agencies actually did:

1. Set up EA teams

2. Defined frameworks on paper

3. Catalogued systems and processes

4. Submitted documentation

5. Got evaluated on documentation quality and adherence to process

6. Received EA certificates
   

But:

No requirement to redesign operations No mandate to use EA in decision-making No traceability between strategy and execution No structural model of how ministries relate, interact, or overlap

Once certified, EA artifacts often ended up untouched — parked on portals, referenced in audits, but not used to run the enterprise.

As one observer summarized:

“EA maturity was scored by how much was written, not how much was structurally understood.”

Anatomy Insight – The ICMG View

From the Enterprise Anatomy lens, this initiative focused on EA form, not substance.

What was ignored:

• No requirement to model each ministry’s core functions across strategy, process, systems, implementation, and operations
  

• No cross-ministry architecture or integrated scenario modeling
  

• No mandate to map interdependencies, business rules, or event flows
  

• No alignment of agency-level EA to a government-wide structure

Agencies knew the names of their departments. They did not model how those departments work — or how they connect to others.

🩺 Analogy: What Medicine Got Right — and EA Still Gets Wrong

In 1820, the world had just over 1 billion people — and medicine operated on the assumption that there were 1 billion versions of the human body.

Doctors were trained, even certified — but often learned only parts of the body in isolation. One knew nerves, another knew intestines.

They practiced with confidence, but without a unified model. Every illness, every patient, was addressed through a fragmented lens.

As you might expect, treatment didn’t improve. Problems persisted. Life expectancy stayed low.

There was no shared anatomy. No agreement on how the body worked.

Medicine was built on surface knowledge, not structural understanding.

Then came 1858 — Henry Gray published Gray’s Anatomy. For the first time, medicine had a complete, integrated view of how the human body functioned.

That breakthrough didn’t just standardize terminology — it transformed outcomes.Medical decisions were now tied to structure.

Health improved. Systems aligned. Lifespan increased.

Now fast forward to today.

In 2025, the world has over 100 million enterprises — and most still act like medicine in 1820.

Each company believes it’s structurally unique. Every department defines its own logic. EA certifications are handed out based on form, not integrated function.

There’s no shared blueprint. No unified enterprise model.

Just frameworks, templates, and maturity levels — without anatomy.

Just like human anatomy has always existed, enterprise anatomy isn’t something to invent — it’s already there. But most organizations have never mapped it, never studied it, and never used it to diagnose or improve how they operate.

And so, like 1820 medicine, they certify surface practices — but lack anatomy understanding.

What They Still Can’t Do Without Enterprise Anatomy

Despite the certificates, the government still lacks:

1. A unified enterprise model – Ministries remain structurally disconnected
   

2. Scenario coordination – A citizen moving cities still touches fragmented systems
   

3. Policy change simulation – There’s no model tracing how a rule from Ministry A impacts operations in Ministry B
   

4. Execution alignment – Vision 2030 or similar strategies can’t be mapped down to cross-agency execution
   

5. Enterprise-level optimization – No model to streamline services, remove duplication, or respond coherently to disruption
   

6. Decision-support visibility – EA teams exist, but department heads don’t use them for planning
   

You can issue a certificate. But you can’t certify that an organization is structurally architected.

The Missing 90%

What was built:

1. A maturity model

2. A process

3. A compliance-driven EA culture

What was missing:

1. A living architecture

2. Structural traceability

3. Enterprise coordination

4. Operational clarity

Over 90% of the enterprise remains untouched — agencies got a governance layer, not an enterprise blueprint.

This is not transformation. It’s documentation. And the illusion of maturity shouldn’t be confused with capability.