Posts by: Kris Meukens

1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and Other Baseline Monikers

When configuration management is well addressed in software engineering, baseline monikers are absolutely great. If you consistently adhere to the ROCK SOLID principle that once created a baseline MUST be immutable, there cannot ever exist any ambiguity about what, for example, represents 1.0. Unfortunately the conventional scheme of … Continue…

Rants are Useful

Are you annoyed when you stumble across yet another rant that appears to be full of emotion but is hardly presenting any insight in how it should bring any other relief than channeling the originator’s frustration? Or is simply hinting towards how…

Pragmatism as a Clincher

One recurring explosive argument in otherwise nicely going exploration debates is the word “pragmatism”. Architects love to explore, and know all about so-called “pragmatism”. They know all too well how disconcerting the word can be. It is not seldom the word that just prevents…

Making Sense of the Enterprise Continuum, Part I

There is that famous proverb by George E. P.Box: All models are wrong but some are useful. If there is one model that fits that criterion, it must be Cynefin. Cynefin regularly receives criticism, grounded and ungrounded, for example by academics for its “oversimplification” as…

Structural Agility Dissected

Last April Doug Newdick (@dougnewdick) made an interesting comment to Architecture and the Remainder of Design: I think there is a distinction between “agility” and “agile” that we are both glossing over. Agile architecture (or more properly “agile architecting”) is architecture that…

Architecture is Fractal in Nature

Let’s start a mental experiment, starting with the earth as it can be seen from space, with time come to a halt. For the purpose of experimentation, that is the initial design of interest. Next let’s imagine having an instrument to observe.  What can…

Orders of Agility

Two weeks ago, Ruth Malan (@ruthmalan) of Bredemeyer Consulting and contributing author to the Cutter Consortium commented in her online journal (being maintained since 2006 and recommended!) that between the metaphor used by Tom Graves (@tetradian) in Agility Needs a Backbone and…

Agility and Agile are Brand Names!

In Enterprise Agility, an Attempt to Get to the Bone, I mentioned that agility and agile are not brand names although vendors would like the idea.  Apparently, I was wrong.  I admit the mistake! When reading all that is being written about…

Architecture and the Remainder of Design

In the one comment made to the earlier post Architecture in Context [Revision 1], different aspects are put forward that I also see as key elements in a defining story but in quite different ways as proposed. One, on which I fundamentally…

Architecture in Context [Revision 1]

Context carries tremendous importance in disambiguation of meanings as well as in understanding of the actual meaning of words.  The word “architecture” is exemplary in this regard. So first I will focus on the contexts in which the word “architecture” is being used. Without understanding…

The Road to a Defining Story of Enterprise Architecture

In my previous post, The Quest for All-Embracing Succinct Definition, I expressed the intention to build a defining story for enterprise architecture. The post received several encouraging comments that were most positive, constructive and challenging. Thank you! One (I am … Continue…
1 of 2
12