Posts by: Nick Malik

Explaining Capability Modeling to Business Process Professionals

Explaining Capability Modeling to Business Process Professionals

As I’ve noted in prior posts, many hard working business process management professionals find the concept of “Business Capabilities” to be confusing at best, and counterproductive at worst.  In a recent article in BPTrends, Paul Harmon made the following statement: the idea…

Enterprise Business Motivation Model version 3.5

For those of you who have been waiting for me to announce the release of the newest version of the Enterprise Business Motivation Model, I’m happy to announce that version 3.5 is available now.  To visit a Wordpress site set up to…

The Rule of EA Governance

There is a clear distinction between Enterprise Architecture, as described by the architect, and Enterprise Architecture as implemented by the enterprise.  I would like to posit the following as a fundamental principle that describes the difference: All Enterprise Architecture will be implemented…

What EA Means to One Agency of the Federal Government

I ran across a document from the Dept. of Commerce that describes Enterprise Architecture as follows: “An Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a blueprint that explains how the results of Strategic Planning, Performance Planning, Budgeting, Capital Planning and Investment Control, Security and Privacy…

Putting the brakes on “capability obesity”

Microsoft IT made a bet, a couple of years ago, on using capability modeling in our own internal Business Architecture program.  That required us to have a shared and consistent hierarchy of business capabilities that we would use across all lines of…

Business Strategy and Kindergarten Soccer

Back when my kids were small, they all played soccer on local youth teams.  It is interesting to watch very young kids play soccer, because the instructions are so simple: kick the ball into the goal.  With instructions like that, what do…

EA Schools of Thought

As an Enterprise Architect, I’m first and foremost a problem solver.  I don’t like to ignore problems.  Yet, it appears that EA as a field has a problem and I’m finding it tough to ignore it.  What is the problem?  If you…
Video Podcast: How Microsoft Does Enterprise Architecture

Video Podcast: How Microsoft Does Enterprise Architecture

It is amazing how often I need to share the very basic concept of Enterprise Architecture with my peers, customers, stakeholders, and associates.  Microsoft’s customers often ask about Enterprise Architecture, and when our customers come to visit us in the Microsoft Executive…

On the Hunt for the One-Page View of an Enterprise

I am currently noodling the idea of a one-page view of my employer (Microsoft) for the purpose of rationalizing the sharing of services across business units and business models.  (If you understood the previous sentence, you are probably an enterprise architect, even…
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