management

Inversion of Control

According to Wikipedia, inversion of control (IoC) is an object-oriented programming practice whereby the object coupling is bound at run time by an “assembler” object and are typically not knowable at compile time using static analysis. The binding process is achieved through…

Buy the Book: The Fractal Organization

The Fractal Organization: Creating Sustainable Organizations with the Viable System Model [source: Amazon] I was having a very interesting discussion with Nigel Green @taotwit about a week or so back, one topic that came to the fore was the Viable System Model…

Sins of the Project Manager

The current economic and employment environments notwithstanding, things still look pretty good for project managers. They are being kept on, and are still getting hired, because organizations are still ultra-cautious about spending money and getting critical projects completed as near to planned…

Sins of the Project Manager

The current economic and employment environments notwithstanding, things still look pretty good for project managers. They are being kept on, and are still getting hired, because organizations are still ultra-cautious about spending money and getting critical projects completed as near to planned…

The Cookie Licker Anti Pattern

Beware the Cookie Licker A greedy sibling has gorged themselves on cookies, you have designs on the last one. Anticipating your move, they lift and lick it, claiming it, but with neither appetite or need. The manner of its claim renders ‘ownership…

Anti Pattern: Process Fixation

The Process Fixation Anti Pattern   This is a common Anti Pattern, and in the world of Enterprise Architecture is a bedfellow of ‘Framework Abuse’. Certain Enterprise Architects become fixated with process, convincing themselves that meticulous implementation of every conceivable aspect and…

Luck, Serendipity, and the Contextual Strategist

Recently, @davegray @tetradian @nickmalik and I (@mikerollings) had a brief twitter exchange about the role of luck in strategy. What is luck anyway? Isn’t it just a happy accident, an unexpected happening, a simple explanation for the unexpected, a serendipitous association that…

Deciding “Yes” on EA

On the Forrester Enterprise Architecture Community site, Randy Heffner asked the question, “What should EA do for business agility?” In my two responses in the discussion, I emphasized that EA is all about decision support. Yes, you may create a future state…

Insuperordination

In designing management-structures, why is it so often assumed that responsibility-relationships only go one way? Our organisations often place enormous attention on insubordination, a refusal or failure to follow ‘orders from above’; yet why don’t they place the same level of attention…
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