Here’s an idea to help your projects go smoothly. Start each project off making sure that the team understands the business context it is operating in by performing a SWOT analysis. I’ve been in a number of discussion recently that have made…
Something about the typical language of enterprise architecture is starting to bug me. The overuse of the word “alignment”. When people are asked to describe what enterprise architecture is all about, they often answer with the phrase “it’s about the alignment of…
Does your architecture pass the “So What” test? Can you demonstrate the specific value that a particular architectural deliverable or activity will add? If not, why are you even bothering? In this case, as with justice, your activity must not just add…
If you have ever had a debate about whether your organisation should use cloud computing then a discussion of the risks of cloud computing will have been a significant part of it. In doing so, we often fall into a simple logical…
This is another post based on a conversation – this time about options analyses. My colleagues were suggesting that it was OK to present options, highlight the pros and cons, and leave the business to make their own decision. Now, I’ve written…
How do we make sense of an enterprise? Is analysis the best or only way to do it? That now long-running LinkedIn thread about capability, function, service and process that I referenced in a couple of recent posts just keeps rolling on, and…
In the Open Group conference at Newport Beach, I listened to a series of presentations on business architecture. In one of them, the presenter described his practice of using Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas to create a model of his program’s environment after…
A few days ago, I quickly dashed off a post on the difference between a business architect and a business analyst. The reaction was immediate and rather vociferous. The IIBA took me to task for saying that a business architect is NOT…
[Author’s note: within an hour of posting the following article, Kevin Brennen of the IIBA dry-roasted the post on his own blog. You can find a link to his entry here: Business Architecture is Business Analysis. I have made an attempt to…
I’ve been looking at different ways to implement the ATAM method these past few weeks. Why? Because I’m looking at different ways to evaluate software architecture and I’m a fan of the ATAM method pioneered at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie…
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis: the old Hegelian triad. But what’s that got to do with enterprise-architecture and the like? Quite a lot, as it happens – though we might need to take a detour or two to get there, of course. One point is…
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…