Why the ‘why’ matters
In any real-world practice, why do we need to explain the ‘why’ as much as the ‘how’ and ‘with-what’? Here’s a first-hand answer to that question… Way back when (almost half a century ago: yikes…), I took a school-vacation job…
Tom Graves
From product to service
What’s the relationship between product and service? How does that relationship work in practice, within a service-oriented enterprise-architecture? What started this one off was this much-referenced comparison: (My apologies, I don’t know who to credit for this image – perhaps…
Mass-customisation, mass-uniqueness and big-data
(I was originally going to title this post ‘Storm in a bra-cup’, but realised it would again lead certain people to miss the point…) What’s the difference between mass-customisation and mass-uniqueness? And how much of data – or, these days,…
On ‘Why Smart People Get Depressed’
Why do smart people get depressed? And what can we do about it? That was the theme, and title, for a brilliant recent article by Henrik Mårtensson (@Kallokain). In the subsequent Twitter-conversation, Henrik asked us for our opinions and experiences…
Pointless paperwork
The train was full, of course – standing-room only. I made my way down to the onboard cafe-bar, not in the hope of finding a seat, but more of finding some place to stand that wouldn’t result in jostling someone…
The identity of enterprise architecture
Anyone who doubts that enterprise-architecture has an identity-problem, should take a look at this wonderfully poignant address-slip that did eventually reach enterprise-architect Julius Schaffer at the University of Adelaide: Nope, enterprise-architecture is not the same as civil-architecture; nor is it…
“I die inside…”
I come alive watching children play, learn, explore, share, grow into new possibilities. I die inside watching so many adults – including myself, at times – so often and so assiduously avoid doing any of those things… What is it…
Governance is not an end in itself
What’s the point of governance? What is its role in enterprise-architecture, or anything else, for that matter? Is it anything more than the dreaded ‘architecture police’ – governance for governance’s sake? These questions came up for me in a passing…
Reflecting on EA Masterclass
Back in England after my ‘EA Masterclass’ series in Australia, seems it might be useful to reflect a bit on where this ‘whole-of-enterprise’ approach to enterprise-architecture is going. So let’s reiterate a bit, because yes, it’s different from what we might…
Why before who
Does the customer always come first? Do customer-needs drive everything? For that matter, is the customer always right? There’s been quite a lot of promotion of such ideas in my Twitter-stream lately, but I kinda have my doubts on all…
Three EA gigs in Mexico
Just thought I’d give a quick update on some of the work I’ve been doing here in Mexico with my colleague Michael Smith over the past couple of weeks. But first, in the tradition of Alex Osterwalder, here’s a panorama…
My ‘EA Masterclass’ coming to Australia
What’s the last stage of learning any skill? Answer: ya gotta teach it… And that’s exactly what I’ll be doing down in Australia, starting late next month. Some while ago I said that at last I’d Got Round To It…