Enterprise as story: a cafe example
How can we use a vision or story as the anchor for an organisation’s business and enterprise? How do we link that story to decisions and actions in everyday business? This is a theme that came up in a great…
Tom Graves
Definition as EA anti-pattern?
If you’re an enterprise-architect and you haven’t yet come across Ric Phillips‘ wonderful EA Patterns blog, go over there right now: you’re in for a treat! To mix metaphors somewhat, I’d have to say it’s a national-treasure for the trade.…
Between the boxes
What happens when people get too fixated on the ‘boxes’ in our models and frameworks? And what can we do about it in enterprise-architecture? This one’s actually a follow-on to the previous post about ‘It depends…‘, but it starts with…
“It depends…”
What’s the one phrase that enterprise-architects use time after time, and that drives almost everyone else crazy? Well, it depends… “It depends.” Yeah, we know it prob’ly depends, but just gimme the answer, willya? Frustration indeed… Going back to a…
How anti-clients happen (and what to do about it)
Are there any anti-clients for you in your enterprise? Who are they? How did they turn so actively against you? And what can you do about it, and them, in the design and implementation of your enterprise-architecture? Who are anti-clients? To…
Co-inspiring in the Chaotic domain
How can we collaborate in chaos? Or, to put it the other way round, how can we use apparent chaos to drive decisions that guide towards some desired yet emergent aim? As you’ll see, this post itself is a kind of…
Same and different
Just how much is enterprise-architecture about the balance between same and different? Quite a lot, it seems to me… (In part this is a follow-on to ‘The theory of enterprise-architecture‘, about exploring the theoretical base that underpins a whole-enterprise approach…
At Unicom EA: breaking free from IT-centrism
A big shift in enterprise-architecture indicated at a relatively-small but increasingly-important conference: that was my impression of Unicom EA 2012 in London late last week. At first glance, there might seem nothing much that’s particularly new or different in the…
Service, function and capability (an addendum)
How can we clarify the confusion over service, capability and function in enterprise-architecture models? Andrew Marosy made a comment to my previous post on this that really needs to be brought out here in full: You can also visualise a…
Service, function and capability (again)
How can we distinguish between service, capability and function in enterprise-architecture models? This is one of those perennial questions that keeps returning time and time again, and it’s one of the key confusions that Enterprise Canvas aims to resolve. But…
The theory of enterprise-architecture
What is the theory underlying enterprise-architecture? This was a question that came up in a group email-discussion earlier today, and it’s probably worth bringing out into a more public arena so that other people can come and play with it…
Skills-shortages and ‘the market’
What can we do about skills-shortages – the paucity of people with appropriate skills and experience for the needs of our organisation and enterprise? Is the market-mechanism of scarcity-pricing the right way to resolve this? A quick bit of background:…