More on ‘No jobs for generalists’
Wow… My previous post ‘There are no jobs for generalists‘ certainly touched a nerve: it’s been my most popular post for months, with so far (barely a day later) well over 1,000 reads, and some 35 ReTweets so far on…
Tom Graves
Why enterprise-architecture must be broader than just IT
Yes, I admit it, I made that classic mistake again: I allowed myself to get engaged in an EA discussion on LinkedIn… This one started from the – to my mind – absurd and then insulting notion that EA is…
There are no jobs for generalists
“How do I get a job as an enterprise-architect? Where do I go for that kind of job?” This is an obvious necessary follow-up to the post ‘On learning enterprise-architecture‘, and it’s a kind of question I get asked all…
Sensemaking – modes and disciplines
How do we make sense of a context? How can we make sense in a disciplined way, without the discipline itself getting in the way? This is a follow-up to the previous post ‘Sensemaking and the swamp-metaphor‘, to provide a bit…
More on boundary of identity versus control
Following on from ‘Boundary of identity, boundary of control‘ and ’inside-out versus outside-in‘, perhaps the quickest way to understand the difference: the boundary-of-control delimits what the lawyers think the organisation is the boundary-of-identity delimits what everyone else thinks the organisation is…
Boundary of identity, boundary of control
What’s the boundary of the organisation? Boundary in what sense, and for whom? And how does this impact on enterprise-architecture and the like? These questions came up for me a short while ago when working on an article on enterprise-architecture…
Australia’s sexism strikes again…
I’m angry. I’m disgusted. I’m sickened. Yet sadly, I’m not surprised. I’ve seen too much to be surprised at this… The direct reason for my anger this morning? – this article in today’s Melbourne The Age: ‘Virgin defends policy of separating men…
Sensemaking and the swamp-metaphor
One of the core tasks in enterprise-architecture is sensemaking – making sense of what’s going on within some context. And one of the key methods we can use for this is to make some kind of mental-map of what seems to…
4713 days and counting…
He slouched down the street, a scowl emblazoned on his face. The slogan on the grubby black T-shirt said it all: Days since I gave a sh*t: 4713 and counting… I’ll admit I got a bit annoyed about this –…
On learning enterprise-architecture
A few days ago Pradeep (I don’t know his surname, unfortunately) wrote a comment to one of my previous posts, asking for advice on learning enterprise-architecture: I aspire to become a enterprise architect. Not sure if you have written on a…
Enterprise, organisation and the Olympics
For enterprise-architects, the Olympics provides a great illustration of the difference between ‘the enterprise’ and ‘the organisation’. Although in business it’s quite common to regard ‘enterprise’ and ‘organisation’ as synonyms for each other, for enterprise-architecture its wisest to use the…
Order, unorder and effectiveness
A quick follow-on from the previous post on ‘Complex, complicated and Einstein’s dice‘, in relation to effectiveness in enterprise-architecture. There’s a common phrasing in business and elsewhere that places efficiency and effectiveness as kind-of opposites: efficiency, we’re told, is doing things…