Fractals, naming and enterprise-architecture
What naming do we need, when we’re doing architectures for every part of the enterprise? Yeah, I know this is another one that I go on and on about, but it’s just too bad: we need to resolve this one –…
business
At Vlerick Business School: EA roadmapping
How do we do roadmapping in enterprise-architecture – developing the plan for change, and keeping to that change? How do we adjust to changes in the change itself? A great session on this last week at Vlerick Business School, in…
From service to product
We’ve recently explored here the transition from product to service – but what about the other way round, from service to product? (Many thanks to Michael Poulin for reminding of this point.) As far as I understand it, product and…
Organisation and enterprise
What is an enterprise? Perhaps more specifically, what is ‘the enterprise’ in enterprise-architecture? (Quick TL;DR summary: in enterprise-architecture, ‘the enterprise’ is not the same as ‘the organisation’, and is always larger in scope than just ‘the organisation’. Confusing those two terms, or treating…
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…
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…
The Enterprising Business: Its all about the people
Too many enterprises do not appreciate the true value of the people with whom they work. Regrettably, in the extreme, employees and contractors are regarded as merely commodities that can be exploited when needed or discarded when not. In the … Continue reading →
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…