Why make enterprise-architecture more tangible?

Enterprise-architecture: yeah, so much of it is kinda abstract… – all that ‘meta-’ and stuff. Which turns many people off, big-time. Unfortunately, “all that ‘meta-’ and stuff” is really important: it helps people explore the real complexities of their own enterprise,

What I do, and why

“Are you the guy who writes books?”, asks the young woman behind me in the cafe. Well, yes, I am – but much as for her, it’s taken me a moment or two to recognise her, and then remember the

Changing Organizations Without Changing People

Prof Bo Molander once pointed out to me and the other students in the class that when you try to change people, you go up against billions of years of evolution, “good luck with that” and when you try to change groups, you go up against millions of years of evolutions, “good luck with that […]

Using SCORE to reframe the business-model

He turned up with a copy of the Business Model Canvas template, printed on a large table-sized sheet of paper. “But where do we start?” he said. Good question… A bit of background first. I am, as usual, still rethinking

Fixing IT – Too Big to Succeed?

Continuing our discussion that I mentioned in my last post, Greger Wikstrand tweeted the following: I encourage you to watch the video, it’s short (7:39) and makes some important points, which I’ll touch on below. Serendipity, when it occurs, is a beautiful thing. Serendipity can occur when heads-down order taking is replaced with collaboration. Awareness […]

Locking Down the Prisoners: Control, Conflict and Compliance for Organizations

The most important thing to learn about management and governance is knowing when and how to manage or govern and more importantly, when not to. The story is told about a very new and modern penal facility, the very epitome of security and control. Each night, precisely at 11:00 PM, the televisions were shut off […]

Is culture-change the same as software-change?

Should we approach culture-change as if it’s the same as software-change? At a current conference, James Archer seemed to interpret Alex Osterwalder as saying just that: jamesarcher: Company culture can be methodically designed, built, and tested almost like a software product.

Luddite, and proud

I’m an enterprise-architect, deeply engaged in every aspect of technology and more. Which means that at times, yes, I’m also an active Luddite – and proud of it, too. Luddites? Aren’t they those crazy technophobes who go around smashing machines because they’re

Seven sins, sensemaking and OODA

Following from that recent series on sensemaking and ‘Seven sins of dubious discipline‘, it seems worthwhile to look at that whole context-space from a different direction, another example of a proven metaframework for much the same kind of metadiscipline – namely

Seven sins – a worked example (‘Natural rights’)

Enterprise-architecture, strategy, and more: they all depend on discipline and rigour, in thinking, sensemaking, decision-making and action. But what happens when that discipline is lost? What are the ‘sins’ that can cause that discipline to be lost? How can we