Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
We recently assembled a panel of Enterprise Architecture (EA) experts to explain how such simultaneous and complex trends as big data, Cloud Computing, security, and overall IT transformation can be helped by the combined strengths of The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF®) and the ArchiMate® modeling language. … Continue reading →
We’re excited to announce the formation of a new forum, specifically designed to advance The Open Group vision of Boundaryless Information Flow™ by helping enterprises to take advantage of these convergent technologies. This will be accomplished by identifying a set of new platform capabilities, and architecting and standardizing an IT platform by which enterprises can reap the business benefits of Platform 3.0. Continue reading →
There is a growing interest among enterprise architects in systems theory or thinking. (In this context, the words “theory” and “thinking” seem to be for all intents and purposes interchangeable.) There are several possible reasons for this interest.1….
In the professional world, inhabited by pretty much anyone likely to be reading this, we tend to borrow words from natural language to describe very specific concepts. Sometimes the usage is often a form of metaphor or analogy, but with familiarization that fact becomes forgotten and it becomes just another word we take for granted. Continue reading →
As a lot, Enterprise Architects are not terribly humble people. We name frameworks after ourselves, and sometimes go to great lengths to correct the “misinterpretations” of others who describe our work in a way that we don’t agree with.
Yet, recognizing that the field is young requires that we should be willing to change as the field of EA changes; that we should be willing to look back on our models, developed in the past, and admit that we missed a few steps that we wouldn’t miss today.
I recently had the opportunity to discuss, on LinkedIn, a blog post that I made five years ago. I look back on that blog post and must admit that my opinions are a bit different now than they were five years ago. I still agree with my post, but I would certainly use different words today than I used in the past. I am more than willing to admit it.
I also look at the efforts of Alexander Osterwalder whose Business Model Canvas has proved both practical and flawed. He missed the fact that he needed to create a differentiation between the customer’s needs and the value proposition of the business offering to fill some of those needs. Did he go back and create an updated canvas? Nope. He created a new canvas to describe demand as though it fits with his older one (hint: it’s a mess).
The venerable John Zachman, probably one of the most humble men I’ve met, also made this same mistake. While his original model was only a couple of columns, and was updated only a few years later into the table we see today, the field of EA has changed. The table is no longer representative of companies with multiple business models (most of them) and the lack of a “customer” row simply relegates his “ontological table” to the dust bin.
Neither man will change. They have “legacy” models, with their names attached. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, humble is as humble does.
I would like to think that my willingness to upend my EBMM and replace it periodically with new versions shows my willingness to admit that (a) I’m often wrong, and (b) I’d rather learn than become stale. That said, I’m no paradigm of humility, myself.
After all, a truly humble EA would not have written this blog post.
(As my teenage daughter would say: Oh snap, you pwned yourself!)
I did well in school (after High School cough, cough). I especially liked the sciences and courses that involved analytical thinking.
If A = B, and B = C, then A= C.
This is a simple axiom that most of us learned when we took that one required …
As often, we needed to start somewhere. The main idea here was about “marking the starting point” and formalize it, in order to be able to come back and measure what has been achieved later on during the journey. So, as a starting point, we performed a survey, involving stakeholders across every different main organizations […]
Master Data is the core information, that is needed, to Manage and Operate the Company businesses. Master Data is a Core asset for Enterprise/Company. As such, it has to be Governed and Managed properly. Customer, Product, Supplier and Financial information entities are typical examples of some very essential Master Data. They need to have a […]
I am always surprised (and I really shouldn’t be) that we do a great job of responding to critical incidents but almost always fail to document what we did so it can be referenced in the future. As IT leaders we need to proactively document the impacts of planned and unplanned changes. Whethere it is […]
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Without the capability of linking application development with the infrastructure such as servers, middleware and network your organization will most likely be in more trouble than the decision-makers think. Information technologies have a profound impact on the organization’s ability to reinvent its business model(s) and the products it produces and since organizations in various industries […]
Stasis
A little while ago, I was presented with a “solution” that started with an over-complex block diagram of a set of inter-related applications with a brief description of each below. This was followed by a description of the tech…
Stasis
A little while ago, I was presented with a “solution” that started with an over-complex block diagram of a set of inter-related applications with a brief description of each below. This was followed by a description of the tech…