Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
This is the introductory post describing three challenges for higher education Chief Information Officers. Higher education is evolving and adapting which presents challenges to the traditional approaches to IT service delivery. This section explores…
#entarch Some interesting architectural implications of the recent embarrassing failure of banking systems at RBS-NatWest Bank, which has caused financial stress and distress for millions of customers.
A banking software expert quoted in the Guardian …
Yes, this is another ‘how not to do it’ post. And no, this isn’t about the current Barclays mess, but instead about a quote I saw in a passing tweet by enterprise-architect Joseph George: RT @josephg5: “Financial services can be thought…
I would argue that while the acquisition is great for Microsoft, and absolutely fabulous for Yammer’s investors, for most enterprises it’s not really a net positive and potentially, could be quite negative depending on your company’s disposition towards the cloud.
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Last week I presented a keynote (“The Strategy to Execution Process”) at the London IRM EA/BPM conference. There were so many good ideas and new perspectives that after three days I thought my head would explode. A melting pot of ideas – There were over 240 attendees representing 34 countries as far flung as Australia, […]
At the Dachis Social Business Summit, one of the presenters, from Forrester, showed off their notion of the Always-Addressable Customer – combining geolocation and mobile to tailored marketing-messages. The presenter was clearly excited about it, and the two examples she showed…
A busy day last Thursday at the Dachis Group’s Social Business Summit London 2012, courtesy of a much-appreciated invite from the ever-indefatigable Dave Gray. An interesting day, too – not least because of the parallels and differences compared to my…
In this series on ArchiMate we have so far focused on the fundamentals of the language, and on tailoring it for use in your own organization. In the course of this series, we have touched upon the subject of using ArchiMate to communicate with various …
Don’t understand what the architect is talking about? There’s an app for that!
EAGlossary.com is a free web app for looking up enterprise architecture terms and definitions.
Get the app: Via webbrowser on your tablet/mobile, add eaglossary.com to the home screen.
Sources are EA3, The Common […]
Chris Armstrong, president of Armstrong Process Group, discusses how governments in particular are using various frameworks to improve their architectural planning and IT implementations in a podcast with Dana Gardner. Mr. Armstrong will be speaking at…
A preview of the upcoming Open Group Conference in Washington, D.C. – July 16-20, 2012. More information can be found here: http://www3.opengroup.org/dc2012 Continue reading →
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| Footprints on fresh snow (photo credit: dru!) |
Walking on fresh snow is one of my favorite activities, as I enjoy leaving the first footprints in the soft, fluffy snow. My impact on the snow is evident to those that come after me. What impacts should EA have on organizations? What do EA’s footprints look like? Here are answers from three authoritative sources, on tell tale signs that an organization has effective EA.
The book “Enterprise Architecture as Strategy” believes that enterprise architecture help organizations focus on building strategic capabilities, instead of constantly being distracted by immediate needs. It does that by providing a long-term view of an organization’s processes, systems and technologies [1]. This clarity works hand-in-hand with strong governance to help organizations achieve future states they desire.
Following on this point, EA should also enable organizations to have clarity on current capabilities. Without this clarity, organizations end up building capabilities that they already have, or capabilities that are not supported by their existing processes, systems and technologies.
CIO.com sees that enterprise architecture makes IT cheaper, more strategic and responsive, and help promote alignment, standardization and re-use of IT assets [2]. This builds on the clarity mentioned in the previous point, such that IT works on what matters, is positioned for the future and designed to maximize reuse and reduce duplication.
Gartner sees enterprise architecture as a change enabler by “by creating, communicating and improving the key requirements, principles and models that describe the enterprise’s future state and enable its evolution.” [3] In a way this is similar to #2, but this brings the impact beyond IT to the entire organization.
What other impacts should EA have?
1. Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution, Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, David Robertson
2. Enterprise Architecture on CIO.com, http://www.cio.com/topic/3020/Enterprise_architecture
3. Gartner’s Definition of Enterprise Architecture, http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/enterprise-architecture-ea/