Enterprise Architecture

Relational-assets are not ‘possessions’

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What happens when someone gets confused about the nature of different types of assets? Short answer: they try to treat everything as ‘possessions’ – and that’s when the lawyers have a field-day… A great example of this is described in a BBC article (pointed to by LinkedIn), ‘Man sued for keeping company Twitter followers‘ (27-dec-2011). […]

The Art of Enterprise Architecture – Section 13 – The use of architects

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The mistake of the many Raising a host of all employees and marching them great distances entails heavy loss on the people and a drain on the resources of the Enterprise. The daily expenditure will easily surmount that which can ever be gained. There will be commotion in the organization and the network, and men […]

The Art of Enterprise Architecture – Section 12 – The investigation by process

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The six ways There are six ways of investigating by process. The first is to go by strategic intent; the second is to follow the business models; the third is to go by information need; the fourth is to trace through application usage; the fifth is to trace through the organizations; the sixth is to […]

The Art of Enterprise Architecture – Section 11 – Situations

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The art of architecture recognizes nine varieties of situations: When an architect is fighting within his own profession, it is a dispersive situation. When an architect has investigated a problem, but to no great depth, it is a facile situation. When an architect find no alignment on the nature of things, it is a contentious situation. […]

2012 Open Group Predictions, Vol. 2

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By The Open Group Continuing on the theme of predictions, here are a few more, which focus on enterprise architecture, business architecture, general IT and Open Group events in 2012. Enterprise Architecture – The Industry By Leonard Fehskens, VP of …

Knowledge-base wiki for whole-enterprise architecture

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A kind of announcement, really: a knowledge-base wiki for whole-enterprise architecture is now available and ready for content and use. I’ve given it a temporary home on my Sidewise server: http://ea.sidewise.biz No doubt it should have a proper domain of its own, but that’ll do for now to get us started. [By the way, this […]

Common Pitfalls of Solution Architecture Governance

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Framework-ism: Form and structure over content and good practice (not best practice). Best practice is all too often a cover for theoretically ideal, but practically non-functional solutions.
Boil-the-ocean-ism: All too generic frameworks intended for large-scale program transformation lack local focus and technical guidance.
Architecture astronaut-ism: Abstraction upon abstraction upon abstraction until everything is so conceptual that end-users have dissolved into TOGAF deliverables.

My mantra for solution architecture governance is:

“In IT governance land, it is OK (read: critical!) to be IT- and solution-centric. After all, it is called solution architecture, not conceptual framework theory.”

Common Pitfalls of Solution Architecture Governance

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Framework-ism: Form and structure over content and good practice (not best practice). Best practice is all too often a cover for theoretically ideal, but practically non-functional solutions.
Boil-the-ocean-ism: All too generic frameworks intended for large-scale program transformation lack local focus and technical guidance.
Architecture astronaut-ism: Abstraction upon abstraction upon abstraction until everything is so conceptual that end-users have dissolved into TOGAF deliverables.

My mantra for solution architecture governance is:

“In IT governance land, it is OK (read: critical!) to be IT- and solution-centric. After all, it is called solution architecture, not conceptual framework theory.”