Where do we start with EA? – a practical question

You’re an experienced enterprise-architect, having spent most your working life in one industry. You now have a new job, in a new company, in an industry that’s entirely new to you. And the company at present has no architecture at all: you’re ‘it’. Where on earth do you start? That’s the situation my friend Alan […]

How do we make EA make sense?

Those notions of ‘whole-enterprise architecture’ that I’ve been describing in the ‘no-plan Plan‘ series of posts make solid sense to a fair few people – particularly those who’ve some experience of systems-thinking, design-thinking and the like. But it’s painfully clear that it doesn’t seem to make much sense to anyone else: and I must admit […]

The Chief Process Office of an Agile Organization

The IDEF0 Pattern and the Organization’s Value EngineIn my book, Organizational Economics: the Formation of Wealth, I use the IDEF0 pattern to model the organization.  This pattern has three internal components, Control, Process, and Mechanisms (t…

The no-plan ‘Plan’ for whole-enterprise architecture – a summary

That description of ‘the plan that is no plan’, about the direction that I’m moving into after moving out of mainstream ‘enterprise’-architecture, kind of ended up a bit longer than intended. (No surprise there, unfortunately… ) Oh well. In effect, though, it’s also a kind of ‘manifesto’ for whole-enterprise architecture – about what needs to […]

The no-plan Plan: people in architecture

Okay, time for the final theme in that ‘no-plan Plan‘ – which somehow seems to be turning into a kind of ‘manifesto for whole-enterprise architecture’ or something like that, for some reason. Oh well. Anyway, this part’s about what is perhaps the most-serious ‘the Forgotten’ in almost all current ‘enterprise’-architectures, namely people. I’ll keep this one […]

The no-plan Plan: architecture-dynamics

And the next part of that expansion on my ‘no-plan Plan‘ (or ‘manifesto for whole-enterprise architecture’, or whatever it is): this time on the dynamics of architecture. In other words, it’s a focus on how we handle changes to the architecture itself, rather than mainly about changes that that architecture needs to address. Most of this […]

The no-plan Plan: architecture for change

And more on that expansion on my ‘no-plan Plan‘, which does seem to be morphing somewhat into a kind of ‘manifesto for whole-enterprise architecture’… Anyway, this part is about that theme of ‘architecture as change’ – though perhaps ‘architecture for change’ might be a better way to put it.. [Obviously this is related to the next […]

10 Key Success Factors for dealing with Enterprise Architecture

Secure the entire management commitment Secure scope(s) (partition) Customize methodologies to fit your intentions Use tools to support implementation Use training and coaching to secure knowledge and commitment is within specified limits. Use metrics to monitor the effects of Enterprise Architecture Create a set oriented fractal meta-model (yeah I know this sound weird) Use as few languages ​​as possible Manage materials, methods and resource Use […]

The no-plan Plan: architecture as story

Next part on that expansion on my ‘no-plan Plan‘, with more detail on the theme about ‘architecture as story’. If you’ve been watching this blog for a while, you’ll know that this theme already goes back a few years, such as with the much-referenced post ‘The enterprise is the story‘. But I’ll admit that I was […]

The no-plan Plan: the ‘why’ of architecture

A bit more detail on what I see coming up in my ‘no-plan Plan‘, starting with the theme about ‘the ‘why’ of architecture’. One thing I’ve always found worrying in most current ‘enterprise’-architecture is that there’s been almost no attention given to the ‘why’. It’s seemed that ‘why’ was just a given: ‘orders from above’, […]

More on the ‘no-plan Plan’

Okay. Seems there are indeed times when I have to accept that, yes, it is 3am, and I have indeed been woken up by an idea that isn’t going to let me sleep until I’ve written it down. Oh well. So best just get on with it, I guess. In a comment to my earlier […]