Enterprise Architecture

A week in Tweets: 28 August – 03 September 2011

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Almost catching up for once: only one week late. Another collection of Tweets and links, anyway, all in the usual format and so on. Enterprise-architecture and the usual ‘big-picture for business’ stuff: gkathan: RT @pbmobi: The 7 Rules of Tubemapping http://wp.me/Piayu-oC #entarch #storytelling gkathan: Perspectives of Enterprising, Architecture & Systems: Enterprising http://bit.ly/petnf1 #entarch >summary of […]

More on simplified Enterprise Canvas

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Following on from the previous post on ‘Simplifying the Enterprise Canvas‘, a few more notes on how to use the notation, and some practical matters on modelling. Perhaps not quite as technical as some of the other recent posts, but I’ll admit that if enterprise-architectures and the like are not of much interest to you, […]

Simplifying the Enterprise Canvas

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The Enterprise Canvas is a model-type for use in enterprise-architecture, that can be used to describe any aspect of the enterprise, providing a consistent, unified view all the way from strategy to execution. But can we simplify it so as to build support for it in existing EA toolsets? The full specification for Enterprise Canvas […]

What does "Top-Down" mean?

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#entarch There seem to be several different ways people use the term “top-down”.
Management hierarchy. Top-down means traditional command-and-control. See my post on Multiple Styles of EA.
Decomposition/Refinement. Top-down means starting from bro…

A week in Tweets: 21-27 August 2011

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Another not-quite-so-delayed collection of Tweets and links – Share and Enjoy? Usual and usual, of course: over to you… Enterprise-architecture, strategy and all the ‘business big-picture’ stuff: SAlhir: RT @Annemcx RT @sajidahinakhan RSA Animate – The Empathic Civilisation http://youtu.be/l7AWnfFRc7g via @youtube #entarch FlorianQuarre: US energy usage: Well rendered dataViz, plus striking fact for me: 58% […]

Creating an IT Strategy – Management by Maxim

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I have heard that 90% of all businesses do not have a written Business Strategy.  Its in their heads – but as an Enterprise Architect how do you extract it so that you can create a viable IT Strategy?  Often times CxOs don’t have time to have a strategic dialogue.  One way to solve this problem is to employ the “Maxim Process”

The Maxim Process is described by Broadbent and Kitzis in [Broadbent+05] as a pragmatic way to extract enough information for a good enough IT strategy while not investing more than a day’s workshop with senior management. The CIO will organize a work-­‐ shop with CxOs, which will lead to documenting 2 kinds of so-­‐called Maxims:

  • Business Maxims
  • And as a result IT Maxims

Maxims are a few concise principles that are used to document the strategic direction of an enterprise. A Maxim workshop will usually not produce more than around 5 business maxims. For each of those, management will derive 4-­‐5 maxims for the IT function that will help to support them.

Maxim

A typical Maxim Workshop will be split up into two parts:

  • Part 1: Finding the Business Maxims,
  • Part 2: Deriving the IT Maxims

An external facilitator should moderate the workshop day and process.

To give examples imagine an old economy financial service provider like a big insurance company that runs more than one brand name on the market. For such an enterprise you could find the following business maxim:

  • Create synergies in back office and service functions wherever brand identity is not compromised

IT maxims that could be deducted from such a business strategy could be:

  • Define standard architectures and platforms used by all of the group’s companies in order to leverage synergies and to reduce IT cost
  • Harmonize the IT application systems for the group’s companies wherever there is a business case for this.

SOURCE: TOGAF9 QuickStart Guide 2009

Posted via email from Jeffrey Blake – The Enterprise Architect | Comment »

What’s the point of this ‘EA metamodel’?

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I’ve been writing a lot recently about metamodels for enterprise-architecture and the like: but what’s the point? Why bother? Why all this fuss about something that’s way too technical to be of interest to almost anyone in the real workaday world? The real point behind all of this discussion (and there’ve been some really valuable comments […]

Org Charts and Architecture Management

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Every organization has one. For some, it can lead directly to a path of enlightenment. Others may use its rigid structure to create an impenetrable fortress of strength. For the unfortunate, it becomes an inescapable labyrinth of hopelessness. Yes, it’s the org chart. Okay, let’s be fair, it’s actually not the chart that’s the real […]

EA metamodel – the big picture (and the small picture too)

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In the various previous posts about EA metamodels, we’ve been exploring some of the detailed structures for toolsets and the like at a very, very low-level. But what’s the big-picture here? What’s the point? So let’s step back for a moment, and look at real-world EA practice. Much of our work consists of conversations with […]