On sensemaking in enterprise-architecture [4]

How do we make sense of uniqueness in enterprise-architecture? How do we support decisions at ‘business-speed’ – especially when the context is in part unique? And what architectural support do we need to provide for sensemaking and decision-making at business-speed? In the first part of this series we looked briefly at uniqueness, and why it’s […]

On sensemaking in enterprise-architectures [3]

How do we make sense of uniqueness? How can we use uniqueness? And how do we make appropriate decisions when some or all of a context is inherently unique? In the first post in this series, we skimmed through Max Boisot’s I-Space and its impact on sensemaking in relation to complex-adaptive-systems. I then added a […]

How not to use IT in services

Several people picked up on this one after Gerold Kathan sent out a note about it, but perhaps David Sprott said it the best: davidsprott: RT @gkathan: John Seddon – a master class in how NOT to use IT in services. Optimize value, not cost. Brilliant. http://tinyurl.com/dygdcpg It’s a 40-minute video (split into three parts) […]

On sensemaking in enterprise-architectures [2]

How do we make sense of uniqueness? How can we make sense of what’s happening at the exact moment of action? In the previous post in this series, I looked briefly at Boisot’s I-Space – promoted by some as ‘the answer’ to everything in the information-space – and discovered that, useful though it may be […]

On sensemaking in enterprise-architectures [1]

We know how to do sensemaking in enterprise-architectures; but why do we do it? What’s the purpose? What’s the point? As a result of various recent proddings from Bruce Waltuck and Stephen Law, amongst others, I’ve finally gotten round to taking a more than just a cursory glance at Max Boisot‘s concept of information-space, or […]

On function, capability and service

In enterprise-architecture, how do we disentangle business-function, business-capability and business-service? This one’s for Adam Johnson, particularly as a follow-on to his comment to the previous post ‘More on EA and asset-types [Part 4]‘: I perceived your usage of function to be business function at a certain level of abstraction that could be perceived as a […]

Why should anyone do enterprise-architecture?

A nice quick one this time! I came across this tweet today from business-model guru Alex Osterwalder: business_design: A business model’s performance is due more to the harmonious relationships among its elements than to the elements themselves I tend to describe a core driver for enterprise-architecture and the like as one very simple idea: things […]

More on EA and asset-types [4]

What are the different types of assets that we need to deal with in an enterprise-architecture? What implications arise across the architecture from the differences between these types? In the first post in this series, we identified four distinct asset-dimensions: physical: physical ‘thing’ – independent, tangible, transferrable, alienable virtual: data, information, idea – independent, non-tangible, transferrable, non-alienable […]

More on EA and asset-types [3]

What are the different types of assets that we need to deal with in an enterprise-architecture? What implications arise across the architecture from the differences between these types? In the first post in this series, we looked at the concept of four distinct asset-dimensions: physical: physical ‘thing’ – independent, tangible, transferrable, alienable virtual: data, information, idea – […]

More on EA and asset-types [2]

What are the different types of assets that we need to deal with in an enterprise-architecture? What implications arise across the architecture from the differences between these types? In the previous post in this series, we looked at the concept of four distinct asset-dimensions: Physical, Virtual, Relational and Aspirational. The same dimensions carry right the […]

More on EA and asset-types [1]

What are the different types of assets that we need to deal with in an enterprise-architecture? What implications arise across the architecture from the differences between these types? [I know I usually write too long, so as a kind of trial-run, I’m splitting up this original long-post into four smaller ones: please let me know […]

Looking at the big picture

In case you’ve been wondering why I’ve been ranting about those apparently-abstract ideas about ‘Possessed by possession‘ and the like… What I’ve been calling ‘Really-Big-Picture enterprise-architecture‘ is about looking at how we can apply enterprise-architecture ideas at a much larger scale, right up to a fully global scope. The simplest way to describe this is as […]