Where Enterprise Architecture and Project Management Intersect

My long-term readers know that I function as an enterprise architect and project manager (but not both simultaneously) and that I have taught (and continue to teach) project management courses at the university level for over 10 years. Over the…

New year, new certification

Until recently, virtually all IT certifications have been based on an individual’s recollection of a body of knowledge and their ability to pass a computer-based test. Perhaps a better method of evaluating competence to carry out a specific role is to examine the skills and experience that an individual has demonstrated in his/her work. Continue reading

IT: The professionals

Business decision makers aren’t interested in the details, but they want to know important IT decisions being made in their business are in the hands of true professionals. Certification verifies the qualities and skills IT executives have with regards to the effective deployment, implementation and operation of IT solutions. Continue reading

Implementing Effective Governance

According to ZDNet’s Joe McKendrick’s coverage of the recent Gartner Application Architecture, Development, and Integration summit, SOA governance and siloed thinking is top of mind. If this really is the case, how do we make our governance efforts more effective? The more I think about this, the more I come back to a recent post […]

Book Review: Troux Enterprise Architecture Solutions

I recently completed reading the book Troux Enterprise Architecture Solutions by Richard Reese. First, the disclosure: this book was provided to me by Packt Publishing for the explicit purpose of this review. In addition, Packt is also the publisher of my own book, SOA Governance. I have no relationship with Troux, however, I have had […]

The Art of Enterprise Architecture – Section Fourteen – The Enterprise Architecture Way

The Enterprise Architecture Way is a simple four steps and two rules based on harnessing the knowledge and experience of you and the rest of the people in the system. The 4 steps Observe the environment that you expect to take part in. Orient your selves to the level of detail you judge necessary to […]

Architecture by Influence: Leadership

There was a great discussion on Twitter today regarding influence, mandates, and leadership. My interest started with a tweet from Chris Venable, directed at Burton Group/Gartner EA analyst, Mike Rollings: If EA is so important, why must it do everything through influence? No one ever says that to the CIO… I thought this was a […]

Architecture by Influence: Solution Architecture

A key to any Enterprise Architecture program is solution architecture. Solution architecture is where work gets done. If your EA team is disconnected from the solution architecture effort, you’ll probably hear the term “ivory tower” a lot. Unfortunately, it’s far more common than you may think. Looking the typical project, the first question is where […]