Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
Wikipedia defines Consilience as the unity of knowledge (literally a “jumping together” of knowledge), which has its roots in the ancient Greek concept of an intrinsic orderliness that governs our cosmos, inherently comprehensible by logical process.
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In most architecture related works there is a framework. The framework is most often a tool to enable the architects in creating plans and drawings. Another use of the framework albeit mostly from the viewpoint of the authors is to hold the majority of ideas within a reasonable sized knowledge domain.The third and perhaps most […]
We may distinguish six kinds of problem domains, to wit Simple; Entangling; Temporizing; Narrow; Precipitous; Location; These six are problem related principles connected with the scene. The architect who has attained a responsible post must be careful to study them. Simple problems Problems which can be easily understood by anyone is called simple. With regard […]
A colleague of mine, Gabriel Morgan, pointed out a recent Infoworld article by Bob Lewis called “Why running IT as a business is a train wreck waiting to happen.” So, I read the article and while I agree with some of Mr. Lewis sentime…
We come now to the question of establishing the architecture function within the organization as a whole, and observing signs of change to the architecture from the incoming demands. For this I have 28 insights to share among the five thousand insights you posses. Seek sponsorship from high places, facing the customers. Do not try […]
In the May 15th issue of CIO magazine, there is a rather interesting article, especially for Enterprise Architecture practitioners. The article, written by Stephanie Overby (a freelance writer), is titled “RIP I.T. Value” and opens with the f…
From time to time, I hear interesting anecdotes from colleagues or friends outside Microsoft, telling me a story about what it’s like to work at Microsoft. Often these stories are placed into a comparative context, as in: our culture is dif…
In work, the Chief Architect receives his instructions from the CEO, collects his team and focuses his resources. When in difficult situations, stay agile and work to seek out possibilities. In situations where high politics intersect, join hands with the stakeholders. Do not stay in dangerously isolated positions, remember it is not your architecture it […]
In order to solve a problem, you have to know the problem you are solving. In a growing number of organizations, Enterprise Architecture is responsible for insuring the alignment of business change programs (including but not limited to programs …
The more time I spend as an Enterprise Architect, the more I realize just how important this role is. Yet, the stories that we tell fail to bring across that value. Our metaphors (framework, capability, roadmap) are woefully inadequate to c…
I am an Enterprise Architect. It is my job to look at things the way they are, and envision the things that should be. It is my role to describe specific actions that specific people can take to change things (systems, processes, corporate …
About a week ago, I blogged a short story about a fictional town that faced a problem, with two competing solutions. There are many observations about life in corporate IT that I included in that story: how different people can end up competing w…