Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
There are four types of checklist. We need all of them in place before any work starts. The first type of checklist is the action-checklist – the work-instruction. It’s a list of tasks, in sequence, step by step, for use with …
It seemed straightforward enough as a description of the development process: explore, then exploit. (I forget which book we saw this in: one of Alex Osterwalder’s, I think, but I’m not sure.) Explore, to find out what the requirements are,…
Frameworks have been established that cover many disciplines including architecture, process, governance, change, skills,and maturity. Having frequently been asked when working , perhaps not overtly, “why bother using a framework?”:- the implication being that they only add unnecessary overheads. When confronted with this it has been worthwhile … Continue reading →
How do we work with change? How do we deal with change? Or cope with it? Perhaps a better metaphor would be to dance with change. That’s not a new metaphor, of course: for business-change, for example, there’s the now-classic book…
In last week’s post, “Trash or Treasure – What’s Your Legacy?”, I talked about how to define “legacy systems”. Essentially, as the divergence grows between the needs of social systems and the fitness for purpose of the software systems that enable them, the more likely that those software systems can considered “legacy”. The post attracted […]
Episode 4 of this season of Architecture Corner is out (I made a guest appearance in episode 1, “Good at Innovation”). In this installment, Chris the CEO has moved on to yet another new sin. When the CEO picks an IT methodology and decrees it to be the one true way, wrath ensues in the […]
It’s time for another appearance on Tom Cagley’s Software Process and Measurement (SPaMCast) podcast. This week’s episode, number 446, features Tom’s essay on questions, a powerful tool for coaches and facilitators. A Form Follows Function installment based on my post “Go-to People Considered Harmful” comes next and Kim Pries rounds out the podcast with a […]
A new month brings a new appearance on Tom Cagley’s Software Process and Measurement (SPaMCast) podcast. This week’s episode, number 442, features Tom’s excellent essay on capability teams (highly recommended!), followed by a Form Follows Function installment based on my post “Systems of Social Systems and the Software Systems They Create”. Kim Pries bats cleanup […]
Once again, I’m making an appearance on Tom Cagley’s Software Process and Measurement (SPaMCast) podcast. This week’s episode, number 438, features Tom’s essay on using sizing for software testing, Kim Pries with a Software Sensei column (canned solutions), and a Form Follows Function installment based on my post “Organizations as Systems and Innovation”. In this […]
People like easy answers. Why spend time analyzing and evaluating when you can just take some thing or some technique that someone else has already put to use and be done with it? Why indeed? I mean, “me too” is a valid strategy, right? And we don’t want people to get off message, right? And […]
The Realities Of a Messy WorldThanks to Frankhg for the imageThis is a slightly rewritten version of the first public airing of the VPEC-T concept. That was over 10 years ago – it now it has a life of its own, it is, however, the foundation on which “L…
Some things seem so logically inconsistent that you just have to check them out. Such was the title of a post on LinkedIn that I saw the other day: “Innovation In Fear-Based Cultures? Or, why hire lions to be dogs?”. In it, Michael Graber noted that “…top-down organizations have the most trouble innovating.”: In particular, […]