Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
As a Gartner analyst, I have the opportunity to interact with many enterprise architecture teams looking to improve their approach to architecture governance. The one software development trend I am seeing grow without an accompanying architecture viewpoint is the rise of polygotism. In any software development lifecycle, time to develop software is a dominant factor […]
The post Looking for Case Studies on Polyglotism appeared first on James McGovern.
Do you know what a Document Review Inquiry is? Sadly, I didn’t know what one was until I joined Gartner. After interacting with Gartner analysts over dozens of years while working at various Fortune 100 enterprises, I never came to appreciate how much more effective I could have been if I only had known about […]
The post Can Document Review Inquiry help improve Enterprise Architecture Outcomes? appeared first on James McGovern.
Change and innovation are topics that have been prominent on this blog over the last year. In fact, Greger Wikstrand and I have traded a total of twenty-six posts (twenty-seven counting this one) on the subject. Greger’s last post, “Successful digitization requires focus on the entire customer experience – not just a neat app” […]
Why would anyone worry about user experience for anything that’s not customer-facing? This question was the premise of Maurice Roach’s post in the Zühlke blog, “Empathise with your users or you won’t solve their problems”: Bring up the subject of user empathy with some engineers or product owners and you’ll probably hear comments that fall […]
There’s an old rhyme about what a bride should wear for luck on her wedding day: “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue…”. While reading an article on the origins of the US highway system, I thought about this rhyme in relation to the concept of innovation. Part of that article related the US […]
A Solution Architect needs to have a clear understanding of a client’s data architecture. Most – if not all – of the projects to which I’ve been assigned have had the movement of data as a key part of the solution. When it comes to data, operating from a “project-only silo” mindset is a recipe […]
We are happy to announce that we will be presenting again at the Open Group Conference, this year in Beantown, July 21-22. We will be presenting in the Health Care track with a colleague, Al Zannini, Director of Architecture and Design at Blue Cross Blue Shield of RI. Al and I will be sharing our […]
| Stakeholder Concern | Enterprise Focus | Project Focus |
| The city of Hamelyn is plagued with rats. | This indicates a serious problem with the “Public Health and Hygiene” capability. | We just need a quick project to eliminate the rats. So we buy some “Eliminate Creature” capability from an external vendor. |
| The Pied Piper gets rid of the rats. | Real business problem has not been addressed. Let’s now push on with the next phase of solving the problem. | Project successful. |
| The Pied Piper is too expensive. | We need a careful transition plan while we build an in-house capability. | Let us immediately renegotiate our contract with the vendor. |
| The Pied Piper gets rid of the children. | It turns out that the Pied Piper can reuse his “Eliminate Creature” capability for other purposes. | !*!?**! |
| Which Role? | Enterprise Architect? Strategic Procurement? |
Solution Architect? Tactical Procurement? |
See also my article “Requirements Engineering as if Stakeholders Mattered” (Requirenautics Quarterly, Issue 29, August 2003, pdf)
| Stakeholder Concern | Enterprise Focus | Project Focus |
| The city of Hamelyn is plagued with rats. | This indicates a serious problem with the “Public Health and Hygiene” capability. | We just need a quick project to eliminate the rats. So we buy some “Eliminate Creature” capability from an external vendor. |
| The Pied Piper gets rid of the rats. | Real business problem has not been addressed. Let’s now push on with the next phase of solving the problem. | Project successful. |
| The Pied Piper is too expensive. | We need a careful transition plan while we build an in-house capability. | Let us immediately renegotiate our contract with the vendor. |
| The Pied Piper gets rid of the children. | It turns out that the Pied Piper can reuse his “Eliminate Creature” capability for other purposes. | !*!?**! |
| Which Role? | Enterprise Architect? Strategic Procurement? |
Solution Architect? Tactical Procurement? |
See also my article “Requirements Engineering as if Stakeholders Mattered” (Requirenautics Quarterly, Issue 29, August 2003, pdf)
I recently had the opportunity to work on a project where we were bringing in a vendor product that required data integration with a number of our client’s in house transaction applications. We needed to determine how the internal applications would integrate with the new product. I figured the timing was right to build on […]
Knowing the strategic solution is only part of the challenge. Let’s assume you are able to establish the “right and just” solution either because your enterprise has well documented target architectures and roadmaps or your solution has a well established “best practice” pattern you can apply. Take a moment to savor your success, but only […]
There are different ways for applications to talk to one another. These can include: File Transfer Web Services Shared Data Messaging All have their strengths and weaknesses but for now let’s focus on the advantages of messaging. What is messaging? Messaging is a technology that enables asynchronous communication of messages between systems and also includes […]