Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
Yeah, right. ‘SCAN’. Yet another pretty acronym. What’s the point? What’s the use? Gimme some real examples, huh? This one’s a follow-up to the previous post “Let’s do a quick SCAN on this”, in which I introduced the SCAN frame for sensemaking at business-speed: (The above is the updated core-graphic – see ‘SCAN – an […]
What’s a quick way to start making sense of some context? – fast enough to help in making good decisions fast, too? If you’ve been watching this blog or any of my other writing, you’ll know I’ve been working on this one for years, worrying at it like a dog with a bone. My first […]
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 […]
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 – […]
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 your enterprise vision – or any kind of future intent – is it defined in terms of being for something? Or against something? That distinction can sometimes seem subtle – yet it’s very important indeed… On the surface, it always seems a lot easier to be ‘against’ something. Many NGOs define themselves this way; […]
@gotze (John Gøtze) kindly sent me a copy of his 2010 paper Architecting the Firm (written with Pat Turner and Peter Bernus). My interest had been stimulated by Anders Jensen, who described the paper as follows in his blog on the Thinking Enterpri…
A follow-on to the previous post ‘Where do we start with EA? – a practical question‘, to address a number of comments and questions that came up via the Twitterstream. Again, I’ll keep the emphasis on the ‘how-to’, and hold back on the theory this time. (Have a wander elsewhere through this blog for the […]
I note in the Business Process Trends Advisor Paul Harmon is confused about what is a capability. What Harmon is missing is that capabilities are not just another modelling device that further helps to understand the business. Rather they are core str…
I note in the Business Process Trends Advisor Paul Harmon is confused about what is a capability. What Harmon is missing is that capabilities are not just another modelling device that further helps to understand the business. Rather they are core structural concepts that allow us to establish independent units of capability. Capabilities are coarse grained business components that are inherently reusable. We define the characteristics as follows:
CBDI recommends:
Harmon asks for examples. Look no further than Amazon – they offer well-formed capabilities that externalize the Amazon business such as Cloud Service; Storefront etc.
For more on this topic see the October CBDI Journal. It is free with simple registration.
Business Process Trends Advisor – Capabilities Again
You’re an experienced enterprise-architect, having spent most your working life in one industry. You now have a new job, in a new company, in an industry that’s entirely new to you. And the company at present has no architecture at all: you’re ‘it’. Where on earth do you start? That’s the situation my friend Alan […]
Those notions of ‘whole-enterprise architecture’ that I’ve been describing in the ‘no-plan Plan‘ series of posts make solid sense to a fair few people – particularly those who’ve some experience of systems-thinking, design-thinking and the like. But it’s painfully clear that it doesn’t seem to make much sense to anyone else: and I must admit […]