A taste of value

As enterprise-architecture expands outward (see video) to a much broader scope and scale (see video), we’ll need a different kind of anchor for the architecture itself: less on means such as IT or money, more on aims, ends and purpose. In short, a

September Song

  It’s the end of September. The leaves are starting to turn in earnest now.  Many already lie on the ground, waiting for me to sweep them up. The first chestnuts have fallen too (reminder to self – collect some before they’re all gone). The last few days have all started with mist – each […]

Form Follows Function on SPaMCast 454

I’m back for another appearance on Tom Cagley’s Software Process and Measurement (SPaMCast) podcast. This week’s episode, number 454, begins with Tom talking about iteration planning. Jeremy Berriault comes next with a segment on QA team leads and I bat cleanup with a Form Follows Function installment based on my post “Trash or Treasure – […]

Get up and dance!

Maria Popova’s Brainpickings is one of the great joys of the Internet, so it seems churlish to quibble with something that appears there. But I’m going to, because I think the subject matters and never more than now. One of the pieces from this week highlights Josef Pieper’s paean to the music of Bach. Now I […]

Trash or Treasure – What’s Your Legacy?

The topic of legacy systems is something of a contentious one. In most cases, a legacy is understood to be a good thing. What makes a system “legacy”? Is it a technical or business decision? A little over a year ago, Greger Wikstrand took a stab at clarifying the term with his post “Legacy systems, […]

My Master’s project and papers. On Walking, Music and Sustainability

First the project report, which was the main deliverable. Ashridge MSc Sustainability and Responsibility (AMSR). Project Report And then the learning review, the secondary deliverable. Year 2 Learning Review And here’s a couple of photos of  my wonderful fellow students and our tutors:

A Tale of Two Tweets

Serendipity is a wonderful (and sometimes entertaining) thing. Monday afternoon, two tweets wound up one after the other in my timeline, one interesting and one “interesting” (I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine which is which): and My favorite definition for the word “innovation” comes from Scott Berkun: If you must […]

This Is Winter Too, (This is Nature Too)

This started out as a photo essay on winter. And then I read an article that disturbed me. I’m a strong supporter of rewilding. I think organizations like Rewilding Britain do great work, so it may seem strange that I was unhappy with this article about them. Near the beginning there’s a quote from George Monbiot […]

Ordinary Things

One of the side effects of illness and injury (in my case a slipped disk) can be that your world becomes smaller. You don’t travel for your work. Your chance of being somewhere new is small. You move more slowly and aren’t up to long trips. It’s not feasible to go to all those special places, where […]