Archives September 2020

Viewpoints of many different disciplines need to be considered in order to implement a holistically designed enterprise. Interests of disciplines closer to purpose and customer value (like service- or UX designers) must be negotiated with disciplines closer to feasibility (like business- or software architects). Designs of those groups can be conflicting, drafts of UX designers, for example, might not be feasible with proper software design or due to limited budgets.

Today those disciplines are having hard times with each other. Designers are often frustrated because their designs are never implemented in the way they envisioned. IT-Architects are frustrated because everybody perceives them as not willing to implement a certain design. Executives are feeling that the money they invest hardly ever leads to the intended outcomes. A lot of misconceptions and conflicts between designers, architects and executives arise that are usually resolved by corporate politics, not the best way to optimize overall enterprise design. Read More

Structure not only increases our chance to success,
it makes us more efficient at it.’ – Marshall Goldsmith

When people discuss digital transformation, they talk mostly about innovation, agility and new technologies. Companies put a tremendous amount of effort into initiatives that should make them more agile and innovative, but most of the companies I know do not manage their innovation initiatives towards a big architectural picture. The overly complex structure of dependencies between innovation- and other projects, and between new technologies and legacy-IT, are not handled with intent. Just present a fancy technology to top-level executives. If it has a low time-to-market and includes AI, chances are high that you can do it. No matter if it’s integration with legacy IT results in unnecessary complexity, ‘technical debt’ that introduces a total cost of ownership that outnumbers the business benefits by far. No matter if it is architecturally sound.

Let’s have a closer look at what ‘architecturally sound’ means, what architecture is all about and why the concept of architecture is helpful, especially in the context of innovation: Read More

We are proud to announce the launch of ->weekly webinars  held 100% live by one of our members.

They will take place every Wednesday 9am EST, 3pm CET.

Topics covered in September:

• Sept.  9th: Architectural Thinking Overview
• Sept. 16th: Capability Modeling
• Sept. 23th: Architecture & Investment Management
• Sept. 30th: Soft Factors for EAs

Please register ->here