recommended reading

Enterprise Architecture – as I see it – is a broad discipline. Architects busy themselves with the question “how should my enterprise be organized?” Answering that question and helping the enterprise to actually achieve its goals requires many different skills from architects. Some of these can be learned, others cannot. Over the years, I’ve read quite a few books that are directly or indirectly related to the field of enterprise architecture. In this post I give an overview book that inspired me the most.

Using “back of the napkin” with TOGAF and ArchiMate

Having recently read all of Dan Roam’s books (Back of the napkin, Unfolding the napkin, and Blah Blah Blah) I started drawing stuff whenever I could. I’m not naturally gifted at drawing (my kids tend to do a better job), but it was a whole lot of fun getting used to it again. I even got myself a nice “Wörther profil mechanical pencil” with very soft leads (6B) and carry that around all the time.

Having used my sketches in meetings, for helping my own thinking process, and helping clients solve problems I started wondering: how does this tie in with my enterprise architecture work? That is, how does it tie in with my two favorite open frameworks: TOGAF and ArchiMate? In this post, I’m exploring some ideas. I’ve included some drawings I made in the process (and following Dan’s rule nr 4 I didn’t clean ‘m up using PowerPoint). If you have any feedback at all: drop me a note and lets push this idea forward.

Architecture standards: Documentation (3/7)

This is a crosspost from the BiZZdesign blog. If you have any comments, please leave them there!

This is the third posting in a series on architecture standards. In the previous posting we presented some basic terminology. Most importantly, we distinguished between standard rules, and standard components. In this posting we pick up the thread and zoom in on the documentation of standards. In order to do so, we kick off this post with an analysis of how/ where standards are used, and “derive” a template from that.

Architecture standards: Terminology (2/7)

This is a crosspost from the BiZZdesign blog. If you have any comments, please leave them there!

In the previous posting we have explained the benefits of having a good standards practice in place, especially in the context of enterprise architecture. In this posting we set the scene for our framework on standards management by introducing terminology that we will use throughout this series. This terminology has been tried and tested in practice, in both business and IT-related settings. We have found that standardized terminology around standards management greatly improved effectiveness of our work.

Architecture standards: intro and overview (1/7)

This is a crosspost from the BiZZdesign blog. If you have any comments, plesae leave them there!

Standards management plays an important role in many aspects of organizations. It is frequently seen as a way to improve costing structures, governance, IT-efficiency et cetera. Setting up a good standards practice is by no means simple and straight forward, though.

This is the first in a series of postings on Architecture standards. The series consist of seven postings each covering a different aspect of the subject. In this first posting we will explore why an organization would care about architecture standards in the first place, and also what value a good architecture standards practice can bring to the table. For the content of this series we base ourselves partly on theory from architecture frameworks such as TOGAF , documented best practices, and our own practical experience and lessons drawn from several engagements with client organizations in which we helped building an effective architecture standards practice.