What has a greater impact on Digital Transformation?

Enterprise Architecture VS Business Architecture.

Around this time 12 months ago Gartner predicted that half of EA Business Architecture initiatives in 2018 would focus on defining and enabling Digital Platform Strategies. While there hasn’t been follow up research to prove whether this prediction has come true, anecdotal evidence would suggest that the real situation is pretty close.

Does Agile need Architecture to be successful?

On a recent Agile training course, the instructor opened the session by saying “Agile without a plan is just chaos!” I would like to propose that Agile without effective Architecture will eventually lead to chaos, particularly if organisations try to scale their Agile practices without some form of guiding framework.

Business Architecture in an Agile World – the What and the How.

My current, favourite question for Executives and Architects is “How do you see Architecture operating in an Agile environment.” This question usually elicits a wry smile and a response along the lines of “I will need to get back to you on that!” Many people are wondering how Architecture will fair in the world of Agile. My answer is I believe very well!

Supporting the CIO – Changes, Challenges and the role of Business Architecture

Many C-Level executives are now facing a situation where the ‘traditional’ aspects of their role are being reshaped, or in some cases undergoing wholesale changes. From a CIO perspective, one of the fundamental challenges being faced is that the business is going direct to vendors to procure technology solutions for their business. A Logicalis survey reported recently that 31% of CIOs were bypassed on numerous occasions in technology purchases and over 90% were bypassed at least some of the time(1).

So how can a CIO maintain their influence in today’s businesses?

“We don’t rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training”

While individuals may have different innate talents, the world’s most successful people have always been those who continually enhance their skills and develop instincts through countless hours of training.

Think about it this way, you’re not going to be able to run a marathon on sheer optimism alone — you’re going to have to make sacrifices, invest in new tools and seek out proper guidance and training to ensure you’ll make it to the finish line. The same goes for professional development.

How are you expecting to secure that promotion, ace that big project or become a respected thought leader in your field if you’re not constantly pushing the boundaries and making a proactive effort to widen your knowledge base?

Data Analytics: The fine line between success and failure in the Data-driven Economy

Trying to understand how you can integrate a data-driven vision into your strategic agenda? Or perhaps you understand the need for a data-driven vision but need some tools to successfully implement it in your organisation. In this article, I will closely examine 5 core factors for an organisation’s success or failure in the data-driven economy, some of which you may find surprising.

How To Make A Great Coffee… And Business Architecture

A great cup of coffee might seem like an easy every day item, but have you ever truly considered what has to happen to make that coffee? The beans need to be beautifully roasted, they are ground to the perfect consistency, the milk is steamed until it’s silky and smooth, the crema is flowing and then the barista expertly combines them to give you a delicious mouthful of caffeine. Get even one of these elements wrong and suddenly the whole coffee experience is lost.

Stories Are The Secret To Influence

Imagine your team has designed a business architecture for your company, and now you have ten minutes to present your findings and recommendations to the CEO.

What do you say? How can you get them believing beyond a shadow of a doubt that your recommendations are the best way forward?

I had the opportunity to hear some of these pitches from the CEO’s chair while three teams presented their solutions to a case study scenario.

Video: Digital Strategy Summit Presentation

While a digital strategy is now a mandatory requirement for corporations the world over, there are varying perspectives of what a digital strategy should comprise, often reflecting the authorship of the strategy within the offices of Marketing, Products or Technology. However, in many instances these strategies appear indistinguishable from the business technology innovation strategies of yesterday.

At the heart of Digital Strategy should be the premise that the confluence of contemporary forces and capabilities present the opportunity for market disruption and service reinvention – yet invention and disruption generally escapes the major corporates seems to remain the domain of the start-ups.

Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication

Good design is one of the core elements of the Enterprise Architecture discipline. I recently came across and was inspired by Mike Monteiro’s presentation at Webstock 2013. Mike’s presentation was a ‘call to action’ to designers of all walks of life to take their responsibility seriously and deliver good design. This caused me to re-visit a paper I presented some time ago at the Software Engineering Conference in 2010 that aimed to identify the principles of good design[1].