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.

FromHereOn, it’s not Enterprise Architecture as you know it

Of all the things you can voluntarily choose to do in life – there are three things that you would never do without serious justification. One is to move house – as in buy and sell and move your world and your family, another is to divorce your long-term partner – implications obvious, and the third is walk away from a fabulous brand (Enterprise Architects) that you’ve spent 14 years building into a globally recognised marque that stands for thought leadership and service excellence in your field.

Teams that train together, win together.

Football, basketball and hockey are all popular team sports played around the world. All push the ‘team spirit’, play to win and watch the competition fiercely. They also have fans, enemies and investors watching and criticising their every move, pushing them to increase their performance at every single stage. To ensure they are achieving peak performance, the teams train hard day in and day out. They develop customised training programmes to enhance the unique skill sets of each individual, but understand that the overall performance derives from the individuals working together as a team. That’s why they implement and focus on team training, they ensure each member is working to the same framework, communicating on the same level and working together to achieve the same result. They understand that the combined effect is greater than the individual.

The same approach goes for businesses. While it’s important to nurture and enhance the unique skills of each individual, the greatest benefit will be seen when your team is trained as a whole. When they are working from the same framework, communicating on the same level and working together to achieve the same result.

[GUEST BLOG] How to design a Target Operating Model that delivers tangible outcomes

The term Target Operating Model (or TOM) has been used a lot in many of the organisations that I have worked for all around the world over the years. Many 100s of millions of dollars in business change budget has been invested in these projects along with many 1000s of people, man hours and resources.

Having been involved in numerous initiatives, I’ve seen all manner of possible outcomes. Some have succeeded in delivering very beneficial outcomes for their organisations. Some have failed to deliver anything. There can be many reasons for this; they couldn’t raise the budget, they couldn’t get the buy-in needed from stakeholders, or they were based on the wrong motivations and outcomes to begin with. With this background in mind, I thought I’d share some insights from my experience around this discipline and try to answer to very important questions:

  • What is the Operating Model?
  • What is a Target Operating Model?

I will also describe how an organisation can really reap the benefits of a successful business transformation programme, or project, that is designed to deliver a Target Operating Model.

How to Sell the Value of Design Thinking

Design Thinking is more than thinking differently; it is working with, and for, people from the very beginning in order to create better outcomes. The key is engaging your executive sponsor and demonstrating enough value to give you the space (and resources) to deliver something that is innovative,  technologically feasible, commercially viable and above all, desirable for the customer.

How can you gain the trust of executives and those in your team to understand and buy into the value of Design Thinking? It’s one thing for it to be a hot topic around the coffee machine; it’s another thing to take action.

Powering a Renewable Future with Architecture Thinking

In 2014, Enterprise Architects decided to empower organisations who were working to bring about a 100% renewable energy future. We provided our strategy and enterprise architecture services to climate leaders to rebuild and renew their organisations “better, faster, cheaper”.  When the call out was made to the team to see who would be interested to donate their time and skills for a safe climate, we immediately had 12 consultants and managers putting their hands up to contribute, and others joined later.

The effort and enthusiasm that each person brought to the table reminded me what an amazing team we have working at Enterprise Architects and demonstrated the energy that is unleashed when a real opportunity to contribute is presented to people. I am proud to share the results of this project with the architecture community and I’d like to start back at the beginning, with motivation – where all good planning efforts start.

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].

From Dread to Delight – Taking a Human Centred Approach to TOGAF®

There are many different reasons why someone decides to become TOGAF® certified. As a trainer I aim not only to ensure you do well on your TOGAF® exam, but to guide you to a space where you can become facilitators of transformation within your companies.

The Secret to Business Relevance

In reading the literature available on Business Architecture it strikes me that most of these mention Business Architecture in the context of the entire organisation or ensuring IT alignment to organisational strategy. While these are true statements, Business Architecture provides a lot more.