Background
Across the globe, Enterprise Architecture teams deliver three key organizational functions. Firstly, they provide understanding of their current organization; this enables the organization to effectively control and regulate its existing operating model. Secondly, those teams provide a window into the organization’s potential, insight into where value can be found and unlocked, and an insight into the future. Thirdly, EA teams drive, enable and support the iterative improvement of this direction setting insight, and with that they translate strategy into reality, creating real business value.
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5 Questions CEOs Should Ask Themselves in 2020 – Part 1
/0 Comments/in Adaptive Enterprise, Agile, BiZZdesign, Digital Transformation, Innovation, Roadmapping /by Raz MitacheAs we embark on this new journey that is the 2020’s, CEOs ought to acknowledge the crossroads that’s ahead of them, and the choice they need to make. Read more
The Roles of Enterprise Architects in Innovation – Part 2
/0 Comments/in BiZZdesign /by Matthijs Scholten and Marc LankhorstPart 2: From Search to Scale: Coordinating Innovation
In this blog series we aim to explore the different roles enterprise architects can play in innovation in their organization. Read more
Process Optimization Challenges, Part 3: Using Lean
/0 Comments/in BiZZdesign, Blog, Lean Management /by Raz MitacheWelcome to the last installment in this series. Today we’re taking a look at using Lean techniques as part of a process optimization initiative. Read more
Process Optimization Challenges, Part 2: Know Your Audience
/0 Comments/in BiZZdesign, Enterprise Architecture /by Raz MitacheWelcome to the second part of this series on process optimization challenges. Last time we went over the importance of simplicity in process, and more specifically how looking at the big picture when affecting change can ensure that you make a more significant improvement.
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Process Optimization Challenges, Part 1: Tackle the Root Cause
/0 Comments/in Agile, Lean Management, Roadmapping /by Raz MitacheExcessive complexity is something that most organizations over a certain size have to deal with. The more successful you are, the bigger the enterprise gets, and the farther removed it gradually becomes from the original core tenets that probably made it successful in the first place. So how does this hurt a company? Well, if we’re talking about the IT estate, erratic expansion and the resulting unmanaged complexity makes its presence felt in the form of higher IT management costs, increased risk, and a slow rate of innovation.
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The Roles of Enterprise Architects in Innovation – Part 1
/0 Comments/in Enterprise Architecture, Innovation /by Marc Lankhorst and Matthijs ScholtenEarlier this year, we published a blog about how enterprise architects can contribute to innovation. In this blog series, we want to further explore the different roles enterprise architects can play in innovation in their organization. In general, we see an increasing need for and contribution of an architectural perspective on innovation. That’s because most large organizations have become pretty complex beasts and innovating there is not always easy. Lots of moving parts need to be coordinated but not many people have the necessary overview. This is typically where enterprise architecture can add value.
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Standards of Security for EA Vendors
/0 Comments/in Blog, Enterprise Architecture, Security Architecture /by Raz MitacheWe’ve spoken about security on this blog before. We addressed how you can build a better protected organization with the help of enterprise architecture, for instance, and also collated our thoughts on improving cybersecurity with EA in a whitepaper (have a read if you haven’t already). That’s because we are genuinely preoccupied with the topic and we make it our business to not only adhere to high security standards ourselves, but also create awareness within our industry around this important subject.
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Turn the Ship Around – Break Free from the Shackles of the Present
/0 Comments/in BiZZdesign, Blog, Enterprise Architecture, Innovation, Roadmapping /by James Goodwin and Jan Jaap ElskampBackground
Across the globe, Enterprise Architecture teams deliver three key organizational functions. Firstly, they provide understanding of their current organization; this enables the organization to effectively control and regulate its existing operating model. Secondly, those teams provide a window into the organization’s potential, insight into where value can be found and unlocked, and an insight into the future. Thirdly, EA teams drive, enable and support the iterative improvement of this direction setting insight, and with that they translate strategy into reality, creating real business value.
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A Leading EA Tool Comes with Extras
/0 Comments/in Blog, Enterprise Architecture Software, Enterprise Architecture Tools, Enterprise Studio /by Raz MitacheThe recent release of the annual Gartner MQ Report for Enterprise Architecture Tools provided all of us here at BiZZdesign with a very pleasant piece of news. For the fourth year in a row we were acknowledged as a Leader, and for the second time the vendor with the highest Ability to Execute score.
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The Definitive EA Tool RFP Template
/0 Comments/in Blog, Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Architecture Tools /by Raz MitacheA Request for Proposal (or Request for Information) is a critical stage in any business transformation process. With the need to procure a professional tool onto which to anchor the enterprise architecture practice clearly identified, the next step is just as important – but not so straightforward. It is at this junction point that one must ask themselves – How do we identify the best offer out there? What should/shouldn’t we prioritize? And is it possible to make it more difficult for ourselves, or perhaps even endanger the transformation initiative through our own fault?
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ArchiMate 3.1: The New Version of the Standard
/0 Comments/in ArchiMate, Blog, Enterprise Architecture, Gartner /by Marc LankhorstAt the Open Group conference in Amsterdam in November 2019, the latest version of the ArchiMate modeling language for enterprise architecture was released. Version 3.1 is an update to the previous major version 3.0 (released in 2016). Despite being ‘just’ a minor version update, it holds a number of useful additions and improvements for EA practitioners.
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Cloud Migration with the Help of EA
/0 Comments/in Blog, Cloud, Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Architecture Software, Enterprise Architecture Tools /by Raz MitacheA great many organizations have migrated their workloads (databases, back office systems, web applications etc.) to the cloud over the last decade or so. A great many more have still to do so, either because they’re dealing with industry-specific regulatory requirements or, more likely, because of the disruption this change would cause. In any case, the benefits of a cloud migration are well-known at this point, so we won’t waste time talking about those.
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On Layers and Abstraction Levels in the ArchiMate Language
/0 Comments/in ArchiMate, BiZZdesign, Blog, Enterprise Architecture, TOGAF /by Marc LankhorstOur recent blog post on abstraction levels in architecture models resulted in a lively discussion on LinkedIn. As part of that discussion, the notion of layering was questioned, and in particular the layers that are built into the ArchiMate language. In this post I want to clarify the thinking behind the language structure.
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Business Friendly Dashboards
/0 Comments/in ArchiMate, Blog, Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Architecture Software, Enterprise Architecture Tools /by Rob KroeseOne of the biggest challenges in making Enterprise Architecture successful is ensuring proper communication with business stakeholders. Enterprise Architecture is quite often perceived as a discipline of the IT organization (where unfortunately also many EA teams are operating), and the traditional EA diagrams are not always the best visualizations for business stakeholders. To create better alignment with the business organization, it is important to create business-friendly visualizations, both from format and content perspective. This will help in improving the maturity of your EA practice and establish it as an enabler of strategic decision making and continuous change.
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Define and Assess Digital KPIs with Enterprise Architecture
/0 Comments/in Blog, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Architecture /by Raz MitacheDigital transformation initiatives are relatively commonplace these days. That’s because there is a pretty wide understanding that you can’t really keep doing what you’ve been doing and expect to be successful in the long run – not with technology advancing so quickly, consumers being so demanding, and a rapidly falling barrier to entry. That much organizations have internalized. Read more
An Overview of the Levels of Abstraction in Enterprise Architecture
/0 Comments/in Adaptive Enterprise, Agile, ArchiMate, Blog, Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Architecture Tools, Enterprise Studio /by Bernd Ihnen and Marc LankhorstOrganizations today are faced with an ever-increasing speed of change. To enable faster transformation, they implement agile methods, which impact the whole enterprise. Obviously, change need to be communicated, but one cannot document all the details because otherwise they would be outdated the next week, or perhaps the very next day. Read more
Why a CMDB Cannot Power Your Digital Transformation
/0 Comments/in Digital Transformation, Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Architecture Software, Enterprise Architecture Tools, Gartner /by Raz Mitache“Do I need an EA tool to deliver digital transformation, or can I just rely on a CMDB?”. Or, in the same vein “What is the difference between an EA tool and a CMDB?”. And “Why buy an EA tool if I have a CMDB?”.
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Agile ArchiMate®: Intentional Architecture
/0 Comments/in Agile, Agile Development, ArchiMate, BiZZdesign, Blog /by Marc LankhorstIn my previous blog post on using the ArchiMate modeling language together with the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), I briefly mentioned the need for modeling the intent of the enterprise. In an agile context, this notion of intent and intentional architecture is quite important. In this blog, I want to explore that further.
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EA and Security
/0 Comments/in BiZZdesign, Blog, Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Architecture Tools, Security Architecture /by Marc LankhorstHow can Enterprise Architecture help your organization become more secure, reliable, and compliant? Read more
Finding and Unlocking Business Value
/0 Comments/in BiZZdesign, Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Architecture Software, Enterprise Architecture Tools /by James GoodwinDecision making
Whatever your role, wherever you are, you are measured by the value that you bring. People interact with you because they derive some value from that interaction. That could be political, social, economic, intellectual or technical. To maximize your value, you need to understand how that interaction is measured.
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