All over the world, retailers seem to be having a hard time lately. In the UK, for instance, over the last several years, their woes have become part of the national narrative, alongside the lack of housing, or an underfunded NHS. Whether in the local paper, online or on television, one hears about retailers’ troubles regularly – at times it seems the only thing disappearing faster than retail stores in Britain are the polar ice caps.
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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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EA and BPM
/0 Comments/in Blog, Business Process Management, EA Business Case, Enterprise Architecture /by Marc LankhorstEnterprise Architecture and Business Process Management are two change disciplines often closely associated. But how exactly do they relate to one another? Read more
Customer Focus From Start to Finish: Delivering Business Change that Makes a Difference
/0 Comments/in Adaptive Enterprise, BiZZdesign, Blog, Business Architecture, Business Model Management, Capability Based Planning /by Raz MitacheHaving the right focus
The customer is the most important variable in the equation of success. Please them and you’ll do well; ignore their needs and desires, especially in this age of speed and lower emotional attachment, and you invariably go out of business. Read more
EA and CX
/0 Comments/in EA Business Case, Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Architecture Tools /by Marc LankhorstThe intersect between Customer Experience Design and Enterprise Architecture is an interesting development in the world of business transformation. To help our customers get a better understanding of this subject, we asked Marc Lankhorst, Managing Consultant and Chief Technology Evangelist here at BiZZdesign, to share his thoughts on this with us.
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When “Data-Driven” Is Not Enough
/0 Comments/in Agile, Blog, Digital Transformation, EA Business Case, Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Architecture Software, Enterprise Architecture Tools, Gartner /by Nick ReedAn enterprise architect friend of mine recently posed an interesting question: “I lead a relatively mature EA practice that delivers good value to our organization. We are digitally transforming the organization and adopting agile ways of working across the enterprise, which is improving our outcomes for individual initiatives. But I am worried these efforts are sometimes wasted on delivering capabilities managers tell us are important, rather than the ones that are truly game-changing. How do I get in front of this, and help lead us to the right strategic outcomes?”
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The 5 Best Pieces of Career Advice for Enterprise Architects
/0 Comments/in Blog, Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Architecture Software, Enterprise Architecture Tools /by Raz MitacheA while back we put out a post meant to give enterprise architects a hand with successfully passing a job interview. In a similar vein, today we’re offering architecture practitioners some great pieces of advice that we’ve come by after consulting with some of the more experienced members of the BiZZdesign team, people who have counseled countless EA practices and successfully carried out a wide range of business change initiatives. Read more
Raise Model Quality – Conformance Checks
/0 Comments/in Adaptive Enterprise, ArchiMate, BiZZdesign, Blog, Business Architecture, Business Model Management, Business Process Modeling /by Henk Jonkers and Bernd IhnenArchiMate provides a powerful language to visually describe the architecture of an enterprise at different layers – from strategy to implementation. Read more
How to Mitigate Risk without Slowing Down Digital Transformation
/0 Comments/in Adaptive Enterprise, BiZZdesign, Blog, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Architecture Software, Security Architecture /by Raz MitacheCybersecurity is one of the key issues the business world has to deal with, and its importance will only rise. As technology steadily evolves to take over increasingly more aspects of business (and personal) life, the need for security is being made pressingly apparent by incidents such as the breaches at Yahoo and Experian, or the WannaCry ransomware attack. Every year, a huge number of companies are hacked. Here are just some of the most famous cases to give you an idea. The result? Countless people worldwide being affected, with the cost of poor cybersecurity easily running in the millions.
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Architecture and Talent: a Path to Fostering the Right Skills and Expertise
/0 Comments/in Adaptive Enterprise, BiZZdesign, Blog, Business Capability, Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Architecture Software, Enterprise Architecture Tools /by Raz MitacheTalent is rare
Well, the right talent is, anyway. As new technologies make their way into the marketplace and their adoption becomes generalized, organizations are experiencing a personnel squeeze that poses a risk to both ongoing operations as well future plans. The newer (and more sophisticated) a technology, the scarcer the talent to support it, and ultimately the more difficult it is for an enterprise to ensure it doesn’t miss out in favor of the competition.
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Building a Digital Twin of Your Organization
/0 Comments/in Adaptive Enterprise, Agile, Application Portfolio Management, ArchiMate, Blog, BPMN, Business Process Modeling, Digital Transformation /by Marc LankhorstIn previous blogs, we have written about the combination of structure and data to create novel insights into your enterprise, and about how this can support creating a Digital Twin of your organization. To reiterate, a digital twin is a digital representation of a real-world entity or system.
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A Solution for Ailing Retailers: Change Your Business Model
/0 Comments/in ArchiMate, BiZZdesign, Blog, Business Model Management, Digital Transformation /by Raz MitacheAll over the world, retailers seem to be having a hard time lately. In the UK, for instance, over the last several years, their woes have become part of the national narrative, alongside the lack of housing, or an underfunded NHS. Whether in the local paper, online or on television, one hears about retailers’ troubles regularly – at times it seems the only thing disappearing faster than retail stores in Britain are the polar ice caps.
Read more