Enterprise Architecture Tools

Marc Lankhorst

The Consumerization of Enterprise Architecture: Everyone’s an Architect! 

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Enterprise architecture is often perceived as an abstract, conceptual, and somewhat esoteric discipline practiced by ‘high priests’ who provide guidance with their lofty ‘architecture principles.’ It’s true that architects are often concerned with overarching, cross-cutting concerns that are not always visible to the people ‘in the trenches,’ but this view of enterprise architecture is misguided at best and increasingly misses the mark.  

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Marc Lankhorst

Agile/DevOps Support in BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio & HoriZZon

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-Fabian Aulkemeier & Marc Lankhorst
In our previous blog post, we outlined why Enterprise Architecture and Agile/DevOps are key in becoming an adaptive enterprise. We also described several use cases where EA can strengthen Agile and DevOps practices. Now, we want to focus on the ways in which you can connect these in practice, using architecture models and appropriate tool support.
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Marc Lankhorst

Enterprise Architecture and Agile/DevOps: Adaptive Enterprise Cornerstones

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Marc Lankhorst, Fabian Aulkemeier 

Enterprise architecture, agile software development, and DevOps are sometimes seen as being at odds. We think they can fruitfully collaborate and interface, but how do you do that? How can you align the concepts and processes from these worlds and bridge the cultural gap? 

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Joost Niehof

How is AI Impacting Your Business?

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to be a buzzword lately, promising techniques and tools that could influence our lives, our work and the way we do business. For many designers and enterprise architects, the question becomes: What would be the role of designers on all levels (strategic, EA, BPM, data, technical) in incorporating AI in a company? There are even ethical questions that may arise when instituting AI in a company, which you must take into account before making the change.

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Marc Lankhorst

6 Ways to Organize Your Architecture Models (Part 1)

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If you have some experience in modeling real-life, full-size architectures for large-scale organizations – preferably in the ArchiMate language, of course – you have likely come across the challenge of organizing your models in logical and manageable ways. In this two-part series, we’re going to share our top 6 ways to organize your architecture models. These six methods should help you keep your models neat and tidy while also supporting better outcomes for your strategic initiatives.

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Bernd Ihnen

Language: The Basis of Successful Strategic Transformations

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We are currently living in an interesting time. The digitization of all business capabilities has reached a new level and has had a huge impact on virtually every industry. Business models are being redefined and new companies have emerged to become global players. Today, companies must be more agile than ever before and the speed of change will only continue to increase.

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Marc Lankhorst

7 Key Strategy Views in Enterprise Studio (part 1)

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A survey conducted by The Open Group in cooperation with BiZZdesign and other partners found that the largest difficulty in strategy process (for over half of the 500+ respondents) is bridging the gap between strategy development and implementation.

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Marc Lankhorst

Powerful Analysis Techniques (6) – Financial Analysis

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In my previous post, I discussed how you can analyze the business and technical value of your applications, and how architecture models are key in calculating metrics such as the business criticality or strategic value of applications. In this post, I want to focus on financial analyses, and in particular on cost models.

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Marc Lankhorst

How organizations model their acquisition and divestiture – a real life example

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In my previous blog I wrote about the importance of models to successfully complete a merger, acquisition or divestiture. Of course, one organization’s divestiture may be another one’s acquisition. In this blog post I’ll share one my personal experiences as a consultant, supporting two government agencies that were in the middle of this process.

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Marc Lankhorst

8 Steps Enterprise Architects Can Take to Deal with GDPR

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In my previous blog post, I described the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that will go into effect in May 2018, and I outlined its profound effects on organizations, not just in Europe but around the globe. This regulation, and related EU Directives such as the ePrivacy Directive and the Network and Information System Security (NIS) Directive, force organizations to rethink how they deal with personal, privacy-sensitive data. In this blog, I want to address the steps you can take as an architect to help your organization comply with these regulations.

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George Pang

Targeting Executives with Enterprise Studio

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When we think about supporting Business Transformation, we immediately start with the detail. Architects and analysts dive into the nuts and bolts, create some brilliant ‘technical designs’ and models but to non-architects, it often appears as “just boxes and lines”. In this blog I will explain some simple techniques to help bridge the gap.

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George Pang

5 top tips for organizing your architecture repository

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Software platforms such as BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio are powerful tools that can support transformation activities if used in the right way. Otherwise there is a risk it becomes shelf-ware. As the saying goes: “With great power comes great responsibility” Read more

George Pang

Leveraging existing data in BiZZdesign Enterprise Studio

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In a previous blog post I wrote about setting the foundations for data collection and management, ensuring the right metadata is available for effective contributions and reporting activities. In this post, I will describe how, if the information is readily available, can be brought into Enterprise Studio. Read more

Marc Lankhorst

Using ArchiMate® in an Agile Context

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In the past, my colleagues and I have written several blogs on the combination of enterprise architecture and agile ways of working (e.g. Enterprise Architecture and Agile Development: Opposites Attract?, Enterprise Architecture and Innovation: A cultural change, Escaping the Jaws of the Project Monster). In this blog, I want to focus in more detail on the use of the ArchiMate language in the context of agile methods, in particular the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). Read more

BiZZdesign

BiZZdesign a Leader in the 2016 Magic Quadrant for EA Tools

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Have you heard the good news?

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Sven van Dijk

ArchiMate® Modeling in Practice: Using a Model Repository

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In theory, an ArchiMate® model can be created using just pen and pen, or a whiteboard and markers. There are also software platforms that provide an ArchiMate modeling environment, which come with many automated capabilities and analysis functions.

However in this post, we will focus on an important element in maturing into an advanced, mission critical modeling capability: the model repository.

 

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Marc LankhorstTon Baas

Application Portfolio Management in Local Government

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Although Application Portfolio Management (APM) isn’t the newest kid on the block, it has had a tremendous growth in popularity lately. Due to the economic crisis and market pressures in general, IT managers and architects are constantly pushed by their CxO’s to reduce inefficiencies, improve agility of the enterprise and cut costs. The complexity of these tasks leads to an increasing need for tools and structures to help them handle their application landscape. Read more

Boudewijn Meyboom

How to Save Time Automating Repetitive Tasks in Enterprise Studio

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With the release of Enterprise Studio, the BiZZdesign tools have become a lot more powerful in automating and scheduling tasks. For a long time now, the BiZZdesign products have had the ability to run analyses and to automate repetitive tasks. This is done by using our own scripting language, which is specifically adapted to a working with (architecture) models. Read more

Marc LankhorstJoost Niehof

Enterprise Architecture in Healthcare

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We recently organized a workshop at BiZZdesign for enterprise architects in healthcare. A mixed group, from hospitals and other healthcare providers. In the workshop, various issues were discussed. We want to highlight some of these topics in this blog.

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Henry Franken

Strategic Use of Business Models: Introduction

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Times are tough: many businesses are struggling to stay afloat in the wild economic currents. Many organizations attempt to find a “blue ocean” of uncontested space, but let’s face it: most of us are stuck in a “red ocean” with a lot of competition, growing power of both suppliers and consumers and increased threat of substitutes. Indeed, one can argue that it is “all hands on deck” for many organizations in their struggle to survive.

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