2015

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Adaptive Enterprise Architecture Driven Agile Development

Agile development practices focus on developing and delivering working software systems in small iterations with minimal documentation. However, locally project focused agile practices overlook the need for holistic enterprise architecture. Lack of enterprise architecture in agile, especially in the large agile environments, may lead to a number of problems such as technical debt, unnecessary re-work, inconsistent communication, locally focused isolated architecture, design and implementation. There is a missing link between the enterprise architecture and agile development. Enterprise architecture is a strategic capability that should enable and enhance agility of agile development. However, organisations are not sure how best to approach strategic enterprise architecture capability for supporting agile development. This paper proposes and demonstrate the applicability of an integrated adaptive enterprise architecture driven agile development approach for large agile environments.

How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Companies

The evolution of products into intelligent, connected devices is revolutionizing business. In a November 2014 article, How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Competition, Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter and PTC president and CEO James Heppelmann looked at how this shift is changing the structure of industries and forcing firms to rethink their strategies. In this companion article, the authors look at the effects inside firms, examining the impact that smart, connected products have on operations and organizational structure. The new capabilities and vast quantities of data that smart, connected products offer are redefining the activities of the core functions of companies—sometimes radically. As software and cloud-based operating systems become integral to products, new product-development principles emerge, manufacturing components and processes change, and IT security becomes the job of every function. Companies need different skills and expertise, which creates new imperatives for HR. In the marketing function, the ability to track a product’s condition and use shifts the focus to maximizing the product’s value to the customer over time. Customer relationships become continuous and open-ended, service becomes more efficient and proactive, and new business models are enabled. The rich data on location and environment that products provide take logistics to a whole new level. Smart, connected products also alter interactions between functions, in ways that hold major implications for organizational structure. Intense, ongoing coordination becomes necessary across multiple functions, including design, operations, sales, service, and IT. Functional roles overlap and blur. Entirely new functions – unified data organizations, dev-ops, and customer success management- begin to emerge. What is under way is the most substantial change in the manufacturing firm since the Second Industrial Revolution, and the effects are spreading to other industries, like services, as well.

Analysing enterprise architecture maturity models: a learning perspective

In order to aid organisations in the adoption of enterprise architecture (EA) best practices, maturity models have been proposed in the literature. These models offer organisational roadmaps and assessment frameworks for increasing EA maturity. However, key questions concerning the implied meaning of the term maturity in the context of these models have been left unexplored by previous research. This research, aided by the field of organisational learning, offers new insights into the implied assumptions of current EA maturity models and offers initial concepts and constructs to guide the conceptualisation, construction and refinement of enterprise maturity models.

Chess and the Art of Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise Architecture is the discipline of managing the complexities of the Business-IT landscape. It has been around since the 1980’s, when for the first time computers were connected in networks, and the already serious (and unsolved) problem of the complexity of computer programs for relatively simple business needs turned into the huge problem of large networks of them in complex business landscapes. In spite of many ‘best practices’ and ‘frameworks’ that have been introduced, Enterprise Architecture is not a great success. After thirty years, we still have the same problems. Chaos is still everywhere. Projects still fail far too often. In this book, (hidden) assumptions behind the existing approaches to enterprise architecture are challenged, and a more realistic perspective that helps us battle the complexities and unpredictabilities of today’s Business-IT landscapes is described. Practical suggestions about enterprise architecture governance and products, based on real-world experience with the described approach, complete the book. From general management to IT professionals, everyone who is confronted with the problem of managing Business-IT landscapes can profit from the insights this book offers. No specialist prior knowledge is required. Gerben Wierda is author of Mastering ArchiMate, and was, amongst other things, Lead Architect of the Judiciary in The Netherlands, Lead Architect of APG Asset Management, and is now Team Coordinator Architecture and Design at APG.

Leading Digital

In Leading Digital, authors George Westerman, Didier Bonnet, and Andrew McAfee highlight how large companies in traditional industries—from finance to manufacturing to pharmaceuticals—are using digital to gain strategic advantage. They illuminate the principles and practices that lead to successful digital transformation. Based on a study of more than four hundred global firms the book shows what it takes to become a Digital Master. It explains successful transformation in a clear, two-part framework: where to invest in digital capabilities, and how to lead the transformation.

Mastering Archimate – Edition II

Mastering ArchiMate Edition III is the third edition of a much praised book by Gerben Wierda about the ArchiMate® Enterprise Architecture Modeling Language, which is a standard and a Registered Trade Mark of The Open Group. The book gives an introduction to the language, then goes on to show you key aspects of successful modeling, and many different patterns for its use. From Business to Infrastructure, from Risk & Security to Application Exploitation and Maintenance. While the aim of the book is to teach the language, it often also offers necessary background, so that the patterns can make sense to the reader not familiar with a subject. Thus, it also contains introductions to subjects such as virtualization, bitcoin/blockchain, infrastructure as code, processes versus functions, SOA/API, ESB, Terminal Services, etc. It also contains a short introduction to BPMN in order to describe a linking of both major languages.