Better or Different? An Argument for Adaptability

As a primary direction to create and sustain competitive advantage, some executives have decided it is more important to be different, than better. This is not to say that there is no consideration for operational efficiency, only that it is not the primary driver for many companies seeking sustainable competitive advantage.  Many market leaders separate themselves from their … Read more

Things EA’s Should Think About – External Collaboration

Traditional boundaries between organizations are giving way to innovative and creative relationships, driven by a combination of necessity and opportunity. Cross-company information exchange and collaboration is the central success component. Identifying and addressing external collaboration issues is tailor-made to the broad, cross-enterprise, cross-domain perspective and analyses that an EA group can bring to the table.

Transformational View of EA

OK, so you think you are practicing Enterprise Architecture, right? As I have pointed out before, the key is the answer to the question, “Are you architecting the enterprise, or are you architecting IT?” As I dare say, most of you (if not all) would answer honestly that you are architecting the IT environment (apps, … Read more

Is EIA the Key?

As organizations continue to struggle with the complexity and amount of change to deal with, the EA team plays a crucial role in laying a foundation of adaptability for the organization to build from.  Once an organizations has done an acceptable job of providing a standardized infrastructure and at least basic governance of infrastructure standards, focus … Read more

Getting Started with EIA – Identify High Level Information Classes

Recently, we have discussed the HL classes for Business Archtiecture (functions, processes, services) and Application Architecture (application classes and platforms) and Technology Architecture (domains and components).  Now let’s turn to Information Architecture, not Data Architecture. In order to get started with Information Architecture, you need to identify all of the major “things” that your business … Read more