EA and the Internet of Things – 10 Thoughts

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the Internet of Things, from both a personal perspective and as it applies to EA.  In fact, I wrote about it in my “From the Editor” column in the most recent Architecture and Governance magazine (v12n2): I once thought consumer-oriented “Internet of Things” (IoT) device were novelties.  The … Read more

EA Tips – Style AND Substance

For an EA practice to be effective EA leaders must pay attention to both the “style” of how their team operates and the “substance” of the work they produce. While that guidance isn’t new, in practice I often find that many leaders don’t have the balance quite right. It is worth revisiting as a general … 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.

Smart Grid and EA – Making Smart Grid Smarter

Many electric utility companies are in the process of fundamentally changing both their individual operations, as well as the electric industry as a whole.  Many of you have probably heard the term “Smart Grid,” but those in the electric industry are either embracing, waiting on or fearing (or maybe even a little bit of all … Read more

EA Value Contribution

What value does the EA function provide to the enterprise? That question consistently ranks in the top ten list of most frequently asked EA questions. The answer to the question depends on who is asking and what answer they expect to hear based on their personal and professional interpretation of the word “value”. A systematic, multi-part approach to addressing the value question can lend clarity.

Is it Enterprise Architecture or IT Architecture?

In many of the online EA forums I follow, too numerous to mention all by name, I am seeing an increasing amount of participants questioning whether topics are related to EA or not.   Generally these topics are about lower-level, technology decisions that while within the purview of the overall EA, are really infrastructure/operations level decisions.  … Read more

New EA Book, “Coherency Management”, is Now Available

“Coherency Management – Architecting the Enterprise for Alignment, Agility and Assurance” is a new EA book from co-editors Gary Doucet, John Goetz, Palla Saha and Scott Bernard.    It includes a chapter, contributed by Larry DeBoever, George Paras and Tim Westbrock at EAdirections, entitled “A Pragmatic Approach to Enlisting the Support of CEOs for Enterprise Architecture”.  This chapter … Read more