EAdirections Blog

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. Read more »

EA Principles Have Little Value

Just recently I learned that a client’s CIO leadership team began a detailed and substantive discussion on EA principles, the implications they carry for their organization, and how they can use them to transform their journey into the future.   I don’t see this as often as I’d like.  While gaining that level of leadership engagement… 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. Read more »

George Paras speaks on “Enterprise Alignment through Enterprise Architecture and Governance”

I am pleased to have been invited to join Ronald Ross, Roger Burlton and many other noted speakers to present at this year’s Business Rules Forumat the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.  I will be presenting on Monday, November 2 during the all-day Business Alignment Symposium and also participating in a panel discussion with the… Read more »

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 »