Notes from the Field: The Value of an Enterprise Architecture

I’ve written before on the importance of an enterprise architecture, but during the engagement that is driving this series of articles (Notes from the Field), it has come to my attention that this topic really needs to be revisited. I’m going to cover some topics I’ve written about before, and in a later post I’ll …

AWS’s Rate of Innovation Is Unmatched

I just returned from a week in Las Vegas at AWS re:Invent, Amazon Web Services’ annual conference. I have either attended or watched the live stream every year for the past several years, and I am continually amazed at the number of new services and features that AWS cranks out annually. During the course of …

Notes from the Field: Planning the Extended Enterprise

In my current engagement, there has been a lot of talk lately about “future-proofing” the overall organization. I find this puzzling, because the basic definition of that term has not been identified. As the economy becomes increasingly connected, this customer stands at the threshold where the fundamental processes of value exchange are being transformed. The sheer abundance of information …

Notes from the Field: The Rate of Change

I stated in my last article that an adaptive enterprise—or, as this customer likes to call it now, an extended enterprise—is built, not bought. It is a transformational process, and every enterprise arrives at the task of transforming itself with a different history and different goals, priorities, and needs.

Field Notes: Architectural Principles and Design Notes

This Field Notes series chronicles my experiences with a major transformation project I’ve been involved in for the past eighteen months. I have worked on almost every aspect of this project, from application rationalization to portfolio management to reconstructing business processes and aligning and synchronizing IT with the business.