New book 'Everyday Enterprise-Architecture' now available on Amazon

Everyday Enterprise Architecture, the latest book in my Tetradian Enterprise Architecture series, is now available on Amazon:

• ‘Everyday Enterprise Architecture‘ on Amazon.com
• ‘Everyday Enterprise Architecture‘ on Amazon.co.uk

Note that Amazon have an unfortunate habit of listing print-on-demand books as ‘out of stock’: all that it means is that it takes at most one extra day for delivery.

The publisher-blurb is as follows:

All of architecture comes down to one simple idea: things work better when they work together, with clarity, with elegance, on purpose. Yet how do we express that ‘one idea’ in practice, within our organisations? With what results, and for what business-value? This book describes the down-to-earth detail of everyday enterprise architecture, to show what architects actually do to deliver value fast, across the entire enterprise.

Working step by step through a real ten-day architecture-project, this book explores the activities that underpin sensemaking, strategy, structures and solutions in the real-time turmoil of an enterprise-architect’s everyday work.

Topics covered include:

• • how to use enterprise-architecture to tackle executive-level business-problems
  • how to develop an agile architecture practice that can keep pace with the real-time pressures of the real business world
  • how to identify the business-reasons and business-value for each activity
  • how to thrive on the inherent uncertainties of the architecture process
  • how to use context-space maps to guide sensemaking and solution-design
  • how to apply architecture ideas and activities to describe what actually happens in a real enterprise-architecture project
  • how to enhance architectural skills, judgement and awareness, for continuous improvement across the enterprise and in the architecture itself

If you want your enterprise to flourish and prosper in the midst of relentless change, this is one book you’ll definitely need.

The book describes the actual thinking-processes and business-activities that typify real architecture-work at an enterprise-wide scope and scale. The structure of the book is a walk-through of a simultaneous pair of architecture projects, using an agile-style adaptation of the well-known TOGAF Architectural Development Method. Both of the projects need to be delivered in parallel, and fully completed within a ten-day period. One of the parallel projects focusses on ‘the architecture of architecture’; the other – adapted from real whole-of-enterprise architecture-consultancy assignments – tackles a serious business-strategy problem for a fictional bank.

The book also introduces a new sensemaking technique for enterprise-architectures, known as ‘context-space mapping’. The technique draws on systems-theory and complexity-theory to enable a much richer view of the architecture context, yet still deliver actionable results in tune with the timescales of the real business world.

The book-cover includes an illustration from the Dover Collection, indicating the kind of stress under which most enterprise-architects work! The aim is that the book should help to ease some of the overload, and make it easier to describe to others what it is that enterprise-architects actually do.

At present you can also download the full ebook version for free from the Tetradian Books website; note that this offer will only be available for a few more days, after which the the full ebook will be replaced by a  ‘sample’ edition, containing contents and sample-chapters only.