Blog Archives

SCAN – some recent notes

Posted on 7 October 2013 by Tom G — 1 Comment ↓

Still somewhat in catch-up mode, but seems like this’d be the right time to summarise a few ideas that have come up in recent months on the SCAN framework for sensemaking and decision-making. First of these is a simple cross-map…

Tagged with: decision-making, Enterprise architecture, SCAN, sense-making, sensemaking
Posted in Complexity / Structure, Enterprise architecture

Checking the SCORE

Posted on 29 June 2013 by Tom G — 4 Comments ↓

What’s a quick, practical alternative to SWOT – one that gives a bit more depth for strategic assessment, yet is still just as fast to use? My answer? Check out the SCORE: Strengths, Challenges, Options, Responses, Effectiveness. What triggered this…

Tagged with: Business, change, context-space mapping, decision-making, effectiveness, enterprise, Enterprise architecture, Futures, SCORE, sense-making, strategy
Posted in Business, Enterprise architecture, Futures

At ‘EA and Systems-Thinking’ conference

Posted on 17 June 2013 by Tom G — 10 Comments ↓

For enterprise-architecture and systems-thinking alike, how can we reach towards the opposite of their too-common anti-pattern – all those endless ‘academic’ arguments on LinkedIn? More to the point, how can we bring it out of the abstract, and down into…

Tagged with: complexity, decision-making, effectiveness, Enterprise architecture, Futures, paradigm, sense-making, systems-thinking, vsm
Posted in Complexity / Structure, Enterprise architecture

SCAN as ‘decision-dartboard’

Posted on 15 June 2013 by Tom G — 2 Comments ↓

How to use SCAN as a ‘decision-dartboard’ in work-planning? That was probably the highlight in a great conversation outside the IRM-EAC conference in London earlier this week with Kai Schlüter, enterprise-architect at Danish engineering conglomerate Danfoss. Kai heads up a team…

Tagged with: decision-making, Enterprise architecture, kai schluter, SCAN, sense-making
Posted in Complexity / Structure, Enterprise architecture

A simpler SCAN

Posted on 7 June 2013 by Tom G — No Comments ↓

The SCAN frame provides a simple means to make sense of complexity and decision-making in almost any context. Yet is there perhaps an even simpler way to describe the principles and practice behind it? I’ve been nibbling at that question for quite…

Tagged with: complexity, decision-making, Enterprise architecture, SCAN, sense-making
Posted in Complexity / Structure, Enterprise architecture

Scalability and uniqueness

Posted on 24 April 2013 by Tom G — 3 Comments ↓

What actually do we mean by ‘scalability’ in enterprise-architecture? What can and can’t we scale within the architecture, or the process of architecture itself? These questions came up for me in thinking about a comment by Dave Duggal to the previous…

Tagged with: chaos, complexity, decision-making, Enterprise architecture, paradigm, scalability, SCAN, sense-making, social business, uniqueness
Posted in Business, Complexity / Structure, Enterprise architecture

The craft of knowledge-work, the role of theory and the challenge of scale

Posted on 29 March 2013 by Tom G — 17 Comments ↓

If enterprise-architecture is a kind of craft – part art, part science – then how do we get it to scale? Is it even possible to get it to scale? – because if not, the whole enterprise of enterprise-architecture itself…

Tagged with: chaos, complexity, decision-making, Enterprise architecture, Knowledge, paradigm, sense-making, skills, social business
Posted in Business, Complexity / Structure, Enterprise architecture, Knowledge

The over-certainties of certification

Posted on 28 January 2013 by Tom G — 10 Comments ↓

A strange kind of annual ritual that they did there, that subtle ‘work-to-rule’, every year that I worked at that place. Each autumn, up would come the new crop of graduates, each with their shiny new graduation-certificate and their own…

Tagged with: Business, certification, complexity, decision-making, Enterprise architecture, Knowledge, narrative knowledge, paradigm, responsibility, SCAN, sense-making, skills, skills development
Posted in Business, Complexity / Structure, Enterprise architecture, Knowledge, Power and responsibility

Working with ‘I don’t know’

Posted on 27 January 2013 by Tom G — 4 Comments ↓

How do we work on something when we don’t know what to do? Where do we start? How do we start? How do we keep going? I had some useful first-hand experience with this earlier this week. Some while back, I’d…

Tagged with: decision-making, narrative knowledge, responsibility, SCAN, sense-making, uncertainty
Posted in Knowledge, Power and responsibility

Principles and checklists

Posted on 28 November 2012 by Tom G — No Comments ↓

What is the role of principles in enterprise-architecture? What is a principle? For that matter, when is a principle not a principle? These were questions that came up in response to a post by Simplicable: ‘101 Principles of Enterprise-Architecture‘. Or…