How do architectures fail? One way is that we make arbitrary and untested assumptions about constraints – so how do we avoid that trap? My recent webinar ‘How architecture fails, and what to do about it‘ (see slidedeck on Slideshare, and full …

How architectures fail – 3: Constraints Read more »

How do architectures fail? One way is that we start architecture too late or finish too early on the realisation-stack – so how do we avoid that trap? My recent webinar ‘How architecture fails, and what to do about it‘ …

How architectures fail – 2: Scope of action Read more »

How do architectures fail? One way is that key distinctions between architecture and design can get blurred – so how do we avoid that trap? My recent webinar ‘How architecture fails, and what to do about it‘ (see slidedeck on …

How architectures fail – 1: Architecture vs design Read more »

A year ago, I was at Heathrow, boarding a flight to Australia. My long years of eldercare had at last come to an end: it was time for a restart. It was a good plan. I’d worked on it for …

Enterprise-architecture: Clawing our way out of limbo Read more »

Probably everyone knows the RACI responsibility-matrix – Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed. But what does it mean, in practice? For some years now I’ve been using a simple organisation-relative way to describe the organisation’s relationships with the broader shared-enterprise: organisation: the organisation itself, …

Rethinking RACI Read more »

What’s the weight of the past? For me, right now, it’s about two tons. Literally. I moved back to Australia in mid-March of this year. Courtesy of the pandemic-lockdown, every part of my initial plans for the move were shredded, …

The weight of the past Read more »

(For a quick overview, see also the video ‘Enterprise architecture and coronavirus: Digital legacy‘, in the ‘Tetradian on Architectures’ playlist.) How will you protect your digital legacy? Do you know what that legacy is? Or where it is? And what …

Protect your digital legacy Read more »

New books, new strategy, new location, for a new decade: that’s me. And with it, big changes coming up for me, all within the first half of the coming year. In late January, there’ll be the launch of the first …

Changes coming Read more »

I’d been sort-of looking after my elderly mother for some years now – the whole of the past decade, probably, though more and more so over the years. Earlier this year it had reached the point where I couldn’t really …

Things I learned while doing 24/7 eldercare Read more »

What is power? Where does it come from? Where does it go? Who has it? Who doesn’t have it? Who should have it? Who shouldn’t have it? And why? – or why not, for that matter – to any of those questions…? Perennial questions indeed, in just about …

On power Read more »