Sometimes you write something and over time, when you revisit, you really like it. Maybe because it is your best or most entertaining writing. Maybe because you think the message is particularly important and has withstood the test of time. Or maybe you are proud on all the research that went into it. I list those posts here.
On the Psychology of Architecture and the Architecture of Psychology - [Sticky] About the role 'convictions' play in human intelligence, starting from the practical situations 'advisors' — such as IT advisors — find themselves in.
Advisors need (a) to know what they are talking about and (b) be able to convince others. For architects, the first part is called 'architecture' and the second part could be called 'the psychology of architecture'.
Our intelligence — and that of our audience — is mostly 'mental automation', which makes us humans fast and energy efficient, but only 'quick and dirty'. And like all automation: change is hard.
Should you derive your IT Strategy from your Business Strategy? Probably not too much. - It is generally accepted that IT Strategy must follow Business Strategy. It seems a no-brainer. But is it? There are reasons to look at it differently, reasons that become more pressing as organisations become more digital.
Something is (still) rotten in the kingdom of artificial intelligence - Nobody can deny that artificial intelligence (or machine learning, deep learning, or cognitive computing) is booming these days. And — as before, as this is in fact the second (or third, depending on how you count) round for AI —… Read More Something is (still) rotten in the kingdom of artificial intelligence
To be and not to be — is that the answer? - If you believe much of the reporting done on quantum computing, it is around the corner. We look at how quantum computing works and how realistic it is that it will be available any time soon. With a small appendix on the continuum hypothesis.
Agile & Architecture - Confronted with the problems of Waterfall approaches, organisations are all jumping on the Agile bandwagon. This is often a very good thing. Big Up-Front Design (BUFD) has many drawbacks in volatile environments and much of what happens in IT happens… 
Why is Stakeholder not a Role in #ArchiMate? - In Plato’s ‘Socratic Dialogue’ Protagoras, Socrates and Protagoras (the great ‘Sophist’) have a discussion on what knowledge and skill is and how people acquire these. I am reminded of that discussion as I am thinking about how to explain my reasoning… 
“I, Robot” – there is no such thing as ‘Customer Self-Service’ - Recently, Samuel Holcman published the short Outside-In vs. Inside-Out in Enterprise Architecture document and announced it on LinkedIn. The issue he raises is that the clients of organisations more and more seem to become the ones that perform the organisation’s processes (e.g. self-service),… Read More “I, Robot” – there is no such thing as ‘Customer Self-Service’
Losing a Limpet – What happens when we don’t have Enterprise Architecture? - Recently, I had a conversation with someone about how to do enterprise architecture. I prepared that conversation by trying to condense my basic argument for the`enterprise chess‘ approach to the absolute minimum. I started out with the question: “Suppose we don’t… Read More Losing a Limpet – What happens when we don’t have Enterprise Architecture?
Is ArchiMate® an Open Standard? Not really. - ArchiMate, the enterprise architecture modelling language, is a standard from The Open Group (TOG). Most people infer from this that ArchiMate is an open standard (I did once) and often assume The Open Group is some sort of a not-for-profit… [You do not have my permission to use any content on this site for training a Generative AI (or any comparable use), unless you cab guarantee your system never misrepresents my content and provides a proper reference (URL) to the original in its output. If you want to use it in any other way, you need my explicit permission]
R&A IT Strategy & Architecture 