As the IT world has been largely taken over by Agile methods, the concepts of Definition of Ready and Definition of Done have become mainstream. While these concepts were introduced at the story/sprint level in Scrum, they have taken on a wide role and are generally used at all levels these days, not just on stories, but also on features and epics, the larger items in the agile-tree. There is, however, a new concept that maybe very helpful at the higher levels that we might use: a Definition of Broken.
Category: Agile and Architecture
Will McKinsey be the first ‘big consultancy’ that gets (enterprise) architecture right?
McKinsey seems to be the first 'big consultancy' that really frees itself from outdated, ineffective, orthodox enterprise architecture notions.
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.
From Dark Scrum to Broken SAFe — some real problems of Agile-at-scale. And a way out.
There is a massive movement of organisations moving to agile-at-scale (e.g. SAFe). Ironically, it can turn into an organisation becoming one big 'project', the opposite of what agile wants to achieve.
Yes, 2-speed IT is real, but not like you think
The idea of 2-speed IT has been doing the rounds for a while. It is now dying. But in a different way, it is actually a really important aspect of IT.
John A. Zachman: Agile at 82 (85)
John Zachman is often called 'the father of Enterprise Architecture'. Some will characterise his work as irrelevant and John a dinosaur. But he is surprisingly agile, in more ways than one.
“Architecture in an Age of Agile” is online
I've (finally!) posted the narrated presentation of a slightly adapted version of my keynote at the Enterprise Architecture Conference Europe 2018: "Architecture in an Age of Agile". Both Architecture and Agile are important aspects of maximising your success in digital…
Prioritising Architecture and Debt with “Dado’s Diagram”
The previous blog post introduced a way to use WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First) in Architecture prioritisation settings. That approach does have something missing which my colleague Henk Dado's approach to prioritising the fixing of debt has: a way to…
Read More Prioritising Architecture and Debt with “Dado’s Diagram”
Agile, Dirt, and Technical Debt
Our discipline has long been working with the concept of 'technical debt'. Generally, technical debt is a (often hidden, but not always) defect of some substantial scale. There is substantial effort involved in repairing the debt, otherwise wel will classify…
Prioritising Architecture under Agile
In the previous story, Agile teaches us the true meaning of Architecture, I introduced a 'new' definition of Architecture: the design decisions that are hard to completely remove from implementations (or in short: that what is hard to change). And I…
R&A IT Strategy & Architecture 