Layering — is it really a useful approach in Business/IT/Enterprise Architecture?

Is layering — e.g. the classic BDAT (Business, data, Application, Technology) stack — really useful in Enterprise Architecture? An analysis with some side nodes about ArchiMate. Warning: may contain traces of analytic EA geekery.

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McKinsey seems to be the first 'big consultancy' that really frees itself from outdated, ineffective, orthodox enterprise architecture notions.

Don’t become an Enterprise/IT Architect…

With increasing IT volumes in the world, landscape change is getting harder and harder, and we need to adapt to that fact. Upper management is very slow to adapt and the Enterprise/IT Architect/Strategist's position becomes more frustrating as a result.

Lifecycle Management – Let the Sunshine in

Standardisation/rationalisation is a tool and a wish of many enterprise and it architects, focused as they are on simplification of the complex. But while superficially you can be very standardised, lifecycle events of all the parts can still turn the landscape into a 'hard problem'. Managing lifecycles is something organisations wrestle with because of the complexities. A model to manage lifecycles of items in your landscape — called Sunshine Lifecycle Management — is described.

Vertical Integration versus (horizontal) standardisation

Over on Enterprise Architecture Professional Journal I've just posted a column about 'vertical integration', where it comes from, how it drives certain developments (e.g. it is one of the drivers for the cloud) and how it is in conflict with…

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…