what nature can teach us about target state architecture

As Enterprise Architects we talk a lot about the mythical target state.  But do we ever get to this target state, and would we actually want to be there if we did.  Perhaps nature can teach us much about how we ought to think about the target state.  We return to the ancient Chinese philosophical…

you can’t get an ought from an is

You can’t get an ought from an is.  This famous concept from the great Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–76) has interesting implications for Enterprise Architects.  Hume observed that people seem to derive what ought to be done by citing facts about what is, yet logically there seems to be a gap, and there must be…

decommissioning stinks – a story

Most of us have had exposure to the remains of some system replacement that didn’t quite finish decommissioning the legacy system.  Perhaps it still performs some current functions, or is simply used to access historic or run off data. We often feel this is problematic and the result of a lack of commitment, but is…

the dark side of removing complexity

Complexity is often public enemy number 1 for technologists in large corporations, and rightly so.  Lets forget about good versus bad complexity, and focus on the latter.  Okay, so I often use other peoples quotes, but here is an original (as far as I know): “Complexity is highly resilient and therefore difficult to remove, but…

wu wei – effortless action for enterprise architecture

How much energy do we spend as Enterprise Architects getting frustrated about strategies and road-maps not being funded and implemented as we envision?  If you find yourself behaving more like a salesmen than a visionary and trusted adviser, then perhaps a famous ancient Chinese philosophical text called the Tao Te Ching written by Lao Tzu…