Episode 5 - Notations, notations, notations

Episode 5 – Notations, notations, notations

Welcome to episode 5 of the What’s Your Baseline podcast. Today we are talking about: Definitions: Frameworks (structures), Methods (processes), Notations (languages), Reference Content (content) How to implement these? This is part of the Technical Governance implementation phase; write it down in your EA Strategy document Document your standards. When and how to change the […]

Enterprise architecture tool selection

Episode 4 – Selecting an architecture tool

Welcome to episode 4 of the What’s Your Baseline podcast. We are talking about: Types of architecture tools: drawing tools, implementation front ends, database-driven architecture tools How users see things: data-driven visualization vs. visualization-driven data (tables vs diagrams) Focus of architecture tools > niche vendors – your stakeholder needs drive the focus What to look […]

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Episode 3 – Implement your Architecture Tool

Welcome to episode 3 of the What’s Your Baseline podcast. The topic of this episode is how to implement your architecture tool(s). We are talking about:  What do people look for when buying an architecture tool? What is the end perspective on the architecture tool implementation? The importance of personas and the value proposition for […]

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How to set up the Technical Governance – part 3: creating the architecture method configuration

After doing the “hard work” of figuring out what shall be captured and visualized in your architecture tool – manifested in the data model and meta model – it is now time to do the actual architecture method configuration of the tool. For this purpose I will describe this for ARIS. Your chosen tool might […]

How to set up the Technical Governance – part 2: meta model

After creating the data models that are relevant for your technical governance, we will have a look at the meta model in this article. You will see the entities “come alive” in this activity, and the conversations with your stakeholders become less abstract and more “hands-on”. What is a meta model? While the data model […]

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How to set up the Technical Governance – part 1: data models

Defining the Technical Governance as part of your implementation seems to be a quick exercise – why should you create data models and a meta model when configuring the method in your architecture tool? Isn’t that an effort that one can save and just run a report that spits out the details of the configuration […]

EA Capabilities - Title

Which capabilities do I need to build my EA practice?

Defining an EA capability model seems to be difficult, because the term “Enterprise Architecture” is such a loosely defined term, which has changed over the last several decades. This leads to confusion if EA is “just the tech stuff that I don’t understand” or if business people rather look for BPM (Business Process Management) instead. […]

Architecture Database Setup - Title

Architecture database setup and structure

Setting up your architecture database structure and the internal structure of an individual database is a task that is done very early in an implementation (and you are using a database-driven architecture tool, aren’t you?). It is defined in the “Technical Governance” phase, and typically is seen as an afterthought, even though it has a […]

Enterprise Architecture Frameworks - title graphic

Enterprise Architecture Frameworks, Methods, Notations, Reference Content – some clarifications

Enterprise Architecture Frameworks is one of many keywords used by EAs. This article looks at it, methods, notations and reference content.

Architecture tool implementation approach

How to get your architecture implementation off to a good start

Some clients think that buying software alone solves all their problems and that professional architecture tools are just ‘Visio on steroids’, which is a misconception that seriously can put the enterprise architecture implementation program into danger (for more details on the different types on architecture tools you might want to have a look at the […]

Custom meta model and apis

Selecting an Enterprise Architecture tool (part 2)

This is the second part of a series on how to select an architecture drawing tool. If you haven’t read part 1, I suggest that you follow this link and learn about the different types of tools and the features you should have a look at when selecting a tool. The main purpose of the […]

Selecting an Enterprise Architecture tool (part 1)

Setting up an architecture/process management capability is a large endeavor, and the choice of the enterprise architecture tool (or the refusal/delay of a tool selection) can determine the overall success of the program. If the tool does not provide the necessary functionality, the value can be diminished or not realized, and additional purchases might be […]