REAL Talk With Sam Holcman

Your Business has an Architecture, but do you know what it is?

A driving need for Enterprise & Business Architecture is to enable IT teams to quickly, accurately & iteratively deploy prioritized, stable & operationally excellent business solutions.
Groups approach the concept & practice of these from differing value points. We emphasize a documented, human consumable, prioritized, architecture which is evergreen, ever-robust, & evolves.
Business & technology advantages arise, as solutions through these methodologies & approaches are developed & deployed.

The Critical Role of the Business Technology Collaborator/Partner

The Business Technology Collaborator/Partner (BTP) understands business needs, possibilities of technology to address needs, & presents a business case that's suitable & understandable to the stakeholders, & transformable by technology specialists.
A BTP is different from business analysis, technologists, or business/enterprise architects. They can rationally balance short & long term business & technology needs & goals. They can balance between human communications & technology awareness.

RightSourcing – Balancing Inhouse/Purchased Services and Software

Most organizations have had a mix of purchased, leased, or rented technologies, software, and human services. Yet we have seen little practiced or written about how to determine what this balance is, what it should be, and how to monitor the changing dynamics in today’s digital transformational world.Traditionally, cost reduction is a primary measure for sourcing decisions. A secondary focus is access to “scarce” skills and resources. Yet even these measures seem to lack an approach to validation and verification that the actions taken produced the desired results, and continue, in this dynamic pace of change, to provide these desired results.
We will bring some method to right-source without madness! We will use the EACOE Enterprise Architecture Methodology to outline a logical process to bring clarity and logic to these crucial decisions. The focus of any of these decisions should be to enable the Business or Mission Strategy, in the most cost effective, and prudent manner.

Process Visualization Unlocking your Hidden Assets

In this age of digital transformation, big data, cloud computing, & numerous other actions you may be undertaking or thinking about in your organization, one fundamental fact remains. What we in organizations do is processing data.
We outline our approach to Process Visualization. We review the benefits & challenges surrounding process understanding, & outline field-proven approaches to obtaining these benefits. We also outline the methodology we use in practice, to guide these efforts.

Application Portfolio Rationalization and Optimization Strategies

Application Portfolio Rationalization & Optimization is an approach to maximizing the value of current application assets, & laying a firm foundation for future growth. Organizations are moving to the cloud, or other off-premises environments, wouldn’t it make sense to rationalize & optimize your portfolio before the move? Let’s clean out the basement first, so to speak!
We outline the eight phase process we use to guide these efforts. The savings from this effort are real & straightforward.

Business Architecture Actually Developing Business Capabilities

Model mania develops model after model, based on some identified general body of knowledge, rather than doing REAL Business Architecture – the identification, & development of Business Capabilities that enable business strategies and missions.
We define the methodology for developing a REAL Business Architecture (BA) – one that is “human consumable”. Identify the Business Capabilities you need to move your organization to its desired state, through analysis rather than declarations!

Business Architecture - Identifying Needed Business Capabilities

Business Architecture is explicitly representing an organizations desired state and as is state, through a set of independent non redundant artifacts, defining how these artifacts relate with each other, developing a set of prioritized and aligned Capabilities needed to meet the organizational Mission or Goals.
REAL Business Architecture is the enabler of Business Capabilities. Business Capabilities are the true result of REAL Business Architecture driving business to its desired state.

Cutting Through Technobabble/Claptrap in Business and Technology

IoT Platform, Deep Neutral Networks, Digital Twin, Biochips, Brain-Computer Interface, Quantum Computing, & 5G. Global, downsize, marketplace, 110 per cent committed. We have enough to digest in the near-term, and there’s nothing candidly in our sightline suggesting we’re involved in engaging anything we’re going to acquire.
We bring understanding to the more common ill defined, or not defined consistently, terms you may read about or deal with, in your day to day activities.

The Digital Transformation Mistakes to Avoid!

Public reports states 84% of Digital Transformation projects are failing to deliver their expected benefits. Organizations realize that looking for the “silver bullet”, technological magic, or magic pill, that will magically and mystically transform the organization to a 2020’s enterprise by “Monday morning” is not going to happen. From this horrifying failure statistic, are there some lessons than can be learned? The short answer is yes!

Enterprise Architecture – The How-To Methodology

Most information technology personnel look at & “do” information technology modeling & implementation rather than REAL Enterprise Architecture – the enabler of enterprise and business strategy and missions.
We define a four-phase methodology of developing a REAL Enterprise Architecture – one that is “human consumable.” This methodology has been practiced, taught, & implemented in organizations large & small. Get the essence of developing REAL Enterprise Architecture in this episode.