Dismantle the overwhelming complexity in your IT projects with strategies and real-world examples from a leading expert on enterprise architecture. This guide describes best practices for creating an efficient IT organization that consistently delivers on time, on budget, and in line with business needs. IT systems have become too complex—and too expensive. Complexity can create delays, cost overruns, and outcomes that do not meet business requirements. The resulting losses can impact your entire company. This guide demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, complex problems demand simple solutions. The author believes that 50 percent of the complexity of a typical IT project can and should be eliminated—and he shows you how to do it. You’ll learn a model for understanding complexity, the three tenets of complexity control, and how to apply specific techniques such as checking architectures for validity. Find out how the author’s methodology could have saved a real-world IT project that went off track, and ways to implement his solutions in a variety of situations.

Implement successful and cost-effective enterprise architecture projects. This book provides a new approach to developing enterprise architecture based on the idea of emergent behaviors—where instead of micromanaging system implementation, the enterprise architecture effort establishes clear goals and leaves the details to the implementation teams. System development efforts are measured based on their contribution to achieving business goals instead of implementing specific (possibly outdated) requirements. Most enterprise architecture initiatives employ one of the existing system architecture frameworks such as Zachman or The Open Group Architecture Framework, but these are not well-suited for enterprise architecture in a modern, agile organization. The new approach presented in this book is based on the author’s experience with large enterprise architecture efforts. The approach leverages research into complex adaptive systems and emergent behaviors, where a few simple rules result in complex and efficient enterprise behaviors. Simplifying the task of establishing and maintaining the enterprise architecture cuts the costs of building and maintaining the architecture and frees up those resources for more productive pursuits. System implementers are given the freedom to rapidly adapt to changing user needs without the blessing of the enterprise modeling priesthood, and the architecture is transformed from a static pile of obscure models and documents into an operational framework that can be actively used to manage an enterprise’s resources to better achieve business goals. The enterprise architect is free to stop focusing on building and maintaining models and start focusing on achieving business goals. What You’ll Learn Refocus enterprise architecture on business needs by eliminating most of the enterprise-level models Delegate tasks to the development teams who do system implementation Document business goals, establish strategies for achieving those goals, and measure progress toward those goals Measure the results and gauge whether the enterprise architecture is achieving its goals Utilize appropriate modeling techniques that can be effectively used in an enterprise architecture Who This Book Is For Architecture practitioners and architecture managers: Practitioners are experienced architects who have used existing frameworks such as Zachman, and have experience with formal architecture modeling and/or model-based system engineering; managers are responsible for managing an enterprise architecture project and either have experience with enterprise architecture projects that were ineffective or are looking for a different approach that will be more cost-effective and allow for more organizational agility. Government program managers looking for a different approach to make enterprise architecture more relevant and easier to implement will also find this book of value.

"Reaching the Pinnacle: A Methodology of Business Understanding, Technology Planning, and Change (Implementing and Managing Enterprise Architecture)" by Samuel B. Holcman explains the detailed process of building an enterprise architecture. Samuel B. Holcman brings his strategic business plans to business and technology professionals with "Reaching the Pinnacle: A Methodology of Business Understanding, Technology Planning, and Change (Implementing and Managing Enterprise Architecture)." In order to bring a method to the madness that can often be today's business structure, Holcman uses "Reaching the Pinnacle" to introduce the process of building an enterprise architecture. Holcman uses his 40 years of experience as a leading trainer and consultant in enterprise architecture in writing "Reaching the Pinnacle." He explains enterprise architecture as the rethinking of how business planning and information technology work together in order to achieve strategic goals. "Reaching the Pinnacle" explains how an organization and its important departments can achieve their goals through a series of project initiatives. Holcman offers a simple, easy-to-understand way to implement an enterprise architecture project into one's organization. "While the approach is not quick - it may take up to a few years to transform an organization - my methodology provides an effective means for moving the organization from its as-is state to its desired state in an iterative manner," says Holcman. Holcman's methods and approach have been used by numerous Fortune 500 companies and have led him to be the top consultant on the topic. He believes the 'for practitioners, by practitioners' approach of "Reaching the Pinnacle" will make the book a crucial resource among business and technology personnel everywhere. "Reaching the Pinnacle: A Methodology of Business Understanding, Technology Planning, and Change (Implementing and Managing Enterprise Architecture)" is available for sale online at Amazon.com, directly from the author at www.PinnacleBusGrp.com, and other channels. REVIEW COPIES AND INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE

Learn how to institute and implement enterprise architecture in your organization. You can make a quick start and establish a baseline for your enterprise architecture within ten weeks, then grow and stabilize the architecture over time using the proven Ready, Set, Go Approach. Reading this book will: 1. Give you directions on how to institute and implement enterprise architecture in your organization. You will be able to build close relationships with stakeholders and delivery teams, but you will not need to micromanage the architecture’s operations. 2. Increase your awareness that enterprise architecture is about business, not information technology. 3. Enable you to initiate and facilitate dramatic business development. The architecture of an enterprise must be tolerant of currently unknown business initiatives. 4. Show you how to get a holistic view of the process of implementing enterprise architecture. 5. Make you aware that information is a key business asset and that information architecture is a key part of the enterprise architecture. 6. Allow you to learn from our experiences. This book is based on our 30 years of work in the enterprise architecture field, colleagues in Europe, customer cases, and students. We do not pretend to cover all you need to know about enterprise architecture within these pages. Rather, we give you the information that is most important for effective and successful guidance. Sometimes, less is more. If your company is about to make a major change and you are looking for a way to reduce the changes into manageable pieces—and still retain control of how they fit together—this is your handbook. Maybe you are already acting as an enterprise architect and using a formal method, but you need practical hints. Or maybe you are about to set up an enterprise architect network or group of specialists and need input on how to organize your work. The Ready-Set-Go method for introducing enterprise architecture provides you, the enterprise architect, with an immediate understanding of the basic steps for starting, organizing, and operating the entirety of your organization’s architecture. Chapter 1: Ready shows how to model and analyze your business operations, assess their current status, construct a future scenario, compare it to the current structure, analyze what you see, and show the result in a city plan. Chapter 2: Set deals with preparing for the implementation of the architecture with governance, enterprise architecture organization, staffing, etc. This is the organizing step before beginning the actual work. Chapter 3: Go establishes how to implement a city plan in practice. It deals with the practicalities of working as an enterprise architect and is called the “running” step. The common thread through all aspects of the enterprise architect’s work is the architect’s mastery of a number of tools, such as business models, process models, information models, and matrices. We address how to initiate the architecture process within the organization in such a way that the overarching enterprise architecture and architecture-driven approach can be applied methodically and gradually improved.

This book introduces a new approach for modeling large enterprise systems: the software fortress model. In the software fortress model, an enterprise architecture is viewed as a series of self-contained, mutually suspicious, marginally cooperating software fortresses interacting with each other through carefully crafted and meticulously managed treaty relationships. The software fortress model is an intuitive, simple, expressive approach that maps readily to existing technologies such as .NET and Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE). This book is designed to meet an immediate need to define, clarify, and explain the basics of this new modeling methodology for large enterprise software architectures. "Software Fortresses is your essential roadmap to all aspects of software fortresses. Key topics include: The fundamental concepts and terminology of software fortressesDocumentation techniques, including Fortress Ally Responsibility Cards (based on Class Responsibility Cards) and Sequence Ally Diagrams (based on UML's Class Sequence Diagrams)The proper use of drawbridges to provide fortress interoperabilityThe innovative software fortress model for enterprise securityCorrect design approaches to fortress walls, which keep intruders out, and to guards, which let allies in.The role of loosely coupled and tightly coupled transactions in a software fortress architectureDesign and technology issues associated with the six major software fortress types This book is a must-read for all enterprise software professionals, whether you are a manager seeking to rein in run-away enterprise system complexity, an architect seeking to design interoperable, scalable, and highly secure systems, aconsultant expected to give advice on how .NET and J2EE fit into the enterprise space, an implementer wanting to understand how your system relates to a larger enterprise architecture, or a business analyst needing to know that your system requirements will be translated into a successful software implementation. 0321166086B12202002

The author developed Lightweight Enterprise Architecture (LEA) to enable a quick alignment of technology to business strategy. LEA's simple and effective framework makes it useful to a wide audience of users throughout an enterprise, coordinating resources for business requirements and facilitating optimal adoption of technology. Lightweight Enterprise Architectures provides a methodology and philosophy that organizations can easily adopt, resulting in immediate value-add without the pitfalls of traditional architectural styles. This systematic approach uses the right balance of tools and techniques to help an enterprise successfully develop its architecture. The first section of the text focuses on how enterprises deploy architecture and how architecture is an evolving discipline. The second section introduces LEA, detailing a structure that supports architecture and benefits all stakeholders. The book concludes by explaining the approach needed to put the framework into practice, analyzing deployment issues and how the architecture is involved throughout the lifecycle of technology projects and systems. This innovative resource tool provides you with a simpler, easily executable architecture, the ability to embrace a complex environment, and a framework to measure and control technology at the enterprise level.

As the digital economy changes the rules of the game for enterprises, the role of software and IT architects is also transforming. Rather than focus on technical decisions alone, architects and senior technologists need to combine organizational and technical knowledge to effect change in their company’s structure and processes. To accomplish that, they need to connect the IT engine room to the penthouse, where the business strategy is defined. In this guide, author Gregor Hohpe shares real-world advice and hard-learned lessons from actual IT transformations. His anecdotes help architects, senior developers, and other IT professionals prepare for a more complex but rewarding role in the enterprise. This book is ideal for: Software architects and senior developers looking to shape the company’s technology direction or assist in an organizational transformation Enterprise architects and senior technologists searching for practical advice on how to navigate technical and organizational topics CTOs and senior technical architects who are devising an IT strategy that impacts the way the organization works IT managers who want to learn what’s worked and what hasn’t in large-scale transformation