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Showing posts from June, 2011

Six Reasons Why EA Should NOT be Assigned to the IT Department

I have always disliked working with the "big architecture" people. It was only in the last 5 years that I came to realize why.  Enterprise Architects are often software developers who have reached the pinacle of programming greatness. They can solve massive problems and are truly amazing software developers. However, they often lack business accumen. As such, their solutions don't consider the most important part of the solution - the business' goals : EA is short for Enterprise Architecture: EA ≠ IT Architecture True EA leads to redistribution of authority, which is beyond CIO jurisdiction. EA value proposition (i.e. standardization vs. innovation) is solely business realizable. The primary goal of EA is to build coherent enterprises, not better IT systems. Synthesis takes precedence over analysis. EA failure is an organization failure, not an IT failure. I came across this post on LinkedIn and felt I needed to share. It was posted by a person named ...

Agile In Regulated Software - Partnering

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This may be generic advice, but it might not be a familiar concept for those in IT working within a large organization doing validated software: Photo By: JD Hancock Once you adopt the practices described in my  previous blogs  about regulated software, you will find that you aren’t working alone anymore. The tight feedback cycles allow you to regularly check-in with the business and involve them in building the software. Once this happens, priorities and features will change. Early on they will change often. Don’t discourage this as its a good sign things are moving in the right direction. The people talking to your customers are directly involved in building features  your  customers will use. This is exactly what you want because it be likely that you will produce a better product now. Now that you have left your IT bubble you must partner with your stakeholders rather than simply  delivering  to them on a regular basis. How do you effectiv...