Since the early 1990s, it has become convenient and customary to divide enterprise architecture into four architectural domains: business, applications, data and technology. However, a mere combination of these four domains does not form a coherent enterprise architecture. "Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants," Peter Senge's tenth law of systems thinking explains why enterprise architects keep losing credibility in the eyes of business partners.
Alpha Architecture brings synthesis to the field negatively affected by excessive analysis. It constructs an essential unifying image of the enterprise that can seamlessly integrate current and future technologies.
Readers will come away from this book with some practical ideas that will help them design an elegant enterprise. They will learn
- how to synthesize a multi-level enterprise structure using seven foundational principles of Alpha Architecture;
- how to organize the top (organization) and the next (unit) levels of the enterprise;
- how to apply seven principles of unit design and align seven unit-design areas to establish coherent product and service delivery logic;
- how to optimize information flow and reduce the need for unit communication, coordination, and control using three indirect integration mechanisms; and
- how to implement an enterprise transformation process.
Intelligent and optimistic, Enterprise Architecture Reimagined offers the discipline new methodologies and a fresh viewpoint on the complex sociotechnical interactions present in a well-designed, cohesive enterprise. The results are transformative.
About the Author: Andre Milchman is an enterprise architect and a software developer. Originally trained in civil engineering, he worked as a construction engineer in the oil and gas industry. Following a path well-trodden by many in the 1990s, he received a degree in software engineering, then became a Sun Certified Enterprise Architect, and worked as a software professional for financial services companies in Canada.
Andre is passionate about systems thinking, complexity science, social systems architecture, and artificial intelligence. He currently lives in Toronto, Canada.
