If you're tuning in in the April 2020 timeframe, we are in a bit of a turmoil situation.

Pressures are coming from a number of directions, & focus is easily lost and replaced by motions & actions that substitute for planned actions and strategies. Focus, consistency, coordinated actions, & efficiencies are more important “in the now”, yet we need explicit representations we can view & act on.

Yes, unfortunately, a short-term focus is a necessity at this hour- how to succeed in the here & now.

The cloud is discussed as the potential for better technology & business agility, but moving computing resources has two sides.

IT leaders are learning that running applications in the cloud costs more than doing so on-premises, & adds complexity & security concerns not fully appreciated in the “rush” to the cloud, leading them to rethink strategies, & bring applications back in-house.

We outline our EACOE Enterprise Architecture analysis approach on rationalizing cloud/in-house strategies.

Watch and see the presentation: https://www.architecturescoe.org/resourcesall/processvisualization-75sn8-lz977

A new reality has been set- the global movement of people & goods provides a new set of opportunities and challenges, which cannot be predicted, but should be anticipated. Today's crisis is the disease, COVID-19 & the virus, SARS-CoV-2. The next could be another virus, or massive internet outage, or a terrorist attack.

But, the reaction of most organizations is reactive & crisis driven. We must look at approaches for developing resilient organizations to anticipate the next disruptive event.

Triggering my thoughts in developing this episode was YAF. What is YAF? YAF is Yet Another Framework! This is a consortium of academics, industry, & government people published YAF on enterprise architecture.

My thoughts quickly moved to thinking about complexity and those that revel in it. Is there such a thing as “complexity bias”? Is it, for some, a measure of progress?

In this episode, we will explore complexity and complex. They are different!

We have all turned, to some degree, to a short-term focus in both our personal & business lives. We must deal with reality.

How do you address both short & long term issues & opportunities? In the short term, identify areas for optimization, while understanding the effects in future operations.

We outline a two-week Enterprise Architecture Immersion approach that identifies short-term prioritized opportunities for cost optimization, & sets the stage for the eventual return to normalcy.

We look at this Pandemic through the eyes of Enterprise & Business Architecture. A robust architecture methodology is a tool we can use to analyze things that are complex, and we are seeing significant complexity in this situation!

We apply out-of-the-medical-box thinking to this crisis situation. Let us take a brief time-out from the media driven hype & hysteria-focused analysis & see if we can provide another frame of reference for those professionals working to help us through the crisis.

What is an Enterprise Architecture (EA) Health Assessment? The “health” assessment of your Enterprise Architecture will provide you an informed, independent perspective of your strategic EA asset’s viability as a foundational resource.

Your Enterprise Architecture is a strategic asset, and must offer strategic value in several aspects. Assess your existing information to determine how well your EA is positioned to provide these values. A thorough, fair & objective assessment will get you there.

Make to Order, Provide from Stock, Assemble to Order. The three maturity levels that are understood and tried and true in the manufacturing community. In the IT community, most organizations reside in level one and are attempting to “speed things up” – all within maturity level one.

Underlying maturity level three requires two concepts and underlying technologies. Change, displacement, new learnings, and reward systems are all part of the equation, which makes people uncomfortable – and resistant to change.

In the age of digital transformation, big data, cloud computing, one fundamental fact remains. What we in organizations are doing is processing data. Technology departments have many names nowadays. But fundamentally, they process data.

We outline our approach to understanding processes – Process Mining that leads to a Business Process Warehouse. We review benefits & challenges, & outline field-proven approaches to obtaining benefits. We will also outline the methodology used to guide efforts.

Luke is the President/CEO at Retail Band, where he aims to help businesses sell appliances through online channels and allow their market to grow and expand. He has extensive product development and entrepreneurial experience.

Luke and his team are especially adept at creating product launch strategies at a wide variety of ecommerce sites.

We will get an understanding of Luke’s approaches to managing organizational change in his digital businesses.