BA Forum Webinar: Integrated Business and Enterprise Architecture Planning with HAL 2.0

Date:

Time:

Cost:

Presenter:

Venue:

1 October 2024

14h00 - 15h00 SAST / 12h00 - 13h00 UTC

Free

Graham McLeod

Zoom (link provided on registration)

The Holistic Architecture Language (HAL), now at Version 2.0, is Inspired’s integrated language and meta model supporting strategy, business and enterprise architecture, risk and change management. It has evolved over two decades and was revised in 2014, 2019 and again earlier this year. It is now arguably the most comprehensive, integrated model available globally.

It has been benchmarked against popular EA and Business Architecture frameworks, as well as lesser known, but academically rigorous, frameworks and models.

Graham McLeod, Chief Architect at Inspired and the primary author of the language, will cover:

• Why we need such a language

• How it was developed

• What it covers

• Advantages and benefits

• Support in tools

• Further information available

The talk will be approximately 35 minutes, with adequate time afterwards for questions and discussion.

Please register to join us!

A visit to Lille for ESUG and IWST

I spent a week in Lille, France, where the European Smalltalk User Group conference (ESUG) was held at Inria/Lille University. This was in parallel to the International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies (IWST). Lille is a beautiful city with historic Art Nouveau and Victorian era districts, but also stylish modern developments. It has a mix of northern French and Belgian culture, food and drink.

Despite the age of Smalltalk, it is still one of the purest, most productive and cleanest languages and tool environments for doing complex stuff reliably. We have used it in our tool development since the mid 90’s and see no reason to change.

ESUG brought the community together across Europe, but also the Americas and even a couple of Africans. A great deal of innovative work was on show and there is no shortage of interesting products, libraries, techniques and evolution to address new computing models and requirements. Standout items for me included:

• Continuing rapid development of the Glamorous Toolkit platform by Feenk which now hosts multiple development languages seamlessly, integrates with the Gemstone Object database and AI language models and allows developers to extend the tool itself with minimal effort

• Multiple Smalltalks that will run in the browser, either targeting the Javascript VM, transpiling to Javascript, compiling to web assembly, or running on smalltalk specific browser plugin VMs.

• High quality, cross platform modern widgets and controls via Toplo, which leverages BLOCK and supports SPEC 2.0 UIs

• Many projects which target and improve testing, debugging and monitoring

• Support for Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

• The usual rapid evolution of major implementations such as Pharo (open source) and VAST (proprietary). Key themes include Unicode, stability, performance and interoperability

• Work which is keeping up with latest developments in virtual machines, memory management, garbage collection, just in time compilation and other techniques required for robust, scalable and performant systems

In the IWST workshop, I presented a paper on the work Gareth Cox and I did on creating a Graphical Language Server in Smalltalk (previously only done in Java and TypeScript). Glad to say this achieved an award for innovation and 3rd rank overall, which was pleasing for a modelling oriented paper in a primarily computer science workshop.

In the paper we were able to show how working at a higher level of abstraction and in a dynamic language allowed us to do more than the reference implementation in a fraction of the source code and memory footprint. You can view the presentation or read the paper.

Thanks to all the organisers for a great conference and workshop.

Enterprise Modelling at Duisburg-Essen University

I recently had the privilege of visiting this leading group for a week. We exchanged ideas, experiences, critique and camaraderie. I presented my work on design and support of effective visual modelling languages, while local participants provided insights into work on multi-level modelling, generation of multi-level models from more conventional models and supporting tooling.

The team is led by Prof Ulrich Frank and has a deep history and impressive track record in enterprise modelling, meta modelling and multi-level modelling. One product of this research is Multi Perspective Enterprise Modelling (MEMO), a meta modelling foundation and several integrated modelling languages which address strategy, organisation, goals, process, information and other aspects crucial to enterprise success. This has been one of several motivations behind our own Holistic Architecture Language and integrated Strategy and Enterprise Modelling approach.

The group collaborates with Prof Tony Clark at Middlesex University, North London on multi-level modelling, language design and tool development. Part of this work is the development and evolution of the X-Modeler, an innovative modelling and language execution platform. This work is one of the sources informing our own meta modelling approach.

Personally, I met Ulrich at my first international academic conference, and the first instance of the European Conference on Information Systems, at Henley on Thames, in 1993. His work and a subsequent visit to the Gessellschaft fur Matematik und Datenverwerking (GMD) research institute in Cologne (Koln) inspired much of my early research and provided validation of ideas I and colleagues were working on less formally.
We share a lot of common understanding, beliefs and approach to methods, models and modelling, tool building and what is important to the effective use of models.

Thanks to Ulrich and the group for their sharing and hospitality. Long may our fruitful interaction continue!

Inspired Holistic Architecture Language© Vsn 2.0

Holistic Architecture Language Van 2.0 - Top Level Executive view

Since the introduction of the Holistic Architecture Language in 2019, we have gained a great deal of experience in its application as well as conducting in depth academic research. These activities have allowed us to refine the meta models to more completely integrate strategy, business architecture, IT architecture domains and the change dimension. We have also expanded coverage to include more project stakeholder management and support for scenarios.

We benchmarked the leading and most popular EA, Business Architecture and Enterprise Engineering methods and models to ensure that we were not missing anything important. We checked that we could support the new versions of TOGAF® Framework and ArchiMate®. In this exercise we again became convinced that the HAL models are the most comprehensive, consistent and integrated available.

We took the opportunity too, to ensure that the models will support all the deliverables, models and analysis products that we cover in our Business Architecture/Desirable Futures method as covered in the Techniques and Deliverables of Business Architecture course and the Business Architecture Mastery Programme and which we apply in practice in client projects.

We are working to support the new models in EVA, with intuitive dashboards and canvasses, making the use of the models much easier for novices and experienced architects alike.

EVA Dashboard for Business Architecture

Please contact us if you would like to know more.

Academic work leading to the new models includes the following papers:

• Extending and automating maturity models for more value

• An advanced meta meta model for visual language design and tooling

• Integrated meta model for enterprise modelling including strategy, business architecture, risk and change

• A graphical language server on the Smalltalk platform

TOGAF® and ArchiMate® are trademarks of The Open Group

Advanced Business Architecture Skills by 2024! Transform your skills to a leadership level in 16 weeks

WEEKLY LIVE SESSIONS Thursdays 14:00-17:00 SAST / 12:00-15:00 UTC VIA ZOOM FOR 16 WEEKS

An intensive online programme to help senior enterprise and business architects, strategists and business analysts quickly and competently analyse a business, make well founded recommendations for transforming it, ensure stakeholders' buy-in, and mobilise for implementation.

Includes thought leadership in integrated meta models, stakeholder modelling, process architectures, integration of strategy, architecture and programme management.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Rapidly identify the real strategic issues

• Transform your own capabilities, then your organisation or client

• Develop the skills to be at the table where strategic decisions are made

• Have a real positive impact on your organisation, industry, customers, and other stakeholders

• Engage thoroughly with business executives in a way that they appreciate

• Exploit change and emerging technology to your advantage instead of suffering its effects

• Become a valued change agent in your organisation and industry

• Understand powerful meta skills that you can apply in countless situations, techniques and throughout your career

UNIQUE COVERAGE

The course links Business Strategy, Business Architecture, Implementation Architectures, and Programme Management.

It goes beyond TOGAF®, Zachman, BizBoK, Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder & Pigneur), Enterprise Engineering (Dietz et al), ArchiMate®, and others in addressing the context in which business finds itself and the many dimensions that must be integrated to make informed coherent decisions to achieve desirable futures.

It includes techniques to facilitate innovation, design business operating models, customer journeys, ground breaking products and services and exploit digital transformation, including AI.

SYLLABUS

See graphic above or visit the course page.

APPROACH

Online, via Zoom with interactive discussion and breakaway groups. Half the time is "hands on" with individual and group assignments to apply concepts and techniques. Rich use is made of case study material allowing students to apply concepts through a full lifecycle.

Extensive notes are provided and enrichment via short videos, provided articles, references and links. We provide a comprehensive eBook on Business Architecture.

Read more and enrol here.

"The course was well managed with materials at a similar quality to that of Oxford University. The subjects covered extend beyond the traditional content that you would expect - to starting to think outside the box, different perspectives, what matters to the design of a business and its people… If you are looking for a course that will introduce you to some of the latest research in this field and beyond, I would highly recommend this course.”

TOGAF® & ArchiMate® registered marks of The Open Group
#businessarchitecture #strategy #training #enterprisearchitecture#digitaltranformation

Business Architecture Mastery Programme Kicks Off

We are about to start our next Business Architecture Mastery Programme this Thursday (26th). It runs for 16 weeks until 11th May. We have an excellent cohort and it promises to be another great experience.

This time round we have added new material on how AI and related topics will impact business plans and architectures, as well as how to use Wardley maps to leverage the projected lifecycle of technologies in our forward planning.

Some comments from the delegates:

“Business Architecture is a lot more than just identifying capabilities and modelling. I really appreciated how it brought a wide breadth and depth of concepts together that illustrated what Business Architecture actually entails and what impact it has.”

“Very comprehensive set of techniques and best practices, one of the main benefits was drawing on [Graham's] wealth of experience and wisdom and really learning from the examples presented.”

“[The programme] has given an overarching view of all of the different elements that need to be set up as the organisation is growing and expanding... what are these elements that we need to put in place and consider if we want to grow in a very healthy way.”

“I also think that your course is very well-structured and it leads you over different aspects of the business architecture work and it was a pleasure for me. And thank you and all of the others attending the course, thank you.”

“So as key takeouts I will take these tools that you’ve not only presented to us but managed to teach us how to use them because most of the courses only present the tools and don’t give the chance to implement these tools and find a way to use them in your daily work.”

We believe this programme is the most comprehensive yet practical available. This was borne out by very positive comments from some very seasoned attendees who still derived major value and gained new insights. It runs over 16 weeks with a half day live session each week.

For full details please see the course page.

#businessarchitecture #strategy #enterprisearchitecture #ai #training

Practice of Enterprise Modelling (POEM)

I am at Heathrow, returning from the UK and the POEM Conference, hosted by Middlesex University. First international trip since the pandemic and it’s great to get out and about again!

The nature of “Enterprise” has changed from the simplistic company or organisation to diverse concepts, including:

• A legal entity

• A commercial, government or not for profit entity

• An extended value chain of partners and potentially, customers

• A project to bring about some desired change

• A value adding operating model, possibly including algorithms,AI and platforms that deliver value

Which can pretty much be summarised/abstracted as “any coordinated effort that results in value delivery”.

The activity of modelling is also under the spotlight, changing and being asked to justify its existence. With the speed of business change and the promotion of agile approaches, modelling is often pushed aside, regarded as old fashioned or not adding sufficient value. Of course, many of these projects and transformations subsequently come to rue that decision. Nevertheless, I was pleased to see a recurring emphasis at the conference on ROME, i.e. Return on Modelling Effort.

ROME looks at who models are for (stakeholders), what they are intended to achieve (goals, e.g. understanding, insight, consensus, decision support, design) and how effective and efficient they are in achieving that. We look for techniques to improve the value of models, including:

• Properly understanding stakeholders, concerns, goals & domain of interest

• Choosing, adapting or designing modelling languages and notations to suit the problems, domain, process and stakeholder goals and capabilities

• Improving efficiency and reducing effort by using automated information gathering (e.g. mining), inferencing algorithms, effective notations that exploit human visual and cognitive capabilities

• Tools that support design of modelling languages, importation/capture of relevant data, analysis, visualization, design, verification, collaboration in effective and efficient ways

Many of the presentations at the conference addressed these issues.

Other themes which were prominent and recurrent were Digital Twins and Ontologies.

Use of ontologies (and confusion over their definition!) has increased substantially. Part of the confusion arises from the use of the term in philosophy (for centuries) where it is about the existence and nature of things versus its use in computer science where it is used to mean the concepts, properties describing them, and relationships between them (in other words a domain or meta model).

Good ontologies can underpin modelling languages and models, making them more consistent, meaningful, rigorous and effective in promoting interoperability. Taxonomies (expected categories of instances in the ontology) can also accelerate data gathering, help to find redundancies and gaps. Obviously, this can improve ROME.

#enterprise #modeling #ROME

Align Your Business and I.T. Strategies Before December

Take your organisation and your team to the next level. To achieve this you need an approach that takes into account all the various dimensions and stakeholders, external and internal. One that provides you with powerful techniques and generates persuasive, actionable deliverables. One that resonates with your executives and their lived experience/domain knowledge but that also leverages technology, digital and existing I.T.

You need to have the knowledge and awareness of key trends shaping the world and industry, build skills and capability and get your team and other strategic players on the same page. We developed our Holistic Architecture Language, Business Architecture Approach and Mastery Training Programme for exactly these needs. Built on over two decades of experience with scores of clients across many industries, our approach has proven effective and efficient. Feedback from the cohorts that have attended confirms this is the most comprehensive and effective business architecture programme available. You can read some testimonials here.

Our next programme kicks off in just two weeks.

We are offering special pricing for teams attending from the same company. Please contact us for details.

We have not forgotten high powered individual consultants and niche consultancies - please also contact us to hear special pricing for you.

Business Architecture Mastery Q1-2 Wrapped

We recently wrapped up the Business Architecture Mastery Programme for the 1st & 2nd Quarter with great feedback. We had 14 delegates with a variety of backgrounds from countries including UK, Cameroon, Jamaica, South Africa and Bulgaria.

The cohort worked brilliantly and everyone benefitted from the diverse experience in the group. The format of the programme is working well and the materials and supporting text have been refined. I really enjoyed having the mix of geographies and industries, ranging from Retail, Insurance and NGO’s to Government IT and Military!

Some comments from the delegates:

““Business Architecture is a lot more than just identifying capabilities and modelling. I really appreciated how it brought a wide breadth and depth of concepts together that illustrated what Business Architecture actually entails and what impact it has.”

“Very comprehensive set of techniques and best practices, one of the main benefits was drawing on [Graham’s] wealth of experience and wisdom and really learning from the examples presented.”

“[The programme] has given an overarching view of all of the different elements that need to be set up as the organisation is growing and expanding... what are these elements that we need to put in place and consider if we want to grow in a very healthy way.”

“I also think that your course is very well-structured and it leads you over different aspects of the business architecture work and it was a pleasure for me. And thank you and all of the others attending the course, thank you.”

“So as key takeouts I will take these tools that you’ve not only presented to us but managed to teach us how to use them because most of the courses only present the tools and don’t give the chance to implement these tools and find a way to use them in your daily work.””

We believe this programme is the most comprehensive yet practical available. This was borne out by very positive comments from some very seasoned attendees who still derived major value and gained new insights.

It runs over 16 weeks with a half day live session each week. See the course page for all the details.

The next programme begins on the 21st of July, and we’d love for you to join us. Those who do will receive a 400+ page e-book on Inspired’s holistic approach to business architecture for you to keep and use as a reference in your own work.

Early Bird Discount: Book and pay before 4 July to get 10% off the price.

Consult the course page for all the details
and to make a booking

If you are intrigued to know what set of skills and knowledge we think a fully competent business architect would have, please take our free online Business Architect Competency Survey.

Get Certified in TOGAF® (even if your employer isn't supportive!)

Are you battling to get a job or the position / promotion you want during these difficult times?

TOGAF® certification is proven to improve job prospects and remuneration received in enterprise architecture roles.

To assist you during the current challenges (COVID, unemployment, business uncertainty), we are offering a significant discount to individuals on our upcoming Practical TOGAF® courses, subject to the following conditions:

• Individuals must be paying for their own tuition (i.e. not your current employer)

• Course fees must be paid in full by Friday before course attendance

• Places are still available (we limit numbers to ensure personalised attention)

Developing Economies Price (before local tax):
Normally ZAR 27000 / USD 1850
Offer Price ZAR 18 090 / USD 1240

Developed Economies Price (before local tax):
Normally USD 2500
Offer Price USD 1675

Our course is the best, most practical available and is fully accredited. You will receive full online live tuition (5 days), extensive supporting materials (including 400pp lecture notes, TOGAF® Reference, Study Guides, Examination Vouchers (Part 1 and 2, valid for a year) and other materials). Full details here.

To take advantage of this offer, book here and quote the offer, or you can contact angela@inspired.org

#enterprisearchitecture #togaf9 #certification #course #online

Want to become a Business Architect?

If you want a rapid but comprehensive course to transform you into a competent Business Architect, please read on.

Our Techniques and Deliverables of Business Architecture 5 day online live intensive course is coming up soon: 14 - 18th March 2022.

We introduced this course in 2011 and it has run to great acclaim since, training over 170 successful architects. It has been revised regularly and encapsulates leading practice. During the pandemic we have fully transformed it to run well in a remote interactive mode.

The course stresses the design of the future business enabled by technology and cognisant of all the forces shaping society, business, industry and enabled by data, digital and technology. It goes well beyond what is covered in other EA and Business Architecture methods, specifically in considering the context a business operates in and strategic factors as well as innovative product and and operating models exploiting digital opportunities.

If you are an Enterprise Architect wanting detailed techniques to meaningfully tackle business architecture, this course is ideal. It is also very suitable for senior Business Analysts transforming into an architect role. CIOs, Programme Managers and Business Strategists also benefit.

If you have previously certified in TOGAF or even the Business Architecture Guild offerings, this course still offers great value and new perspectives. The techniques have been honed by Inspired in over twenty years of consulting, training, methods development, modelling and tools implementation. A coherent and comprehensive meta model unifies techniques and integrates models, ensuring high integrity.
The course is highly interactive, hands on and leverages a challenging real world case study to reinforce learning.

The time slots are suitable for Europe, Africa and Middle East. If you fall outside these zones but are keen, please let us know. We plan to schedule a course for other time zones in the near future.

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

— Alan Kay

#businessarchitecture #businessanalysis #strategy #digitaltransformation #training

The Inspired Approach to Business Architecture

We believe:

That business architecture is bigger than popular frameworks and methods admit

That certification requires real world experience not just a body of knowledge

That the important stuff that shapes strategy is “out there” not “in here”

That innovative thinking, ethical behaviour and emerging technology can be employed to deliver desirable futures while minimising risk and avoiding negative consequences

That great strategy and designs are emergent

That good meta models provide the best basis for integration of different aspects of enterprise architecture work and with adjacent disciplines (programme management, risk, strategy, solution delivery)

I have just revised our 2012! paper on “An Inspired Approach to Business Architecture”.

Read it here.

Our Business Architect Competency Survey is now live!

Do you have all the skills/knowledge and experience required of a competent Business Architect?

Find out in our Business Architect Competency Survey, now live!

It will highlight where you shine and where you may have work to do.

Take the survey.

The survey is based on our perspective that business architects need a broad mix of skills including business understanding, contextual awareness, strategic thinking, modelling skills, persuasion skills, architecture techniques, awareness of economic, social, technology trends, knowledge of reference models, quality concepts and maturity evaluation, and appreciation of related disciplines (e.g. Risk, Programme Management, Portfolio Management etc.).

Industry knowledge, experience and continuous learning also feature.

Thanks to all who expressed interest and especially those who tested the draft version and provided valuable feedback.

Assisting Individuals in Difficult Times - TOGAF® Certification for Less

Are you battling to get a job or the position you want during these difficult times?

TOGAF® certification is proven to improve job prospects and remuneration received in enterprise architecture roles.

To assist you during the current challenging times, we are offering a 33% discount to individuals on our Practical TOGAF® course 2 - 6 August, subject to these conditions:

• Individuals must be paying for their own tuition (i.e. not your current employer)

• Course fees must be paid in full by Friday before course attendance

• Places are still available (we limit numbers to ensure personal attention)

Normal price is R27000 plus VAT. With the discount, the price is R18 090 plus VAT in SA and developing economies. Elsewhere, reduced from US$2500 to US$1675.

Our course is the best, most practical available and is fully accredited.

See the course page for all the details.

You will receive full online live tuition (5 days), extensive supporting materials (including 400p lecture notes, TOGAF(R) Reference, Study Guides, Examination Vouchers (Part 1 and 2, valid for a year) and other materials).

To take advantage of this offer, please contact angela@inspired.org.

Full Masterclass Launches February 2021

World’s first digital art museum, Tokyo

Following our successful pilot during October 2020, we can now confirm the launch of the full Masterclass programme. This is scheduled for February-June 2021 and runs over 15 weeks. It aims to be the premier Business Architecture training offering available worldwide. It will be limited to a maximum of 24 delegates to ensure an engaging and transformative experience. 

The programme leverages Inspired’s 30 year track record in the enterprise architecture, business and IT strategy, and business architecture disciplines. It offers thought leadership in the integration of business strategy, business architecture, downstream IT architecture domains (process, applications, information, technology), programme management, risk and change management. 

The Most Comprehensive Content

To impart the broadest skill set and competence.

Approaches such as TOGAF™ (The Open Group), Zachman, BizBoK (Business Architecture Guild), Business Model Canvas (Osterwalder & Pigneur), Enterprise Engineering (Dietz et al), Archimate™ (Open Group) and others all address some aspects of Business Architecture. Several have grown from the IT discipline to incorporate techniques to understand the business enough to inform IT. However, they do not provide guidance sufficient to understand the context in which business is taking place and to design a Desirable Future for the business. 

With all the change drivers in today’s world, including technology change, societal change, legislative change, political uncertainty, economic issues, climate change and a host of others (e.g pandemics), understanding external change and how to rapidly and surely transform the organisation to a desirable future is a vital need. You need an approach that recognises the challenges, understands and manages the many dimensions and complexity, and guides sound decisions that are clearly transferred into delivery. 

Includes the Following Topics

Note: We are likely to still refine this based upon pilot feedback and even your input. There is time to help us shape this into the best programme worldwide. Send us your thoughts.

• Analysing a business using decomposition/abstraction from a variety of perspectives

• Maturity/readiness models, heat maps, gap analysis

• Ontologies, Taxonomies, Meta Models, Industry Reference Models

• Context Analysis

• Interaction with the Environment and Stakeholders

• Measurement, Metrics and Business Health

• Understanding and Delivering Value

• Working Smarter not Harder• Communication, Listening, Convincing

• Data, Knowledge and Power

• Organisation Structure, Design, Emergence

• Conceiving Desirable Futures

• Understanding and Achieving Quality

• Why? Understanding Motivation. Setting Goals and tracking Achievement

• Innovation and Disruption

• Delivering Delight

• Managing Risk

• Choosing Battles, Scoping, Prioritising

The Most Engaging Delivery

The instruction is live. Lectures are delivered TED style to ensure high engagement and easy retention. Case study based assignments provide hands on learning. Rich feedback resolves any issues. Recorded material facilitates review. 

The Best Value

The programme is priced competitively, with deep discounts if you are in an emerging economy. 

Be One of the First

You have the opportunity to be in the initial group on this exciting journey.  Act quickly, though: quite a few places have already been booked by those continuing from the pilot!

Click here for course details and to register interest.

Business Architecture Masterclass Pilot is Live!

We have been engaged on our own online learning journey, expanding our knowledge of how to conceive, design, build, run and improve online training. We have adapted some of our current offerings to meet online demand in the short term. This resulted in running a successful remote delivery, but still lecture led Practical TOGAF certification course in late July. 

In parallel, we have been redesigning our forthcoming Business Architecture Masterclass for remote delivery. We have been testing ideas with alumni, experts and the market, with some very positive results. 

The first three modules of this will run in October, as a pilot, with one high value session per week. Feedback and interaction will be used to help optimise the rest of the programme, which will add a further 9-12 modules, building into an advanced body of knowledge and leading to (optional) certification. 

If you are keen to participate or find out more, please click here to read more.

We would love to have you with us on this exciting new endeavour!

Business Architecture Masterclass Morphs!

Photo credit: architizer.com

Under normal circumstances the Master Class would have had its first run this month. As we all know, these are not normal circumstances. We are entering the eighth week of a hard lockdown, with no certainty of when things will lighten up. See my recent blog here about the fact that when the pandemic eases, things will not really return to normal. We need to be ready for a new normal. Inside Inspired, we have been contemplating the situation going forward and concluded that face to face live intensive training in physical venues is likely to be problematic for some time, and may never fully recover to previous levels.

Accordingly, we are taking some of our own medicine and preparing to Leap Forward to a new normal. The Business Architecture Master Class is morphing to a remote delivery model which will run on a modular basis. This has some challenges, in that we have to redesign quite a lot of the assignments, delivery and group work to fit the new format. We want it to be at least as good an experience as our previous live courses - quite a high bar. The new format will have some advantages, including:

• Availability to geographically dispersed students

• Easier to fit into packed work schedules than taking a full week out

• No need to / expense of travel and accommodation

• Opportunity to have a more diverse student cohort

• Lower pricing, as we have savings on physical materials, venue and travel

• Opportunities to apply learning in own organisation

• Gaining skills in remote group working

The exact structure is still being finalised, but is likely to include:

• A programme over 15 weeks

• Delivered as half day (3 hour) modules that will run each week. A module will be presented at two different times. This is to accommodate different time zones and allow students two scheduling opportunities in a week

• High quality notes and references will be provided in .pdf and eBook form

• Presentations will be recorded and will remain available to students and alumni for a year

• Group and individual assignments will be

  • Reviewed as live presentations during sessions and/or

  • Reviewed by instructor/coach following electronic submission

There is time for you to provide feedback and suggestions before we commence. Please let us know what you think. We have some ideas for rewarding top performing students too, even during the programme.

Note too, that we will be including post COVID Leap Forward thinking and the unique readiness assessment in the programme. This is a powerful way to analyse your organisation, its industry and positioning and its fit to a New Normal world. Having identified the areas requiring change, the techniques would help you design a desirable future where your organisation can make the necessary changes / pivot to thrive in challenging new circumstances.

At this stage we are anticipating an August launch.

We look forward to the journey with you.

To register your interest and provide feedback, click here.

Please feel free to share this post with colleagues and others who may be interested.

Let's Shape Desirable Futures

Graham McLeod

Alan Kay famously said: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it”. As a key mind behind global phenomena including the Internet, Object Oriented Programming, Graphical User Interfaces and the use of computers in education, he should know. His PhD thesis in 1968, the “Dynabook”, is partially realised today as the iPad. But vision is not enough, it has to be followed by invention. In business terms that translates to strategy, architecture, innovation and design. 

Join us in our Business Architecture Master Class, coming this May. We have condensed decades of research, experience, practice and techniques, including (b)leading edge techniques addressing topics such as business/IT/Digital Technology alignment, Blue Ocean strategy, exponential technologies, AI/deep learning, Internet of Things, blockchain and digital business models with proven thinking and modelling tools such as systems thinking, design thinking, decomposition, abstraction, inferencing and lateral thinking. 

Integrate dimensions of value delivery, product, channels, process, service, capability, function, applications, information and technology with business models and organisation structure.

The Master Class uses innovative delivery including “TED-like” talks, video, focussed facilitation sessions and student challenges to fully engage participants and accelerate learning. Being a Master Class, we will be challenging you to work at a higher level using models, meta models, ontologies and taxonomies and adapting these to meet the unique needs of your organisations and current challenges. We will show how you can stay agile but integrated and sustainable, while reusing existing assets, driving change programmes and managing risk. 

I will also be sharing fruits from my research into design of visual languages and insights on how to achieve effective communication and persuasion to ensure the invention efforts pay off in the real world. 

Be one of the first to be certified and take away valuable models, skills and techniques from a unique experience. Please register your interest here. Participation limited to 25 delegates.

Read the announcement.

The Inspired Holistic Architecture Language©

Inspired pioneered the use of meta model driven EA Frameworks from the early 1990’s, providing one of the earliest integrated EA frameworks across business, applications, information and technology. The meta model driven approach has many advantages, including:

• Clear definition of concepts so they are consistently used across definitions, documents, models and stakeholder communities

• Facilitates integration of information from different domains and gathered by different analysts

• Eases scoping of EA Assignments by allowing rapid identification of data required to answer critical questions

• Integrates models from different perspectives to provide rigour, identify gaps and provide more insights without more effort

• Captures much higher semantic content (meaning) than unstructured document based approaches

Over the years we have refined and extended this framework, incorporating ideas required by many (>70) client assignments/implementations as well as emerging thinking from other frameworks and languages, including IAF, TOGAF, FEAF, Zachman, Archimate, PEAF and others. Other extensions added Application Portfolio Management (APM), Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) and Programme Management into the mix. This was supported by academic work in integrated frameworks, collaborative modelling and meta modelling.

Associated tooling, in the form of EVA, provided support for a central repository accessible to all stakeholders via the web and desktop modelling component. EVA grew in capabilities too, to support planning via Canvasses (ala Osterwalder ), customised portals (e.g. for APM) and sophisticated visualisations to gain new insights. 

Graham McLeod has been conducting research (including towards a PhD ) on integration of methods, meta models and visual languages for a number of years. With colleagues, especially Charles Edwards, he now introduces a new, integrated, comprehensive and holistic meta model supporting strategy, enterprise architecture (business, process, security, information, technology domains) as well as the aspect of organisational change (motivations, programmes, projects etc. ). The meta model is mapped to a consistent visual language that is suitable for use with all stakeholders. 

The new framework, meta models and visual language are already finding its first application in client projects and are proving very capable and effort effective. 

If you would like to know more, please contact us using this form.

IAF = Integrated Architecture Framework from Cap Gemini

TOGAF™ = The Open Group Architecture Framework from the Open Group

FEAF = Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework from the US Government

Zachman = Zachman Frameworks from John Zachman and the Zachman Institute for Framework Advancement

Archimate™ = Archimate EA Modeling Language from the Open Group

PEAF = Pragmatic EA Framework from Kevin Lee Smith

EVA = Enterprise Value Architect from Inspired

Introducing the Business Architecture Master Class

Are you involved in shaping strategy?

Inspired pioneered business architecture (in the form of integrated business strategy and strategic IT planning) as far back as 1989. We continued to evolve methods, techniques, frameworks and meta models to effectively deliver business value. Tools followed to support the techniques and collaboration while generating new insights through inference and visualisation. We introduced our Techniques and Deliverables of Business Architecture training in 2011. This has run over 40 times to wide acclaim, while evolving over the years to incorporate cloud, digital, user experience, exponential organisations, design thinking, digital currency, internet of things and many other innovations. 

In 2019, we revised our frameworks and meta model resulting in the new Inspired Holistic Architecture Language©. Now, in 2020, we are launching our Business Architecture Master Class. This condenses key elements of the Techniques and Deliverables course in its latest incarnation and goes further to challenge delegates with ground breaking research and practice as it is applied by the most innovative and successful organisations. It covers “Meta” architecture skills such as tailoring frameworks, using meta models and leveraging abstraction and reference models. 

The master class will be led by our Founder/Chief Architect, Graham McLeod, with 18 years of academic work and 30 years of application across more than 60 organisations behind it. Graham has engaged in ground breaking research in enterprise modelling and design of supporting visual languages and tools over the last six years. 

If you want to shape Desirable Futures, join today’s CIOs, Chief Strategy Officers, hands on CEOs and Senior Business Architects and be there. Coming in late May. Participation limited to a maximum of 25 delegates. To register your interest click here.