The growing interdependency of our systems is driving us from a simple environment towards a highly complex environment. This is leading to a strategy of choosing from many good solutions where no perfect solution is obtainable. Enterprise Architecture (and the other architecture practices) can help sort those good solutions and help make sure the choice you make is along the path to desired future state.

 
 
I’ve been working with our CIO on the I.T. strategic planning initiative.  At the same time, I’ve been working with the Technical Directors and Operational Directors on planning at the technology level.  They have been creating a map of what technologies are used to support our services.  I’ve had my head in the blue sky [...]

 
Brick diagrams are a strategic planning tool that I mentioned in passing in my ITANA talk at EDUCAUSE.  Since then, I’ve had several people ask for more information.  So here it is… more information.
 
Brick Diagrams are used by NIH in their Enterprise Architecture planning process.  You can see the NIH brick diagrams and their taxonomy [...]

Robert Handler of Gartner is presenting.
This is one of seven Key Initiatives for Enterprise Architecture.
“Failure to… change the behavior of others leads to failure itself”.  You must understand the people aspects and you must sell EA to succeed.
They had 600+ clients take a maturity survey to see where they are at in the area of [...]

Digital neighborhoods seem like a powerful tool for discussing technology and its impact on users (students, staff, researchers, etc) and the concept adds interesting new requirements to projects. Getting a good understanding of your users’ digital neighborhoods can guide design and deployment of new technologies and help predict impacts on the users themselves. [...]

Below is a repackaged copy of my “Enterprise Architecture in Academic Environments” presentation that I gave at EDUCAUSE Mid-West Regional Conference 2008. It is packaged as a Quicktime Movie.
Enterprise Architecture in Academic Environments