A blueprint for solving problems in your IT architecture

An IT architecture is a series of principles, guidelines, drawings, standards, and rules that guide an organization through acquiring, building, modifying, and interfacing IT resources. These resources include hardware, software, communication protocols, application development methodologies, database systems, modeling tools, IT organizational structures, data, and more. It should provide a purposeful and executable design so that you know what you need to build, what you are actually building, and how you can make transformations at maximum speed with minimal cost and disruption. Blueprints visualize and communicate that design by illustrating architectural adaptability points. They are the focal point for understanding the relationships between IT assets and for changing those relationships. Many companies end up with an architectural mess because they never institute a clear and manageable architecture definition. They take isolated actions under the rubric of architecture, but never institute effective ways to govern, change, and record architecture. The article gives advice on how to achieve effective IT architecture management     

Redesigning the it Organization for the Information Age

Organizational design is a critical facilitator of strategic information age initiatives. Yet traditional IT structures are misaligned with the information age because they cannot cope with continual change and the rapid horizontal introduction and utilization of gregarious information technologies. An organizational structure that combines the ideas of minibusinesses and the internal marketplace can provide a dynamic balance between stability and productivity and flexibility and innovation, replace a history of episodic and misguided restructuring with continuous restructuring, and position the IT organization to fulfill its strategic potential.