Everybody within an organization needs to take a cyber security first approach to everything they do and every decision they make. Organizations have rolled out very basic cyber security awareness training that’s required pretty regularly, but I’ve found that the […]
Consulting
Establishing Effective Architecture Practices
in recent articles, I’ve written about good and bad practices as well as what could be conceived as bad practices or anti-patterns coming from architects. At face value, it’s not the full story and may only be a few aspects, […]
Architecture Strategy for Meeting Performance NFRs within a Digital Transformation
Identifying your most important NFRs is important as early as possible in your digital transformation journey. Good architects make sure there are no disconnects here. “Performance” is one such NFR that requires a broad and clear understanding across your entire […]
Architects, Blind Spots, and Things That Go Wrong
A good architect can see how something would work and also how it might not work. It’s the gaps and the blind spots in a seemingly good architecture that will completely de-rail an entire program. Gaps in an architecture sometimes […]
Overcoming Confirmation Bias
When we need to make decisions it is temping to interpret, favour, and recall information that conforms to pre-existing beliefs or hypotheses. This is universally known as ‘confirmation bias’ and if not left in check leads to faulty decision making […]
An Architect Must Be A Fiduciary
Although they are not typically bound by a regulatory body, Enterprise and Solution Architects should always take on a fiduciary responsibility and commitment to the organizations they work and partner with — this especially goes for consultants, recruiters, and professional […]
The Gatekeeper
I was talking with a friend of mine recently who’s a key player on a major supply chain project. He’s encountering something that I’ve seen before manifested in different ways. He wants to participate in a key meeting, but the […]
Clearing up Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Confusion
As I work with different teams, there is often some confusion about what people mean when they say “DR”. Team discussions will delve into RPO, RTO, Backup, High Availability, and Business Continuity. Unfortunately, these concepts get mixed up and confused […]
Using Kevin O’Leary’s Advice on Deal Making Inside the Organization
Staunch American capitalist Kevin O’Leary once said, “the very best deals are when you feel you left something on the table, and the other side feels the same way”. He made this statement back in 2020, and it has stayed […]
Setting Yourself Up to Become a Solution Architect
There are a few different path’s I’ve seen people take to grow into architecture roles, and many people will grow into an architect role from more senior technical SME roles (senior developer, development leader, infrastructure leader, etc). It’s not always […]