Welcome to Our Investigative Architecture Training!
We are very busy right now, refining our Investigative Architecture Workshop scheduled for next month.
Investigative Architecture is the term we coined back in 2008 for our approach that facilitates the rapid assessment and documentation of ‘as-is’ and proposed IT architectures. Read more
Measure Thrice, Cut Once
Make sure that your designs are accurate. Read more
Goal Oriented Diagrams
A few years back we presented for the first time at the Open Group Architecture Practitioners Conference in Miami, FL. I spoke about a topic about which we are passionate: UML as an Enterprise Architecture diagramming notation. Read more
Not Convinced Yet? More Reasons to Diagram with UML
We have found UML to be an extremely powerful tool and frequently use it to understand problems, design solutions, and broker stakeholder agreement.
I previously shared the fundamental reasons why we use UML, and wanted to share some additional reasons we find it to be an enabler for creating top-quality architecture diagrams: Read more
“Zoom in” & “Zoom out” with UML
In architecture diagramming – its all about Scope.
Too often diagrams are stuffed to the brim with content in a desperate attempt to show a complete architecture. Instead, Systems Flow’s approach values clarity over completeness. It is more important to focus the lens of your diagram on on what is architecturally significant.
Using our preferred architecture notation (UML), its easy to “zoom in”, “zoom out” or – for that matter – zoom “left” or “right” on an architecture.
Here are some examples of different scoping levels using the same UML component diagram notation:
Investigative Architecture – Read the Tea Leaves of Your Enterprise
A foundational skill for an architect is the ability to rapidly assess and document “as is” and proposed solution architectures. The challenge lies in the typical state of enterprise knowledge regarding the systems – a myriad of internal and external information sources at all levels of quality and completeness. Rapidly converting this sea of information into usable knowledge requires a repeatable, structured approach for gathering information from internal stakeholders and documents, as well as performing focused research for publicly-available product and industry information. This is the Investigative Architecture approach. Read more
Why We Use UML
Our team has experienced great success with visual modeling based on the Unified Modeling Language. I am not going to define UML nor describe its origin in any detail, – you can review the UML section of our Leveraging UML as a Standard Notation for Enterprise Architecture presentation for that – but instead focus on what we perceive to be the foundation benefits of choosing UML as our “go to” diagramming notation.
Creating Clear Diagrams
We use diagrams to understand, resolve, and communicate on a daily basis. Given their primary role in most of our techniques, it is critical that we be able to create some clear diagrams. Here are some tips, if you want to improve your diagramming-fu.
Getting Started with Artifacts
It can often be a challenge to demonstrate value the first time you introduce the concept of capturing and using artifacts – particularly where people aren’t in the habit of producing or using them. You may find yourself wondering where to start. You can demonstrate early value by using artifacts to identify scope, encourage feedback, and guide discovery: Read more