Investigative Architecture: The Data Perspective

July 31, 2011

“Investigative Architecture” is a term we at Systems Flow coined a few years ago for a core, overarching discipline of ours. It describes – and prescribes – the sometimes tedious, but always challenging, process that a working architect employs to locate and absorb information about a problem space in order to create usable, professional visual work products that best communicate a solution. Read more



Goal Oriented Diagrams

April 25, 2011

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

April 1, 2011

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

March 25, 2011

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:

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