Preach What You Practice

The complexity of information projects (1/5)

Never before has there been such intense interest in data. At the same time, expectations about what you can do with data have also never been quite so overheated. Over the years, the recurring complaint of managers has been the question: Why does it take so long to make information available? The recurring complaint of many... keep on reading

Secured Data Container method, a pragmatic approach for dealing with sensitive data in a BI environment

Processing sensitive data is a challenge in most BI environments. You can categorise sensitive data into business sensitive data and data subject to compliance. Business sensitive data is marked as sensitive by the owners of the data. An example is cost price calculations. Legislation drives what data is subject to... keep on reading

Gartner’s logical data warehouse: my interpretation of a concept

I’ve always regarded Gartner’s logical data warehouse as a conceptual framework: food for thought. It is both the accumulation of observations made on how organizations have shifted their data management practices as well as a discussion paper on what is required of modern data management for analytics. The logical data... keep on reading

Why I still label myself as a Business Intelligence Architect

I still label myself as a Business Intelligence architect and I’m proud of that. Over the last 20 years, BI practitioners have gathered a body of knowledge of effective methods to enable people to create value in their businesses or services, by using information. That’s what BI is about. The origin of that information,... keep on reading

Conclusion of the agile with architecture series (7/7)

Agility, based on the principles of the Agile Manifesto is a pragmatic approach to progress in an unknown world. Dave Thomas explains the essence (blog, video): What to do: Find out where you are Take a small step towards your goal Adjust your understanding based on what you learned Repeat How to do it:When faced... keep on reading

Formalizing governance: “Agile with architecture” (6/7)

Working with other people is at the core of every agile methodology. In the previous articles, I’ve explored the role of architecture in setting up this cooperation and how you, as an architect, can, in my opinion, successfully contribute. Cooperation alone is not sufficient however. Imagine that you need to work in a project... keep on reading

The impact of the cultural values of agility: architecture thinking (5/7)

“Individuals and interactions above processes and tools” Empowering people means giving them autonomy. But autonomy often leads to coordination problems. To prevent everyone autonomously choosing a different direction, it is necessary to focus the collective energies. The role of architecture in an agile organisation is... keep on reading

An architect’s attitude in an Agile world (4/7)

Working with Agile requires architects to have a specific mindset towards their work. It is not just about doing it in an agile way, but mainly about being agile, as an attitude. On the one hand, you are ensuring agility by providing a framework, on the other hand, you are often a pioneer for change. This is true of the... keep on reading

Agile and architecture (3/7)

The focus of the previous articles in this section was the need for agility and the role which architecture and architects play in developing the evolutionary path of the organisation. But what is the relationship between Agile and architecture? The starting point for Agile is the Agile Manifesto. The Agile Manifesto is... keep on reading

The architect as explorer on the evolutionary path (2/7)

Agility has become more important than ever for organisations. The arrival of the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1993 was the start of a technology push which has accelerated exponentially over the last few years. A combination of strongly decreasing prices for computational power and data storage and the availability of internet as a... keep on reading