Preview published: February 2012

Download: free – click here (PDF, 1.29 MB).

Restrictions:

• no printing
• no copying or extraction
• annotation is allowed

Full title: The Enterprise As Story: the role of narrative in enterprise-architecture

Published: January 2012

ISBN: 978-1-906681-34-0

Price: £25.00

Preview: see:

• e-book sample
  note: until 30 April 2012 the ‘preview’ contains the full e-book content; a sample-version with less content will be available thereafter

Buy print edition from:

• Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Borders and other online and independent retailers

Buy e-book edition from:

• Leanpub – EPUB, MOBI (for Kindle) and portrait-format PDF

Most current approaches to enterprise-architecture describe everything in terms of structure. Yet people work better with story than with structure – and people are the enterprise. As we expand the architecture towards a true whole-of-enterprise scope, we need to describe the enterprise as story. Story is everywhere in the architecture – even the enterprise itself is a story.

This ground-breaking book places story at centre-stage for the architecture, itself using a narrative structure to explore the role of narrative in enterprise-architecture. Via business story-structures such as the Market-Cycle, and genres such as We Sell Certainty, it shows how stories underpin every aspect of the enterprise – and how we can use story within the architecture to enhance overall enterprise effectiveness.

Topics covered include:

• how to use story and narrative to assist in sensemaking for architecture
• how to create engagement in the architecture through story
• how to balance structure and story for better business results
• how to identify and use business-story genres to guide overall architecture
• how to change the organisation’s relationships with its ‘anti-clients’ from business-risk to business-opportunity
• how to use story-patterns to identify and resolve strategic business-issues
• how to leverage your own experience to create stronger architecture stories

If you want to create real engagement in the architecture and the enterprise, this is one book you’ll definitely need.

Tom Graves has been an independent consultant for more than three decades, in business transformation, enterprise architecture and knowledge management. His clients in Europe, Australasia and the Americas cover a broad range of industries including banking, utilities, manufacturing, logistics, engineering, media, telecoms, research, defence and government. He has a special interest in architecture for non-IT-centric enterprises, and integration between IT-based and non-IT-based services.

The Tetradian Enterprise Architecture Series presents new developments on theory, principles and practice of enterprise architecture – moving beyond IT to the whole enterprise.

Full title: Yabbies – a novel (Fragments: possession, passion and purpose)

Published: June 2011

ISBN: 978-1-906681-32-6

Price: £9.95

Preview: see:

• e-book sample
  note: until 31 December 2011 the ‘preview’ contains the full e-book content; a sample-version with less content will be available thereafter

Buy print edition from:

• Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Borders and other online and independent retailers

Buy e-book edition from:

• (coming soon)

“Yabbies. Funny little things, all in their own world at the bottom of the dam. A bit like us, ain’t they? Can’t see a thing for all the mud in the water; bits and pieces drift down, in any old order, all out of sequence, an’ we have to make sense of them as best we can.”

This unusual novel explores ideas about sustainability from a different angle: that we can’t achieve a sustainable world without a system of law that fully supports it. To make that happen, we would need truly revolutionary change in the way we see our world: a refocus of passion from possession to purpose. In some ways, as one of the characters here explains, we may not have much choice:

“The whole system is so fragile that there’s a real risk it could collapse at any time, in a really big way. Those problems are inherent in the system, so to speak, so that the whole thing is held together by little more than wishful thinking.”

But what would happen if only some countries made that change – and others didn’t? What would happen to trade, to international relations, to everyday living? How would they deal with each other’s business-visitors, or tourists? Yabbies explores these themes through story-fragments, each piece as if drifting down to us through the waters of time, different characters describing their own worlds and experiences each in their own unique voice. And perhaps a little magic, too.

Yabbies first appeared more than a decade ago as YABI – Yet Another Book Idea. Although it has taken many forms over the years, as an interactive website, screenplay, annotated text and more, this is its first time available as a conventional novel. This new edition includes a background section on the ideas and principles behind the story, and also a suggested timeline to link the fragments together.

Author Tom Graves is best known as a writer on a broad range of non-fiction topics – from the structure of organisations to the structure of magic, and much more besides. He applies the same perceptive eye and acerbic humour to this story, using fiction to explore some of the deep-questions and ‘undiscussable’ themes of the present day.

Preview e-book of Yabbies – a novel (contents and sample chapters)

Preview published: June 2011

Download: free – click here (PDF, 1.29 MB).

Restrictions:

• no printing
• no copying or extraction
• annotation is allowed

Two-page summary of Enterprise Canvas model from Mapping the Enterprise – use this as a reference sheet whilst working.

Published: 04 December 2010

Download: free – click here (PDF, 295.19 KB).
Restrictions:

• printing is allowed
• no copying or extraction
• annotation is allowed

Preview published: November 2010

Download: free – click here (PDF, 2.29 MB).

Restrictions:

• no printing
• no copying or extraction
• annotation is allowed

Full title: Mapping the enterprise: modelling the enterprise as services with the Enterprise Canvas

Published: November 2010

ISBN: 978-1-906681-26-5

Price: £25.00

Preview: see:

• e-book sample
  note: until 31 December 2010 the ‘preview’ contains the full e-book content; a sample-version with less content will be available thereafter
• reference-sheet for Enterprise Canvas model

Buy print edition from:

• Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Borders and other online and independent retailers

Buy e-book edition from:

• Leanpub – EPUB, MOBI (for Kindle) and portrait-format PDF

For strategists, enterprise architects and others, one of the hardest tasks is we face is mapping the enterprise in a form that creates and supports a sense of the whole as a whole. And it’s a task that’s often made harder by the way in which so many current model-types seem only to fragment the view ever further.

This book introduces an alternate approach: we create consistency at every level by modelling the enterprise as services with the Enterprise Canvas. It’s a new model-type that can be used to describe just about anything in any part and at any level of the enterprise, and that acts as a consistent frame for all the other models that we need in our architectures. Yet it’s also simple enough to scribble on the back of a napkin – and engage all of our stakeholders in the enterprise-scale conversations we need.

Topics covered include:

• how to use architecture techniques to describe any aspect of the enterprise
• how to identify the business-reasons and business-value for every activity
• how to align strategy, tactics and operations to enterprise vision and values
• how to identify risks and opportunities in the enterprise and its market
• how to link strategy and execution via enterprise models
• how to improve communication between different departments and disciplines
• how to use concepts of service to enhance agility, adaptability and resilience
• how to enhance efficiency and effectiveness throughout the enterprise

If you want to understand and explain how your enterprise really works, this is one book you’ll definitely need.

Tom Graves has been an independent consultant for more than three decades, in business transformation, enterprise architecture and knowledge management. His clients in Europe, Australasia and the Americas cover a broad range of industries including banking, utilities, manufacturing, logistics, engineering, media, telecoms, research, defence and government. He has a special interest in architecture for non-IT-centric enterprises, and integration between IT-based and non-IT-based services.

The Tetradian Enterprise Architecture Series presents new developments on theory, principles and practice of enterprise architecture – moving beyond IT to the whole enterprise.

Preview published: April 2010

Download: free – click here (PDF, 2.7 MB).

Restrictions:

• no printing
• no copying or extraction
• annotation is allowed

Full title: Everyday Enterprise Architecture: sensemaking, strategy, structures and solutions

Published: April 2010

ISBN: 978-1-906681-24-1

Price: £25.00

Preview: see:

• e-book sample
  note: until 22 May 2010 the ‘preview’ contains the full e-book content; a sample-version with less content will be available thereafter

Buy print edition from:

• Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Borders and other online and independent retailers

Buy e-book edition from:

• Leanpub – EPUB, MOBI (for Kindle) and portrait-format PDF

All of architecture comes down to one simple idea: things work better when they work together, with clarity, with elegance, on purpose. Yet how do we express that ‘one idea’ in practice, within our organisations? With what results, and for what business-value? This book describes the down-to-earth detail of everyday enterprise architecture, to show what architects actually do to deliver value fast, across the entire enterprise.

Working step by step through a real ten-day architecture-project, this book explores the activities that underpin sensemaking, strategy, structures and solutions in the real-time turmoil of an enterprise-architect’s everyday work.

Topics covered include:

• how to use enterprise-architecture to tackle executive-level business-problems
• how to develop an agile architecture practice that can keep pace with the real-time pressures of the real business world
• how to identify the business-reasons and business-value for each activity
• how to thrive on the inherent uncertainties of the architecture process
• how to use context-space maps to guide sensemaking and solution-design
• how to apply architecture ideas and activities to describe what actually happens in a real enterprise-architecture project
• how to enhance architectural skills, judgement and awareness, for continuous improvement across the enterprise and in the architecture itself

If you want your enterprise to flourish and prosper in the midst of relentless change, this is one book you’ll definitely need.

Tom Graves has been an independent consultant for more than three decades, in business transformation, enterprise architecture and knowledge management. His clients in Europe, Australasia and the Americas cover a broad range of industries including banking, utilities, manufacturing, logistics, engineering, media, telecoms, research, defence and government. He has a special interest in architecture for non-IT-centric enterprises, and integration between IT-based and non-IT-based services.

E-book of Wombat & Cockie

Published: 26 June 2009

Download: free – click here (PDF, 575.88 KB).

Restrictions:

• no printing
• no copying or extraction
• annotation allowed