Hi, Ernst here. I help organizations reach their digital potential by solving strategic IT questions. My goal is to change enterprise architecture and agile delivery to make more impact.
In this blog, I write about the human side of real-world information technology transformation. Thanks for reading!
Kids with a parent who works as a consultant grow up with strange perspectives. Monopoly games come with Net Present Value analysis on potential hotel acquisitions; science fair projects with kick-ass hypotheses and massive amounts of data to back them up. But also, mom or dad consultant is away a lot, visiting faraway clients, missing key moments. Too many conversations by phone or video call...
Prototyping is the transition from talking about it, to doing just enough of it to see where it takes our ideas. Not until we build a semblance of our solution can we test to see if our ideas stick. Prototyping drives the feedback loop and becomes the launch point for ideas we want to invest in. Where does prototyping fit? In Design Thinking, we progress through: Empathy to understand our users...
The old school project/program/portfolio management office (PMO) is a relic from the command-and-control models of the past. It worked well for managing predictable solutions. But it’s where agility and innovation dies. Bring on the revolution. Recognize This? When I see old school PMOs (and these are more common than you think), I see: A drive for compliance with processes and standards...
The notion of the application as the best way to package software capabilities is losing relevance. Digital business cuts across application functions, inside and outside the organization. Modern value streams require breaking up application capabilities and dynamically reassembling the digital assets like Sir Mixalot. Remember the Album? Before music streaming, the album was the dominant...
Design thinking is a widely used “outside-in” approach to develop great user experiences. It’s about time that building the API experience, as the gateway to a business’ digital assets, follows the lead. Let’s Talk Humans interact with computer applications through a user interface. This could be a screen and keyboard, swiping on a mobile phone, or speech recognition like Siri or...
Indiana Jones had it easy. Most of the artifacts he encountered were tangible. An exploration of ancient applications is like software archaeology, complete with phantoms, dark spells, and riddles. Ah, the joy of legacy modernization. What is Legacy Anyway? One of the fun facts of digital transformation is that organizations depend on existing applications for their would-be shiny digital assets...
Emerging architecture is a characteristic of agile software development. Instead of the Big Design Up-Front, software architecture emerges along with development activities. This becomes difficult for large projects, so enterprise agile approaches balance forward thinking with the rapid development of features that create business value. With a bit of planning, an architecture focus doesn’t...
Lots of words, little impact. The outcome of consulting engagements is often shelfware and fails to make a real difference. It’s like generating electricity from a potato: it sounds good, but it doesn’t accomplish much. Let’s supercharge it. One Potato, Two Potato Did you know you can stick a galvanized nail and a copper penny in a potato and produce electricity? Neither did I...
Agile projects are a dance between the business and project teams. While many organizations use agile approaches, too often, adoption is limited to the mechanical process. There is a lack of real commitment from the business. But it takes two to agile tango. The Requirements Shuffle Traditional project management approaches are sequential. They are also based on the fallacy that business and the...
Cloud platform services continue to expand. There is a growing opportunity to accelerate application development with Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offerings. Some organizations take advantage of these to cut down coding and dealing with application infrastructure. Others… not so much. The old Not-Invented-Here syndrome is alive and well. Well-established technology teams often don’t...
