Technology Strategy Patterns: Architecture as Strategy

by Eben Hewitt

Overview

Technologists who want their ideas heard, understood, and funded are often told to speak the language of business—without really knowing what that is. This book's toolkit provides architects, product managers, technology managers, and executives with a shared language—in the form of repeatable, practical patterns and templates—to produce great technology strategies.

Author Eben Hewitt developed 39 patterns over the course of a decade in his work as CTO, CIO, and chief architect for several global tech companies. With these proven tools, you can define, create, elaborate, refine, and communicate your architecture goals, plans, and approach in a way that executives can readily understand, approve, and execute.

This book covers:

• Architecture and strategy: Adopt a strategic architectural mindset to make a meaningful material impact
• Creating your strategy: Define the components of your technology strategy using proven patterns
• Communicating the strategy: Convey your technology strategy in a compelling way to a variety of audiences
• Bringing it all together: Employ patterns individually or in clusters for specific problems; use the complete framework for a comprehensive strategy

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781492040873
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/25/2018
Pages:	300
Sales rank:	820,367
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Eben Hewitt is CTO at Sabre Hospitality, a global technology company. He has led tech organizations as Chief Architect, CIO, and CTO. He is the author of Cassandra: The Definitive Guide, and several other books on architecture, services, and software development.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Introduction xv

Part I Context: Architecture and Strategy

The Origins of Patterns 1

Applying the Patterns 2

1 Architect and Strategist 3

Business Strategies 3

The Architect's Role 7

The Strategist's Role 15

Summary 21

Part II Creating the Strategy

A Logical Architecture of the Creation Patterns 23

2 Analysis 27

MECE 29

Logic Tree 37

Hypothesis 41

Strategic Analysis as Machine Learning 66

Summary 67

3 World Context 69

Pestel 70

Scenario Planning 77

Futures Funnel 80

Backcasting 83

Summary 85

4 Industry Context 87

Swot 87

Porter's Five Forces 89

Ansoff Growth Matrix 95

Summary 97

5 Corporate Context 99

Stakeholder Alignment 99

Raci 108

Life Cycle Stage 111

Value Chain 116

Growth-Share Matrix 124

Core/Innovation Wave 126

Investment Map 130

Summary 132

6 Department Context 133

Principles, Practices, Tools 133

Application Portfolio Management 146

Summary 158

Part III Communicating the Strategy

7 Approach Patterns 161

30-Second Answer 161

Rented Brain 163

Ars Rhetorica 167

Fait Accompli 174

Dramatic Structure 179

Deconstruction 185

Scalable Business Machines 194

Summary 211

8 Templates 213

One-Slider 214

Use Case Map 217

Directional Costing 218

Priority Map 226

Technology Radar 227

Build/Buy/Partner 229

Due Diligence 232

Architecture Definition 235

Summary 250

9 Decks 253

Ghost Deck 253

Ask Deck 256

Strategy Deck 259

Roadmap 260

Tactical Plan 261

10 Bringing It All Together 265

Patterns Map 265

Conclusion 267

A Recommended Reading 269

Index 271