Welcome to Real Talk with Sam Holcman - where we stop confusing activity with progress and start talking about how businesses actually work.

Today I want to talk about something touchy in the Business Architecture world: the difference between belonging to a club and practicing a discipline. Specifically, the world of the Business Architecture Guild® and its BIZBOK® Guide on one side… and BACOE, the Business Architecture Center Of Excellence, on the other.

Ontologies=Architecture Flows and Hierarchies = Implementation. It is not one or the other – it is both for Enterprise Architecture or Business Architecture. If your Enterprise or Business Architecture efforts are not getting the results or recognition you believe should be there, it is highly likely that what are presenting is not architecture and is not human consumable. It is never too late to get on the Architecture track to add to the Implementation architectures you have in your portfolio. Listen in for some hints!

The latest published statistics are documenting a digital transformation failure rate of between seventy and ninety five percent. WOW! We suggest a “Succeed-Fast” approach that is Business-Goal aligned. Select areas that are most critical/important to the organization, which will engage the stakeholders directly due to their interest in a specific area. It does take a bit more “architecture”, as incremental transformation requires a baseline to ensure each increment amplifies the overall benefit and does not cause unintended consequences.

Have any "grey-haired" people in your Organization? Perhaps you should talk to them about the Silver Bullet already available in most Organizations - Mainframes and liquid cooling. Rethinking Artificial Intelligence in the midst of a bit of a fade that already is present.

Business Architecture is often misunderstood and incorrectly categorized as a mere component of Enterprise Architecture. This concise exploration aims to dispel the marketing hype and provide clarity on this crucial yet frequently misinterpreted field.

There are several phases that we suggest organizations need to work though, to get to, what the organization considers is digital transformation. You sort of have a hint in this first sentence – what is the end state you desire to achieve through this effort. From that understanding, then look at business changes possibly required – especially process changes. Then go on to technology. Yes, there is a whole lot more! But this will get you started.

This Broadcast will define and describe a Framework for Business Architecture or Enterprise Architecture. From that understanding, we will provide three examples of Frameworks in other professions to provide a context as to what is needed for a Business Architecture Framework or an Enterprise Architecture Framework.

Today’s Broadcast. Billions were wasted, companies bankrupted, and governments embarrassed - all because of something we take for granted: software.

This article is based on an outstanding article titled “Why Software Fails” by Robert N. Charette, in IEEE Spectrum, December 2025.

You have probably heard the old saying “software is eating the world.” But what happens when software eats itself?