Best of StraightTalk 2020

Published

13 February 2021

Updated

14 March 2021

It’s time to look back on another year of StraightTalk! This is the time when we reflect and recognize your most favorite content from 2020.

We launched StraightTalk on April 3, 2017, with a mission to explain business architecture from end-to-end, with the goal of helping to advance the discipline globally through shared knowledge. Going on four years later, that mission is being realized. StraightTalk is read by business architecture practitioners, leaders, and advocates across six continents. People are using the StraightTalk content to build their careers, build their practices, socialize the discipline and infuse new ideas into their spheres of influence. It has helped people to learn business architecture, align with the most recent thought, think bigger, and be part of a global community with a shared mindset.

To all of you who subscribe, read and share the blog with others — Thank You for being on this journey with us. As we always say, StraightTalk exists for you and because of you. It is an honor to be a part of your journeys, whether you are a business architecture professional, an organization that is establishing a business architecture practice, or someone who is just passionate about learning more. We will continue to push the boundaries of thought leadership, bring us all together, and delight you with new surprises around the corner.

Keep reading, keep sharing, keep talking to us, and keep up your incredible passion and action to make a difference every day with business architecture!

In This Collection

The results are in! What follows is a compilation of your favorite StraightTalk posts, diagrams, inspirational quotes and more — all based on your personal feedback and analytics gathered from our website, social media presence and other sources.

The Best StraightTalk Posts

Here were some of your favorite blog posts from 2020:

Woman speaking into a megaphone but her shadow shows her holding her index finger to her mouth, "Shhhh"

The Secret: What Business Architecture Is Really About and Why It Can Be So Hard

StraightTalk Post

Figure drawing bridge walking over cliff gap

Crystal Clear – How To Translate Strategy With Business Architecture

StraightTalk Post

Icon showing businessman and chart with yellow bubbles

Taking Initiative: How to Leverage Business Architecture for Initiative Planning

StraightTalk Post

Mind The Gap: How Business Architecture Breaks Down and Bridges Silos

StraightTalk Post

Masthead graphic depicting business people assembling giant puzzle pieces

Partners In Change: How Change Management and Business Architecture Work Together

StraightTalk Post

Icon showing hand holding magnifying glass examining block representing business model

Business Models Through the Business Architecture Looking Glass – Creating and Using Business Models from a Business Architecture Perspective

StraightTalk Post

The Best StraightTalk Podcasts

We were joined by an incredibly talented and insightful group of experts that brought fresh and cutting edge perspectives in their areas of expertise. Here were our guest stars and their podcasts which informed and inspired us:

20-Minutes With Gary Wright: The Concept of Life Architecture

Podcast

20-Minutes With Mike Clark: How Organizations Can Manage the Unexpected By Leveraging Business Design

Podcast

10-Minutes With Mike Rosen: How Business Architecture and BizOps Improve Business Outcomes

Podcast

10-Minutes with Ken Williams: How Change Management and Business Architecture Work Together to Help Organizations

Podcast

The Best StraightTalk Inspirational Quotes

Here are some favorite quotes that inspired and motivated you within the spirit of business architecture, from our podcast guests and other thought leaders.

“Our society must move from ego-system to eco-system economics. This requires that we shift from ego-system silos to eco-system awareness that considers others and includes the whole.”

Otto Scharmer, Blog Post No. 68

“If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.”

Joseph Campbell, Blog Post No. 71

“If you don't know why you do what you do, and people respond to why you do what you do, then how will you ever get people to vote for you, or buy something from you, or, more importantly, be loyal and want to be a part of what it is that you do…People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”

Simon Sinek, Blog Post No. 72

“The tools of business architecture and business design can arm leaders to position their organizations to prepare for, respond to and recover from incidents, as well as guide and steer their organizations through difficult periods.”

Mike Clark, Blog Post No. 75

“…a great strategy is valuable only if a company is capable of executing that strategy. And whether or not a company can execute its strategy depends largely on whether it is designed to do so. In other words, it depends on business architecture – the way a company’s people, processes, systems, and data interact to deliver goods and services to customers.”

Jeanne Ross (from “Architect Your Company for Agility”), Blog Post No. 81

“The idea that architecture is somehow incompatible with Agile, DevOps and BizOps is just wrong – architecture enables all of these practices. For example, BizOps uses business architecture to better understand the business, and to ensure that business outcomes are actually being achieved. But, for this to work, architects have to adopt the ethos of Agile and DevOps. We have to do things differently to fit into this brave new world.”

Mike Rosen, Blog Post No. 97

“Every initiative tells a story and how well you tell that story through the business architecture and change management, the better that story will be remembered and adopted.”

Ken Williams, Blog Post No. 88

“In the digital economy, business architecture must also focus on agility – designing rapid reuse of individual business components…Organizational agility won’t happen by accident. It must be architected.”

Jeanne Ross in “Architect Your Company for Agility", Blog Post No. 89

“To succeed in practicing and socializing business architecture, remember The Secret: this is not about the architecture, this is about the business. What we’re really focused on is a much bigger vision and a mindset shift around better strategy execution and new ways of working in our organizations and ecosystems. Business architecture is just an enabler and must integrate with many other teams and disciplines.”

Whynde Kuehn, Blog Post No. 90

The Best StraightTalk Icons

Best of StraightTalk 2020 Icons

Part of what makes StraightTalk so engaging and valuable is the design. Here were some of your favorite icons from select posts from 2020.

Downloadable Media

The Best StraightTalk Diagrams

We promised to give you a diagram you can use in every single post and we’ve continued to keep that commitment. Here were some of your favorites from 2020:

Table diagram showing how strategy is translated into initiatives

Translating Strategy Into Initiatives With Business Architecture

Downloadable Media

Pie shaped chart showing qualities of business architects

What Makes Business Architects Unique

Downloadable Media

Four quadrants showing how business architecture can reduce siloed mindsets and increase productivity in the organization

How Business Architecture Breaks Down And Bridges Silos

Downloadable Media

Diagram showing alignment of business architecture and organizational change management

Organizational Change Management Across Strategy Execution

Downloadable Media

Table showing business model actions and the role of business archtitects

Business Model Actions And The Role Of Business Architects

Downloadable Media

Progressive chevrons showing business architecture baseline and expanded activities

Building and Expanding the Business Architecture Baseline

Downloadable Media

How Business Architecture Informs Cloud Decision Making

Downloadable Media

Three part diagram showing how organizations can prepare, respond and recover from the unexpected

How Business Architecture Helps Organizations To Prepare For, Respond To And Recover From The Unexpected – Composite

Downloadable Media

Serpentine diagram illustrating the why, what's, and how's of BizOps and business architecture

BizOps and Business Architecture At-A-Glance

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Table showing examples of how Leveraging business architecture can be used to technology-related decisions

Leveraging Business Architecture for Technology-Related Decisions

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Highlights

Here were a few of the notables from 2020:

StraightTalk moved to a new home: Biz Arch Mastery.

In June 2020, StraightTalk and the archives moved to Biz Arch Mastery! This made StraightTalk even more engaging and easy-to-use, and part of the growing ecosystem of coaching, content, tools, and accelerators that Biz Arch Mastery offers to help you master the art and science of business architecture.

We highlighted how business architecture can help organizations navigate the unexpected.

We always striving to be relevant and timely, so in light of the coronavirus pandemic, we launched a 4-part series on how organizations can leverage business architecture to prepare for, respond to, and recover from the unexpected. See Posts No. 73, No. 74, No. 75, and No. 76.

We expanded our FABAQs to 50.

With the FABAQ Redux Posts No. 77, No. 78, and No. 79 we expanded our famous list of FABAQs (Frequently Asked Business Architecture Questions) from 20 to 50. You can see all 50 of them here and feel free to share them with your friends.

We made the business architecture value stream 3-D.

In Post No. 84, we did some business origami to represent a business architecture value stream. Try it yourself with your team of business subject matter experts. It will bring the experience of value stream mapping alive and deepen understanding, collaboration and the formation of a common mental model. You can check out the video here.

Settle Claim Value Stream – Origami Style

Downloadable Media

Shout-outs

Here's to you! Thank you for all of your engagement, kind words, and ideas for StraightTalk posts and podcasts. We love hearing from you!

A huge thanks to our 2020 guest stars, Gary Wright, Mike Clark, Mike Rosen, and Ken Williams for their fantastic podcasts and posts – and for sharing their precious time and wisdom with all of us.

As always, huge thanks to Communique Marketing Solutions LLC for continuing to provide the amazing design and creativity that we all know and love. You make StraightTalk valuable, fun, and one-of-a-kind!

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