I wanted to follow up on my 2009 book post with one looking back at EA-books of 2008. I’ve however been waiting for some of them, but those I got the other day, and have now been checking them out. From what I count, 2008 gave us 9 EA-books. That is, books about enterprise architecture. Published in 2008. Did I forget any books on that list?
Without further ado, here is my highlights of 2008:
The Good
Jaap Schekkerman‘s Enterprise Architecture Good Practices Guide: How to Manage the Enterprise Architecture Practice is a clear winner.
At 386 pages, Schekkerman’s Guide is based on IFEAD‘s EA guides published over the years, and is one big EA-goodie-bag for organizations that seek guidance in initiating, developing, using, and maintaining their EA practice. Schekkerman’s Primer does a good job at covering contemporary EA practice.
This is his third book. It much better than the two previous ones. Which weren’t bad.
But speaking of bad:
The Bad
Jeff Handley’s “Enterprise Architecture Best Practice Handbook: Building, Running and Managing Effective Enterprise Architecture Programs – Ready to use supporting documents bringing Enterprise Architecture Theory into Practice” claims that it “covers every detail, including some missed in other books”, and is presented as a “thorough book”, that “leaves no key process out and completely covers everything …”. In addition, the book “is realistic and lays the foundation for a successful implementation”. At 120 pages! Of which pages 5-66 are hardly readable powerpoint slides with bullet point speakers notes. To add insult to injury, the book is rather expensive.
There is actually a few good nuggests of information buried down in the material, but it’ll be an insult to books to call this a book. The main reson it get two stars out of ten is that I have to be able to score something even lower, see below.
The Ugly
Continuing with books I do not recommend, we have Gerard Blokdijk’s Enterprise Architecture 100 Success Secrets – 100 Most Asked Questions on Enterprise Architecture Definition, Design, Framework, Governance and Integration, which is the joke of the year.
A seemingly random collection of 100 one-pagers from near and far, “the top 100 questions that we are asked and those we come across in forums, our consultancy and education programs”. And then it “tells you exactly how to deal with those questions, with tips that have never before been offered in print”.
I notice that the Bad and the Ugly books are both published by Emereo Pty Ltd. My New Year’s Resolution will be never to buy any of their books again.
