Beyond Alignment: Applying Systems Thinking in Architecting Enterprises

Beyond Alignment: Applying Systems Thinking to Architecting Enterprises is a comprehensive reader about how enterprises can apply systems thinking in their enterprise architecture practice, for business transformation and for strategic execution. The book's contributors find that systems thinking is a valuable way of thinking about the viable enterprise and how to architect it. 

"The harnessing of complexity in systems engineering begins with an understanding of the intertwined social, economic and technical nature of the problem. Successful systems engineering practitioners know that instinctively, and they act accordingly. This book examines enterprise architecture and systems thinking as the generalized model and method for dealing with complexity in systems-of-systems engineering, holistically addressing all aspects of the problem."-- Dr. Joseph K. DeRosa, Director of Systems Engineering, The MITRE Corporation

"We live in a complex world of systems of systems, and enterprises must work beyond organizational boundaries. Value chain integrations and cross-system dependencies brings about many concerns, and, frankly, many problems, in both operations and architecture. We need to learn new ways of finding root-causes to such problems, and that is exactly why this book is so timely and useful."
-- Dr. Kristian Hjort-Madsen, Managing Director, Operations & Architecture, BEC

"Enterprise Architecture is now becoming a common sense for the future digital enterprise.  This books provides the reader with valuable insights for thought on the strong relationships between enterprise architecture and system thinking. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to deeply understand the challenges in this moving environment."-- Prof. Hervé Panetto, PhD, University of Lorraine (France), Research Centre for Automatic Control, CNRS. Chair of the IFAC Technical Committee 5.3 on Enterprise Integration and Networking.

"Beyond Alignment provides an up-to-date, inspiring and multi-faceted perspective on applying systems thinking in enterprise architecture management. Academics and practitioners alike will find valuable ideas and conceptual models how to architect enterprises in turbulent times."-- Professor Dr. Florian Matthes, Software Engineering for Business Information Systems, Technische Universität München

"This book provides a valuable and timely collection of papers that discuss the application of system of systems thinking to enterprise architecture. The system of systems thinking is vital in understanding the blurred boundaries of modern complex adaptive enterprises. This book is a good read for anyone who is has interest in enterprise architecture research and practice."-- Dr. Asif Q. Gill, Human Centred Technology Design, University of Technology, Sydney