BE CURIOUS

Development is monitored and reviewed. Delivery is celebrated. However, one project phase remains systematically underprioritised: the handover. In the lifecycle of IT projects, transitions in leadership, particularly the handover between project managers, pose a significant threat to continuity, knowledge retention, and stakeholder alignment. Despite this, most organisations treat handovers as informal, ad hoc events rather than what they truly are: complex, high-risk processes that demand structure and intention. This paper argues that the current state of project handovers constitutes a blind spot in modern project governance. It also offers a practical framework for addressing this gap.

In many organisations, strategy, portfolio management, and transformation initiatives operate in silos. As a result, portfolio management often ends up as an administrative reporting function rather than a tool for driving strategic direction. Strategic direction is defined in one part of the business. Projects are initiated in another. And transformation efforts are managed elsewhere, often without a shared governance framework.

Be honest. Are you also a poet? A PowerPoint poet? You know – the kind who writes beautiful architecture principles in elegant slides, perfect fonts, inspiring colours… and then never looks at them again. Every organisation has them: “Reuse before buy, buy before build.” “Data is a shared asset.” “Security by design.”

If you have ever joined a meeting online while others sat together in a room, you know the dynamic: Side conversations slip past. Audio falters. Body language is lost. You are present but not really included. It is a familiar feeling: You raise your (virtual) hand, wait half a second too long, and hope your connection holds. Meanwhile, decisions take shape in the room; through glances, gestures, or a passing comment no one thinks to repeat.

Enterprise Architects operate in the sweet spot between business and technology, strategy and execution. And as the “sweet spot” refers to, it involves a lot of people. With a lot of different perspectives, interests, and professional languages. Hereby, storytelling becomes a strong tool in the communication toolbox of an Enterprise Architect. And paired with clear visuals, roadmaps and models, it lays the foundation for not just defining the target but mapping the journey.

Dear Enterprise Architecture, Thank you for taking the time to answer my whirlwind of questions and requests the other day. It was great to get to know you a little - I think I understand you a lot better now! To be fair (to me), I think you’ve made it slightly difficult in the past. Assuming that the business knows what, you do, doesn’t always help your case. If I am being completely honest – and I hope you don’t take this the wrong way – it may even make you come off a little bit arrogant, which I now know that you are not.

Abbreviations are part of everyday work, but their meaning is not always shared. In this video, we revisit the themes from our article Lost in Translation and look at how unclear language can affect collaboration and expectations.

The idea of the “8-minute call” is making the rounds on LinkedIn. The concept is simple and catchy: a short, friendly call – just eight minutes – can reduce loneliness, lift moods, and maybe even prevent depression. It sounds great. But does it hold up? Popularised by Simon Sinek, this is the selling point: “At the end of the day, eight minutes of a friend’s time can make all the difference in the world. Best of all, it’s only eight minutes.”

Enterprise architects are losing ground. Once seen as stewards of long-term direction, they now risk irrelevance as organisations shift to agile, product-led, and platform-based models. Business units move fast, buying or building their own solutions, often operating independently and without architectural oversight. This decentralisation of architectural decision-making can improve speed and give teams more ownership, but it also fragments the technical landscape. Without architectural coordination, important trade-offs get missed, systems stop talking to each other, and data ends up in silos. What starts as agility and empowerment can quickly turn into confusion, technical debt, security issues, and solutions that are difficult to change or scale at a later date.

Enterprise Architects might have a branding problem … Ask ten people what an Enterprise Architect does, and you’ll get twelve different answers. Some imagine ivory-tower theorists drawing boxes and arrows; others imagine IT police officers enforcing outdated rules. The reality? Enterprise Architects are the undercover drivers of change in modern organisations – without fancy uniforms!

Du kender det sikkert. Dagens femte møde om, hvordan I skaber synergi og sikrer alignment på tværs, er ved at rinde ud. Men inden der rundes af, foreslår projektlederen, at I lige tager en touch base i morgen tidlig, hvor I kan circle back til det møde, I lige har haft. Det lyder jo meget smart, men der er ikke rigtig nogen, som ved, hvad projektlederen mener. Og det gør projektlederen heller ikke selv.

Transformation has become a buzzword used all too frequently by business leaders, project managers, and consultants alike. And the shorter the transformation period, the better it is. It is as if there is a vulgar sense of prestige connected to bragging about leading “big bang” business transformations. However, as is often the case with bragging, it is exaggerated at best, not really thought through, and completely wrong at worst. Let’s get some definitions in place.

In the fast-paced world of high-demand industries and scale-ups, rapid business growth is the norm. These companies often exhibit common traits: they can swiftly scale operations, embrace agile methodologies, and adapt to market shifts on the fly. However, amidst this rapid expansion, a subtle yet significant threat lurks in the shadows: technical complexity. Like a double-edged sword, the very strategies that drive businesses forward can also sow the seeds of their downfall, due to the increased system and data complexity that is accumulated in response to the rapid expansion.

Kommunikation er svært. Det er plakaten nedenfor et godt eksempel på. Den umiddelbare og mest ligefremme tolkning af plakaten er: Jo mere mad jeg smider ud, desto længere brusebad kan jeg tage med god samvittighed. Hvis 3 kilo madaffald er lig med 5 minutters bad, skal jeg bare smide 6 kilo mad ud for at tage et varmt bad på 10 minutter. Det er formentlig ikke det ønskede budskab.

In the dynamic landscape of business, characterised by challenges such as global conflicts, health crises, economic fluctuations, regulatory complexities, and evolving consumer preferences, assuming the role of a company leader demands resilience and determination. However, occupying the position of a middle manager similarly necessitates a certain audacity.

Adopting new words and terms is part of the evolution of language. Just like foreign words and slang, abbreviations find their way into our everyday vocabulary and, eventually, the dictionary. And abbreviations, including initialisms and acronyms, are truly everywhere – a natural part of our daily written and spoken interaction with other people. Some companies are even known primarily by their abbreviated name; some of them very famous. These entities generally fall into three main categories: