Design Thinking for Enterprise Architects – A Conversation with Mayank Saxena

The concept of Design Thinking is all the rage these days in certain circles—particularly in MBA programs and in the tech industry. But what is Design Thinking and why should businesses make it a consideration? And what does it have to do with Enterprise Architecture?

Mayank Saxena, Enterprise Architect at ABM AMRO Bank in The Netherlands, believes Enterprise Architects can learn a lot from the lessons of Design Thinking—lessons that could give Enterprise Architects greater influence and value within their organizations. We spoke with Mr.Saxena in advance of The Open Group Singapore 2019 to learn more about the concept of Design Thinking and how Enterprise Architects can benefit from it.

Enterprise Architecture – Why You Should Think About the Enterprise Continuum!

There are a lot of divergent thoughts about specific elements of TOGAF®, an Open Group standard. In conversations, the same thing is mentioned … the Enterprise Continuum. Each version of the TOGAF standard was/is intended to add to the value of the framework based upon best practices used by active Enterprise Architects. These best practices would be selected for use in a given architecture endeavor as appropriate. The TOGAF framework was never intended to be a recipe or step by step prescription.