“Consider a principle as a basic generalization that is accepted as true and that can be used as a basis for reasoning or conduct.”  With those words we began the first post here at CTOvision over five years ago.

Since then we have visited this topic several times here at the blog and frequently engage technologists on the topic. We have also had enjoyable discussions with people from other fields on the topics of principles. As a manifesto for 2013 we intend on diving deep into each of these principles to expand on them and assess their relevance in the modern enterprise. In preparation for our examination of this topic we list our Ten Principles below. Please look them over and prepare to engage with us on these topics in the coming year. The result, we believe, will be better insights into our profession.

I believe enterprise technology leaders should have principles that are like the following:

• Our systems and architectures will always be mission focused

• Our enterprise must be flexible and adaptable

• Our technical team will constantly upgrade their skills and knowledge

• Our technology plan will be broadly communicated/understood

• We unify enterprise architecture, governance and engineering efforts

• We embrace the ideal of a single enterprise-wide SOA

• We embrace and embody the concept of “mission assurance”

• We will divest ourselves of efforts which do not support the mission

• We err to the simple over complex

• Disciplined collaboration is critical to our success

I’ll expand on each of those over time.