A few years ago, the theme at the Gartner ITxpo was “The Power of And”. Alain De Preter’s Labnaf framework and visualization product is an awesome example of applying that theme because it enables the end-to-end planning of and communication regarding digital transformations. Labnaf is unified framework and software for visualizing your enterprise and for driving transformations. It brings productivity, consistency and cross-discipline collaboration by merging and extending standards into one single process, modeling language and software.

Labnaf helps you understand your organization, envision its future, plan transformations and describe architecture solutions using multi-dimensional models, charts, analysis and reports.

The framework and the software are highly and easily customizable. Part 1 of the 3 Udemy courses on Labnaf, all of which I strongly recommend, builds an understanding of the concepts and components of the Labnaf framework, including the process, the language, the repository, and the tools. In addition, it helps one to:

• Understand the typical enterprise transformation challenges, including complementary but disconnected standards, absence of an end-to-end transformation process, multiple languages, awkward semantics, inconsistent terminology, complex life-cycle management, tedious content authoring, inability to coordinate enterprise architecture and solution architecture as a whole, inability to scale, manual governance, etc.
• Understand the overall process of building a unified transformation framework using precise semantics.
• Understand the Labnaf process of driving transformations from enterprise visualization and diagnoses to strategy definition, strategy execution, and project/solution architecture.
• Understand the Labnaf strategy and architecture content including architecture portfolios, catalogs, elements and connectors, metamodel, active and passive resources, performers including their life-cycle, functional performers, enterprise functions, enterprise function discovery, processes, views and viewpoints.
• Understand the Labnaf single shared repository, the sample repository and the language customization/development repository.
• Understand the Labnaf productivity tools including import and export, value calculation, diagram and heat map generation, backups, model validation, Excel and CSV generation, Word and PDF generation, web site publication, task scheduling, charts and dashboards, the customization environment, and the language transformer.
• Understand people’s roles, accountabilities and responsibilities, how these applies to different types of repository content and the implementation in the repository.

Labnaf is something I recommend for all of the following roles

• Enterprise architects
• Solution architects
• Strategists
• Infrastructure architects
• Systems Engineers
• CIOs
• Sparx Enterprise Architect users
• Prolaborate users
• Modelers
• Analysts

For a more complete overview of LabNaf, see https://www.labnaf.one/ln-content/Labnaf_Framework_Overview.pdf and

To compare the Labnaf all-in-one process, language and tools to alternatives:

Labnaf is a great discovery for EA Principals and we are delighted to help spread the word. Even if one doesn’t purchase a license for Labnaf, there is so much at the two above links that one can learn regarding what is now possible in terms of the integration of multiple standards and functions with “The Power of And”. For more information, contact us at [email protected] .