Category Archives: Architecture

Podcast Episode: Building A Data Logistics Hub

25 Tuesday Aug 2026

Posted by in Architecture, data architecture, Data governance, data hub, data management, data mesh, data science, Data Supply Framework, Data Warehouse, Data Warehousing

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Futuristic data center labeled Central Logistics Hub, with glowing data routes, servers, and operators
Glowing data pathways weave through a multi-level logistics hub filled with servers and operators.

Pip: If you have ever looked at your organisation’s data landscape and thought “this resembles a motorway junction designed by someone who hates drivers,” then Martyn Jones has a blueprint with your name on it.

Mara: This episode follows a series of posts introducing the Data Logistics Hub — covering what the concept is, why the pain points are real, how strategy and architecture hold it together, and what the actual components look like in practice.

Pip: Let’s start with the foundations — what the hub is and why it exists.

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STRAIGHT TALK: Agile at Scale is Bullshit by Design – The Guardian

24 Tuesday Feb 2026

Posted by in agile, agile@scale, All Data, Architecture, Assets, business strategy, Dogma, IT strategy, Strategy, structured intellectual capital, Value

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Martyn Rhisiart Jones

Madrid, Wednesday 25th February 2026.

Seven years on, the verdict is in, and it’s not flattering. Back in 2019, in a Brussels-fuelled rant channelling the incomparable Bob Hoffman, I declared Agile at Scale the next frontier of IT bullshit: immature, ill-conceived, supercilious, and emphatically not agile. It killed communication with jargon, turned criticism into heresy, and mangled history by ignoring what actually worked. I called it a cultish Frankenstein of Scientology zeal, Vatican pomp, and authoritarian quirks – all wrapped in vainglorious slide decks.

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CEO BRIEFING: Agile at Scale is Bullshit by Design – Remastered and Revisited – 2026/01/27

07 Saturday Feb 2026

Posted by in agile, agile@scale, All Data, Architecture, Assets, business strategy, Dogma, IT strategy, Strategy, structured intellectual capital, Value

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Martyn Rhisiart Jones

Bruxelles, 28th May 2019

To begin at the beginning

To paraphrase the great Bob Hoffman. Just when you feared that Agile evangelists might produce even more nonsense, they surprise you. What do they do? Exceed expectations.

And how did they do that? Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Agile at Scale. It comes with all the miscellaneous, spiced-up, and vainglorious crap-on-the-side that accompanies it.

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How Agentic AI Is Reshaping Work and Life Balance

02 Tuesday Dec 2025

Posted by in AI, All Data, Architecture, Artificial Intelligence

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Martyn Rhisiart Jones

A Coruña, 2nd December 2025

Agentic AI – The 007 of Computer Bonding

Introduction

Agentic AI refers to advanced AI agents. They are capable of independently chasing ambitious, open-ended objectives. These agents break tasks into steps and reason iteratively. They wield tools and persist through obstacles with minimal human guidance. In summary: think of a less obedient tucan. Imagine a more relentlessly competent understudy. This AI can orchestrate your travel, chase invoices, or conduct desk research. It does all this while you’re on the Amalfi Coast with an Aperol spritz. The phrase du jour in Palo Alto marks a shift. Assistants move from being responsive to becoming genuinely proactive. Your to-do list may soon sort itself out as if by magic.

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CEO BRIEFING: AI Agents: Rise of the Silicon Overlords

17 Monday Nov 2025

Posted by in AI, Architecture, Inform, educate and entertain., professionalism, Strategy, structured intellectual capital

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Martyn Rhisiart Jones

Córdoba, Spain, 17th November 2025

(The Ruthless, No-Bullshit, Slightly Evil Edition)

Chapter 1: Congratulations, You’re Already Obsolete

  • Your boss, clients, or investors heard “agent” on a podcast. Now, they demand an AI agent before lunch on Friday.
  • Accept your role as meat-based middle management for silicon overlords.
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Myth-busting: Data Mesh and Data Warehousing – Revisited

25 Thursday Nov 2021

Posted by in agile, Architecture, Data Mart, data mesh, Data Supply Framework, Data Warehouse, Data Warehousing, hadoop, Inform, educate and entertain.

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To begin at the beginning

I am quite a fan of many aspects that sit under the Data Mesh umbrella. However, when it comes to a proper fact-based understanding and analysis of the history, place and architecture (business, data and technical) of Data Warehousing, the leading exponents of data mesh have it woefully wrong.

Therefore, the purpose of this blog article is to set the record straight.

The data warehouse as a place to copy OLTP exhaust data to?

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STRAIGHT TALK: Agile at Scale is Bullshit by Design

28 Tuesday May 2019

Posted by in agile, agile@scale, All Data, Architecture, Assets, business strategy, Dogma, IT strategy, Strategy, structured intellectual capital, Value

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cropped-p4010326.jpgMartyn Richard Jones

Bruxelles 28th May 2019

To begin at the beginning

To paraphrase the great Bob Hoffman. Just when you thought that if evangelists for Agile were to generate one more ounce of bullshit the entire fucking solar system would explode, what do they do? Exceed expectations.

And how did they do that? Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Agile at Scale with all the miscellaneous, spiced-up and vainglorious crap-on-the-side that accompanies it.

Continue reading →

Learning to hate Agile-at-scale

11 Saturday May 2019

Posted by in agile, All Data, Architecture, business, business strategy, Inform, educate and entertain., Methodology, Process, project management, scrum

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StupidToScaleAfilonius Rex

Cordoba, 12th May 2019

Ladies and gentlemen, the performance is about to start!

In 1998, as Programme, Product and Competence Centre manager at Hewlett-Packard, I signed the Agile Manifesto.

At that time, I had been using elements of the Agile-method mindset for the best part of sixteen years.

Previously, in 1995 I was trained and certified in Iterations, an iterative and agile-like methodology for building, maintaining and expanding data warehouses and data marts. Continue reading →

STRAIGHT TALK: How to turn data into knowledge

02 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by in All Data, Architecture, Big Data, Big Data Analytics, data architecture, Data governance, data management, Data Supply Framework, Data Warehouse, Data Warehousing, Good Strategy, Inform, educate and entertain., information, Information Management, Information Supply Framework, IT strategy, Knowledge, knowledge management, Marketing, Martyn Jones, Martyn Richard Jones, Sales, structured intellectual capital, wisdom

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Martyn Jones

Zurich, Switzerland – 3rd August 2017

Image2If anyone can turn data into knowledge then that person is me.

Let me explain.

I am a data architecture and management professional. For more than three decades I have been acquiring knowledge and experience in the design and delivery of effective data and solutions architectures for a wide range of projects and in a wide range of (mainly large global or regional) enterprise clients.

Therefore I think I can reasonably presume to have built up quite a good personal body of knowledge when it comes to applied data architecture and management.

As well as being a professional in the management and architecture of data, I have also considerable knowledge and experience in the areas of information management, artificial intelligence and knowledge management (structured intellectual capital).

So, what about turning data or information into knowledge? Continue reading →

Understanding Strategic Fit: The Cambrian A9 Power Grid

14 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by in Architecture, Strategy

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Written by Martyn Richard Jones

2026 Mix

Strategic fit express the degree to which an organization is matching its resources and capabilities with the opportunities in the external environment.

Matching occurs through the practice of pre-strategy analysis.

That said, it is very easy to fall into the trap of oversimplifying high-level concepts and overstating the intricacies and interdependencies of strategic-fit factors. Continue reading →

Why Management Fails in Information Strategy

14 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by in Architecture, Assets, business, Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, Value

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In the dim and distant past most organisations struggled along with what they euphemistically referred to as Information Systems.

They were Information Systems with no overall design, no elements of management and no architecture.

Information Systems were built to show how the company had been performing in the immediate past, and that was it. Continue reading →

Silly Season! Data Warehousing is Hadoop is Big Data? – Unplugged for 2026

12 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by in Architecture, Banking, Big Data, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Dogma, Knowledge, Peeves

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Martyn Richard Jones

2026 Remaster

Let’s get this baby off the ground

This weekend I read a piece on the Information Management website by Steve Miller with the title of Big Data vs. the Data Warehouse. It’s an old piece, from March 2014.

It was in response to a piece by Bill Inmon titled “Big Data or Data Warehouse?” Turbocharge Your Porsche – Buy an Elephant, in which he singled out for criticism the ad campaign of a big-data and Hadoop promoter.

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Mugged in Data Hell – Summary – На Бо́га наде́йся, а сам не плоша́й

07 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by in Architecture, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Dogma, Knowledge, Offshoring, Outsourcing, Peeves, Risk, Strategy

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Martyn Richard Jones

I wrote a piece titled “Mugged in Data Hell.”

INTRO

It told the story of a CIO who was hoodwinked, cajoled, bullied, bribed and patronised into doing the wrong things, continuously.

As my mate Bill said, “It packs big punches, and doesn’t hold back with the shit-kicking truth”.

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Creativity and Corporate IT: Plumbers not Artists – Remaster 2026

06 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by in Architecture, Data Warehouse, Dogma, Excellence, Offshoring, Outsourcing, Strategy

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Martyn Richard Jones

Remastered for 2026

Like many people around the world, I have certain expectations.

When I want some artwork done for a sales campaign, yes, I expect the people that I commission to show a lot of creativity.

When I want to read a novel, go to the theatre or simply chill out watching a movie, yes, I do expect some degree of creativity.

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Mugged in Data Hell – Perils of embracing the Faustian Side of IT – Part 4 – Remaster 2026

04 Saturday Oct 2014

Posted by in Architecture, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Knowledge, Peeves

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By Martyn Richard Jones

Continued from Part 3, which can be found here -> Part 3

“The following week, the full high-powered delegation from The Taffia Connection and BogartSys flies in. It was as if an army had come to do battle with us. Uniformly slick, sullen and tacky. iPhone; laptop; knock-off Marks and Spark’s; check patterns; butt ugly ties; ‘plastique’ shoes; mismatching socks; ‘business’ rucksacks; all weather hoodies; and, worst of all, off-the-peg smirks just begging to be slapped”.

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On your way to DW success? We’ll put a stop to that! – Remaster 2026

01 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by in Architecture, Big Data, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Excellence, Inmon, Peeves

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One of the most soul-destroying moments in the life of a data warehouse professional is when a key decision maker (usually backed by other key decision makers) decides to radically alter course, and “in a dance as old as time”, snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

This can happen in various ways, but the most gut-wrenching of all is this…

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Essential Steps for Successful Data Warehousing

28 Sunday Sep 2014

Posted by in Architecture, Business Intelligence, Data Warehouse, Excellence

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Young Einstein was awaiting the birth of his sister. His mother and father had been telling him for months to look forward to having somebody to play with. When Einstein eventually got to see his sister, he exclaimed disappointedly “But, it doesn’t have wheels!”

That happens a lot in IT. Young Einstein had a very good excuse, we don’t.

Continue reading →