Books on Romano Roth

Lean Enterprise Architecture

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There is a pattern to how enterprise architecture fails. The models get more detailed, the governance gets heavier, and the people who make the real decisions stop showing up. The architecture is correct and nobody uses it.

The Cybernetic Enterprise

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Most organizations still run on an operating system built for stability. Plan the year, cascade the plan, report back up. That holds as long as the ground does.

The Cybernetic Enterprise describes what takes its place: an organization that senses what is happening, decides close to the work, and adapts continuously. Feedback loops are the load-bearing structure. AI sits inside those loops instead of being bolted onto the side of the org chart.

Foundations of The Cybernetic Enterprise

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A reference volume rather than a narrative. The Cybernetic Enterprise stands on eight fields: cybernetics, systems thinking, lean and flow, agile, architecture, product and innovation, AI, and DevOps. Each has decades of practice behind it, each has its own literature, and each answers only part of the question.

The Cybernetic Enterprise Assessment

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A model that cannot be measured stays an opinion. The Assessment turns the Cybernetic Enterprise into a structured maturity check across four dimensions: people, process, technology and data.

It is built to be run. Questions per dimension, levels that describe observable behavior instead of intent, and a result you can put next to the same unit six months later.

The Cybernetic Enterprise CTO Playbook

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The CTO’s copy of the model. Same idea, seen from the technology organization: architect for simplicity, give teams enough autonomy to be accountable, scale platform engineering so that autonomy does not turn into forty snowflakes, and embed AI with governance that people can follow without asking permission twice a day.

How to Survive Game of Thrones

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Written with Nadine Broghammer.

Next to the org chart every organization runs a second structure: who has influence, who owes whom, which disagreement is about the work and which one is about position. Most people learn to read it the slow way, by losing a few rounds first.

Flip the Switch on Modern Software Development with Feature Flags

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Flagsmith’s eBook on feature flags at enterprise scale. I wrote the introduction.

The argument in it: feature flags separate deployment from release, and that separation is what makes deployment frequency, one of the four DORA metrics, movable at all. Without it, a team can only deploy as often as it dares to release. With it, small changes go out several times a day and the blast radius of each one stays small.

Modern Development Practices in Banking: A Playbook

Fri, 29 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Flagsmith’s playbook for banks that want to modernize how they build software without trading away the controls a regulator expects. I wrote the introduction.

Banking is where the tension between speed and safety is sharpest, and where the usual answer has been to pick safety and live with the release cycle. The playbook works through the alternative: continuous delivery, feature flags, platform engineering, and the audit and access controls that make all three acceptable in a regulated environment.

Machines, Code, People

Tue, 18 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

An anthology from Zühlke: 50 short pieces, one per engineer, on whatever that person cares most about.

Mine is called CYA: Cover your ass, and it is about documenting architecture decisions. Not the 200-page document nobody reads. The short record of what was decided, what the alternatives were, and why one of them won, written at the moment the decision is made and cheap enough that people actually write it.