Title: Pioneers, Settlers, and Town Planners of Catan

Description:

No critique of bimodal IT is complete without a board game analogy; here's mine. What if Wardley maps were hex-based? In the game Settlers of Catan, players vie for longest road, largest army, and resource monopolies on the game board. But when the Cities and Knights expansion is added to the game, suddenly there are multiple paths to victory. In Accidental Empires, Robert X. Cringely's history of Silicon Valley, he talks about commandos, infantry, and police. Simon Wardley talks about pioneers, settlers, and town planners. The concept remains the same: some innovate, others turn the innovations into products, and still others make products into commodities. This talk will explain mapping of the enterprise IT journey by way of board games, with whimsical asides.