Speaker
Daniel Simon
Managing Director
I am passionate about guiding enterprises on their business design and transformation journeys. In particular, I have extensive experience in establishing architecture practices, developing architecture blueprints (e.g., capability maps), and facilitating business design and transformation activities. I am also a long-time trainer in the field, having delivered business architecture (based on, e.g., the BIZBOK® Guide) and enterprise architecture courses (e.g., on ArchiMate® and TOGAF®) to more than one thousand delegates to date.
I hold a Ph.D. from the University of Cologne and I am the (co-)author of several publications on enterprise architecture and business architecture, including, e.g., “IT Landscape Management Using Network Analysis” (CONFENIS, 2012), “The Nature and a Process for Development of Enterprise Architecture Principles” (BIS Conference, 2015), and “Enterprise Architecture Management and its Role in Corporate Strategic Management” (Information Systems and e-Business Management, 2013).
The latter journal article introduced a framework that I developed to embrace business architecture in a comprehensive way, across three fundamental parts: business motivation, business model, and business execution (today known as the “Business Architecture Triangle”). This framework served as the basis for the anthology “Business Architecture Management – Architecting the Business for Consistency and Alignment” (Springer, 2015) that I managed to take to publication as the lead editor.
I also regularly speak at conferences and events. Past talks include “A Business Architect’s Journey to Making an Impact” (Business Architecture Innovation Summit, Reston, 2024), “Making Architecture Stick” (IRM UK EA & BPM Conference, London, 2023), “Translating Strategy into Execution Using Business Architecture” (EA Summer School, Copenhagen, 2023), “ArchiMate® Applied – Insights from Real-Life Cases” (The Open Group Conference, London, 2016), “EA Principles: Guide Rails or Laws? An Insurance Industry Case Study” (The Open Group Conference, London, 2013), and “Business Architecture – The Transformation Cockpit for the Enterprise” (The Open Group Conference, Stockholm, 2010).
In addition to that, I am a lecturer at the University of Bamberg. I am responsible for the enterprise architecture management module in the information systems degree program.
SessionS
Business Architecture: Handling Tradeoffs between Insight and Usability
LeanLeaderSummit 2026
Business architecture artifacts (such as, e.g., a capability map) have gained traction in various scenarios across strategy execution, transformation, and change in recent years. Using those artifacts, organizations typically seek to gain big picture insights, e.g., for better strategic and organizational alignment. At the same time, practitioners often want those artifacts to be readily understood and used by a wide range of stakeholders in the organization, letting them “see themselves within the maps.” All too often, this results in certain tradeoffs that need to be made. This session deals with the tradeoffs between insight and usability of business architecture artifacts (using the capability map as an example), and is designed to spark exchange around approaches of how to effectively handle such tradeoffs.
Company
Across & Ahead
ACROSS & AHEAD – that’s more than our company name, it’s our mission. We provide global advisory and training services devoted to helping and empowering enterprises to look at the bigger picture – across different lines and functions – and to think ahead by aligning around a common vision and translating motivation into execution in a structured way. We are passionate about shaping enterprises whose parts resonate with each other. Core to this in our approach are enterprise and, particularly, business architecture, leveraged in a way that provides for a combined use with other design-oriented practices.