One language sounds like progress. In practice, it often looks like politics. This session opens with Daniel Simon presenting new survey findings on enterprise modelling language use — UML, BPMN, ArchiMate, EDGY — and confronts the uncomfortable question head-on: is the search for a single standard a strategic goal, a persistent myth, or simply the wrong kind of question?
The data makes a compelling case that languages coexist for a reason. But it also raises a harder question than which language to pick: what would it actually mean to design your language landscape deliberately? And what does the answer look like from the inside of a language that is still finding its place in practice?
Following the presentation, Daniel is joined by Milan Guenther and Helgi Mar Björgvinsson, two of the principal developers of EDGY, for a frank discussion on what these findings mean for the field, for how professionals actually work with modelling languages, and for where EDGY goes from here.
Daniel Simon is the Founder and Managing Director of ACROSS & AHEAD. His passion is to guide enterprises on their business design and transformation journeys. He has extensive experience in establishing architecture practices, developing architecture blueprints, and facilitating business design and transformation activities. Daniel is also a long-time trainer in the field. Among others, he has been running courses on business architecture for many years. Daniel holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cologne. He is the (co-)author of various publications on business architecture and enterprise architecture and regularly speaks at conferences and events.
Helgi Björgvinsson is a senior Enterprise Architect with more than 15 years of experience working with architecture, strategy, leadership, and change in complex organisational environments across both the public and private sectors.
He has been actively involved with the Intersection Group for over five years and has been a member of its core group for more than two. Helgi is the principal author of the EDGY Enterprise Scan, where he focuses on helping organisations surface misalignment early, create shared understanding, and design change based on a holistic view of the enterprise.
Milan is president of Intersection Group, and a co-founder of the consultancy Enterprise Design Associates and Teamenu, a digital workplace SAAS business. 12 years back, Milan launched a social software startup and designed a patented innovation for commercial flight decks. Today he works with enterprises of all shapes and sizes, to make them deliver, and useful to people. He's been working with enterprises like Google, SAP, Toyota, the OECD and the UN. His first book Intersection introduces this Enterprise Design approach, and he is co-organising the Intersection conference series since 2014. He is co-author of the book Enterprise Design Patterns and curator of EDGY, an Open Source tool for co-creating better enterprises, adopted by organisations around the globe.
