CARTANOERD · 5 notations
Data model
Entities, typed attributes, keys and cardinalities. Notation of your choosing — crow's foot, IDEF1X, UML, Chen, Barker — without redrawing.
Settles: where the data lives, and who answers for it.
The canvases
Twenty-six ways of telling the same truth.
They all draw on the same repository. An application described once appears in the application view, the capability map and the roadmap — without being re-keyed, and with no risk of divergence. The figures below show the structure of each canvas; the studio itself is seen in a demo — on your models.
Data
The angle that neither the architecture suites nor the drawing tools cover.
DCS · open format
Data contract
The physical model published as a machine-readable contract — the bridge between the architecture and the data product factory.
Settles: what we promise consumers.
SQL
Physical schema
The DDL follows from the model, with its types, keys and indexes. Nothing is transcribed by hand, so nothing drifts.
Settles: what actually reaches the database.
Process and business
What the organisation does, before talking about the software that supports it.
BPMN 2.0
Processes
Lanes, tasks, gateways and flows. The actors come from the repository: a renamed department is renamed everywhere.
Settles: who does what, and in what order.
TOGAF · phase B
Capabilities
What the company knows how to do, by domain. Lenses colour the map by maturity, cost or criticality. No connectors — a capability does not call another capability.
Settles: where to invest first.
Value stream · lean
Value stream
Ordered steps with process time, lead time and complete-and-accurate rate. Flow efficiency is computed — not estimated.
Settles: where the time is really lost.
Applications and technology
The software and the machines, connected to what they serve.
ArchiMate 3.2
Applications
The three layers and their dependencies, with the TOGAF viewpoints. You see at a glance what falls over if a server does.
Settles: what depends on what.
ArchiMate · technology
Technology
Network zones and components. Here an object's band follows from where you drop it — moving a server into the DMZ is declaring it in the DMZ.
Settles: what is exposed, and to whom.
UML 2.5 · classes
Classes
The richest canvas: attributes, operations, visibility, inheritance. Java, TypeScript and PlantUML generation from the model.
Settles: the structure before the code.
Intent and trajectory
Why we do things, and in what order we will do them.
TOGAF · phases E and F
Roadmap
Plateaus, milestones, prerequisites and budget envelopes. Dependencies are checked: a plateau cannot begin before the one it depends on.
Settles: the order, and what it costs.
ArchiMate · motivation
Motivation
Stakeholders, drivers, goals and requirements, in columns. An object's band follows from its type — you cannot file a goal among the drivers.
Settles: why this project exists.
ArchiMate · business
Organisation
The tree of units and roles. No position is entered: it is derived entirely from the reporting lines in the repository.
Settles: who reports to whom.
Adding a canvas, here, means adding a catalogue file — not starting a project. That is why there are twenty-six of them, not six.
Governance & control
The family that changes what the product is: these nine do not draw, they compute a verdict — and block publication until the organisation has answered it. A diagram you cannot hold anyone to is not worth a report.
ArchiMate · risk
Risk register
Five columns, the fifth of which accepts no object: residual risk is computed. A control that is merely planned counts for one fifth.
Refuses: above the declared appetite, with no control.
ADR · by quarter
Decision log
What the organisation settled, when, and what it replaces. Lateness is derived from the calendar — nobody types it in.
Refuses: an irreversible decision with no alternative examined.
Obligation → evidence
Compliance
From obligation to evidence, through requirement and control. Evidence expiry is derived from its declared frequency, never from a typed status.
Refuses: a blocking requirement with no valid evidence.
GDPR · sensitivity
Data classification
Sensitivity bands where position classifies. Moving a data item reclassifies it; a flow that declassifies it is refused.
Refuses: unlimited retention, a transfer with no safeguard.
Radar 4 × 4
Technology radar
Quadrants and rings, position entirely derived. Every item cites the decision that put it there — not free text, the decision from the log.
Refuses: active use of a “phase out” item with no dated waiver.
DORA · RTO / RPO
Business continuity
The promise held against the dependencies. You never come back faster than your slowest dependency — and only the graph shows it.
Refuses: a promised RTO lower than the achievable one.
Versions & retirement
API catalogue
A deprecation stands on two legs: a deadline and a destination. With no retirement date, nothing will ever migrate.
Refuses: migrating to a version that is itself deprecated.
Gartner TIME
TIME portfolio
Two scores per application — business value, technical quality — and the quadrant follows. Nobody picks it, and that is the whole point.
Refuses: condemning the platform that carries what you invest in.
Procurement · deadlines
Vendor contracts
The notice deadline is computed: term minus notice period. Typed in, it would be wrong by the next quarter.
Refuses: believing you are covered longer than your shortest contract.
The UML workshop, and what comes from elsewhere
Six diagrams from the 2.5 standard, plus the two canvases born of a need no notation covered: taking in an existing drawing, and describing what circulates.
UML 2.5 · use cases
Use cases
Actors, cases, includes and extends. The agents' entry point: this is where the need is stated before it is modelled.
UML 2.5 · components
Components
What the software exposes and what it requires — provided and required interfaces, assembled dependencies.
UML 2.5 · packages
Packages
How the code is split into domains. A class cites its package by reference, never by copied text.
UML 2.5 · sequence
Sequence
Participants, lifelines, ordered messages. Order carries the chronology: you reorder, you do not drag.
UML 2.5 · state machine
State machine
States, transitions, initial and final. The shape is the point — a machine has no swimlane.
ArchiMate 3.2 · nested blocks
Application data flow
Building blocks that nest into one another — components, services, nodes — and directed flows that declare what they carry. Moving a container carries its content.
Refuses: a flow with no declared data cannot be specified.
Free plan · no grammar
Free canvas
The only canvas that imposes nothing: the target for any drawing from elsewhere. Faithful entry first — positions, sizes, colours, shapes — and interpretation later, if at all.
Reports: whatever stays “to qualify”, for as long as it does.
Import · draw.io
Your existing drawings come in
Drop a .drawio file: each page becomes a document, positions and colours
carried over as they are. Zones are derived from the geometry — nobody declares
them in draw.io.
The report states everything that did not make it.
See it run, rather than see pictures.
Thirty minutes on your own cases. We model in front of you, and we show you a model that refuses to publish because it is wrong.