Summary: Summary of Mid-Platform Landing Tool Resources

Thank you for accompanying me all the way here.

Along the way, we traveled back in time, starting from the history of Zhongtai, re-examining the birth and development of Zhongtai, and gaining insight into the essence and trends behind Zhongtai from the current prosperity.

Afterwards, I also shared with you the origin, ideas, principles, and practices of our mid-platform building methodology, which is the D4 model. Let’s review it together, which consists of two rounds of “divergence and convergence”: the first round is Discovery and Define, and the second round is Design and Delivery, corresponding to the four stages of mid-platform landing: enterprise strategic decomposition and current situation investigation, enterprise digital panoramic planning, mid-platform planning and design, and mid-platform construction and access. Using the example of Geek Real Estate as an introduction, we will take you through the entire journey of building a mid-platform.

I know that the content about the middle platform is far more than that. There are many things that have not been mentioned, such as data mid-platform and technology mid-platform, and we have not expanded on organizational preparations.

Although there are some regrets, as a small column, since it is called “Talking Through the Middle Platform”, we will take less as more (Less is more), not seeking to be comprehensive, just to restore the whole picture of a middle platform for you, and give you a relatively complete middle platform map. Every corner of the map has dangers and surprises, and the actual exploration and specific process of the middle platform can only be explored, discovered, and experienced by yourself.

Is this the end? Have we talked about the middle platform thoroughly? I think there is still a little bit left, and there is one question that has not been answered.

At the beginning, we start with the end; in the end, we end with the beginning.

Returning to the question I was thinking about at the beginning, is the middle platform the trend or just a flash in the pan? Or, now, we can put it another way, is the trend of enterprise architecture evolving towards a platform the trend or just a flash in the pan?

Again, I believe the former more, why? Because: " users ".

Have you ever thought about why the middle platform is successful on the Internet? Traditional enterprises also have the same pain points and problems. Why hasn’t a successful middle platform or related concept emerged and instead become a follower of the Internet?

The difference here is not in the business, nor in the technology, but in: who are you looking at in the end?!

Internet companies need a middle platform, not to add icing on the cake, but to survive, because of fear . Because the competition is too fierce, whoever can grab users, who can win their hearts, who can retain users, who can kill others and succeed. This is not a political need, nor a technical need, it is a survival need , a life-and-death struggle. Therefore, Internet companies naturally focus on users, which is engraved in their genes for survival.

And the user is " spoiled ", and requires you to produce products in an endless stream, constantly iterative updates; also have to be economically cheap, unwilling to pay a little more cost.

Have you ever thought that these two types of needs are inherently contradictory, requiring both flexibility and economy? Enterprises have no choice but to unconditionally continue to satisfy users’ various " unreasonable demands " in order to survive. As for the middle platform or platform-based enterprise architecture, I believe it is also an inevitable product for enterprises to survive and develop in such a user-centric era. Why is that?

I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but there’s an old saying in the IT industry, ‘Any problem encountered in software engineering can be solved by adding an intermediate layer!’

At the enterprise level, the emergence of the new middle layer, the middle platform, is to reconcile the contradiction between “flexibility” and “economy”.

The front desk vertically carries the flexibility of the enterprise; the middle desk horizontally carries the economy of the enterprise; and the separation, game and balance between the front desk and the middle desk is essentially the separation, game and balance between the flexibility and economy of the enterprise as a whole.

And everything, all the problems, why do companies need to build platforms? Why do they need to build middle platforms? Why do they need to become platform-based enterprise architectures? Why do they need to become platform-based organizations?

In the end, the answer has always been there, on the wall around us, those six bright red words: " User-centered ". The key is whether it is ultimately on the wall, on the mouth, in the eyes, in the heart.

And the six words " user-centered " are the final answers to all the questions in my entire column, and also the greatest harvest I have gained from studying the middle platform until now. If all the tools and routines are the moves of the middle platform, then these six words are the heart method.

Finally, I would like to share this heart method with you, hoping that you can also understand the mysteries of it as soon as possible, go beyond various superficial moves, and achieve the state of having a sword in your heart without a sword in your hand.

Today is the last lecture of our middle platform course. I have prepared a learning material package for you, mainly consisting of selected books and articles that I have classified according to their content. If you have the energy to read through these contents, you will gain something from the ideas and methods related to middle platform implementation.

How to make use of these materials specifically? Here are my suggestions. If you are more concerned about macro enterprise-level strategy, you can read more about strategy and change and platform organization. If you are interested in enterprise-level architecture, it will definitely help you. If you are more concerned about the design and implementation of a specific middle platform, I recommend reading about design thinking, domain-driven design, agile & lean, and architecture evolution.

Okay, our course has come to an end. You are welcome to continue sharing your thoughts and gains, or talk about the problems and confusion you have encountered. I will always be here and look forward to seeing you again in the Q & A section!

# Book recommendation

1. Mid-platform concept

• The Way of Enterprise IT Architecture Transformation Alibaba Middle Platform Strategic Thinking and Architecture Practice
• Mid-Platform Strategy: Mid-Platform Building and Digital Commerce

2. Strategy and change

• On Grand Strategy
• “The Essence of Strategy”
• “Leading Change”
• The New Generation of Business Models
• Systems Thinking

3. Platform organization

• Unlocking Potential: An Evolutionary Roadmap for Platform Organizations
• Reinventing Haier: A Replicable Path to Organizational Evolution
• Empower: Building Agile Teams for Uncertainty

4. Enterprise architecture methodology

• TOGAF Standard Version 9.1
• Enterprise-level Business Architecture Design: Methodology and Practice
• Winning the B-end: The Road to Product Manager Upgrade

5. Design Thinking (DesignThinking)

• Strategic Design Thinking
• Innovative Design Thinking

6. Domain-driven design

• Domain-Driven Design: Coping with Software Core Complexity
• Implementing Domain-Driven Design
• Domain-Driven Design patterns, principles and practices

7. Agile & Lean

• Lean Thinking
• The Lean Startup
• “Lean Enterprise: How High-Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale”
• Kanban Method: The Successful Way for Technology Enterprises to Gradually Transform
• Code Pipeline: A Systematic Approach to Releasing Reliable Software

8. Architecture Evolution

• Evolutionary Architecture
• The Way to Clean Architecture
• Microservice Design