Friday Links 07-22-2011

From the Archives
Agile Architecture Method -- Scope and focus your architecture exercise, use scenarios to drive the design and evaluate potential solutions, and expose key choice points.  It's a way to bridge traditional architecture with more agile, iterative, and incremental ways.  This approach is the synthesis of more than 30 seasoned solution architects inside and outside of Microsoft, as well as  security experts, and performance experts.

User Stories for Cloud Enterprise Strategy -- A collection of user stories for the cloud.  This collection is a simple map of the most common scenarios that Enterprise Architects, business leaders, and IT leaders will be facing as they adopt cloud technologies.  These are real scenarios from real customers, thinking through and planning their cloud adoption.

Windows Azure Whitepapers Roundup – If you want to read up on Microsoft’s cloud story, there are plenty of whitepapers to get you started.   This is a collection of the various Windows Azure whitepapers around Microsoft for developers, IT Pros, and business leaders.

From the Web
Motivation Guidelines – A set of proven practices for improving your motivation, finding your drive, and inspiring action.  Motivation is a skill you can use the rest of your life.  Find the key practices that work for you, and use this collection as your mental toolbox to draw from.

36 Best Business Books that Influenced Microsoft Leaders – The beauty of Microsoft is the extremely high concentration of smart people and  I like to leverage the collective brain  I posed the following question to several Microsoft leaders, past and present, and up and down the ranks, “ “What are the top 3 books that changed your life in terms of business effectiveness?”   This is the answer I got.