Business-Driven Architect

Links for 2008-07-17 [del.icio.us]

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Google Gears Takes Ruby on Rails Offline
interesting, makes me think I need to look at Google Gears -- "The Gears on Rails project by Google Gears enables Ruby on Rails developers to take their applications offline"
Everyone Works at Home at Chorus, Part One - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership
good 3-part series on one company's shift to being virtual. parts 2 & 3 on policy and management are particulalry interesting, and should be forwarded to those leaders afraid that 'out of sight is out of control' (you know who they are)
Welcome to the Frozen Economy
Fashionable to say "$4-5 gas is good", but Maine reality is this: "new quality of dread settled over the place like soot, as people weighed their options. Heat or food? Gas or electricity? Medicine or mortgage payments? What to give up? What to cut back?"

Quick Poll: What does your enterprise architecture group deliver?

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:49:28 -0500

This morning, I noticed that the reactions to Jeff Schneider's EA is a joke post continue to emerge, the latest from Richard Veryard. Richard does a nice job tracking the conversation and then adds some planetary perspective.

In the first of my own two-cent response to Jeff's, I said, "If you want an actionable enterprise architecture, you must go beyond artifacts". Seeing my words in Richard's post, combined with a completely unrelated discussion with Hub Vandervoort on standards organizations, reference implementations, and open source communities, got me wondering, what are most enterprise architecture group's responsible for delivering?

So, if you will, please take a second to answer the following quick poll: What does your enterprise architecture group deliver? Multiple answers are allowed. Feed subscribers, the poll direct link is here. Thanks.

Links for 2008-07-09 [del.icio.us]

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Why analyst relations matter - Analysts do not have time to do comprehensive research « SageCircle Blog
"analysts do not have the resources..conduct and publish comprehensive research..gather most of their data from client inquiry and vendor briefings..do not conduct product evaluations, lab tests against specifications, or [QOS] investigations."

Links for 2008-07-08 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Citigroup Names New CIO - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership
new CIO & “chief innovation officer” "former CTO, COO and merger strategy chief Deborah Hopkins...involve tying together “strategy, information technology and research and development to drive cross-business, client-focused innovation across the com
Google Open Source Blog: Protocol Buffers: Google's Data Interchange Format
Google's answer to XML for internal data exchange "Protocol Buffers allow you to define simple data structures in a special definition language, then compile them to produce classes to represent those structures in the language of your choice."
The Benefits of Downscaling
green, but applicable to tech "Call it downscaling, a design approach that focuses on a product's material and energy use. Downscaling entails small, consistent improvements across one (or more) of three dimensions: size, features, and longevity."
Under pressure: 10 sources pushing CIOs to go green | InfoWorld | News | 2008-07-07 | By Carolyn Duffy Marsan, Network World
"CIOs are being hit from all sides to become environmentally savvy, not just because it sounds good but because it cuts costs, drives profitability and improves competitiveness...Top 10 people who are pressuring CIOs to green up their IT practices."
Google Research Publication: Web Search for a Planet - Google Cluster Architecture
recommended reading (Matt Cutts - www.mattcutts.com) for context on Google's Protocol Buffers (no, I haven't read it yet)
Enterprise Architects are Vital in Tough Times—Forrester - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership
...difficulty engaging business execs in business strategy or business architecture sessions... discussion on downturn scenarios “could awaken business-side representatives to the value of regular contact with architects to discuss plans and alternative

Links for 2008-07-01 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0500

IT vs. initiative: The Internet age comes to the battlefield | The Industry Standard
"The conflicting demands of a commander's need for an independent-minded, mission-oriented soldier and his voracious appetite for information cannot be reconciled by technology. It's a human issue and a leadership issue."
Column 2 by Sandy Kemsley : Oracle BEA Strategy Briefing
Sandy covers SOA, BPM and User Interaction (Portal, Web 2.0) of Oracle BEA briefing. That leaves event processing (WL Event server w/Oracle EP algorithms), JEE/Java (WebLogic & Jrocket are strategic), Tuxedo (lives on) and stds (SCA, OSGi, BPMN, BPEL)
Oracle Fusion Middleware -- Merged Oracle & BEA product lines
Oracle site with information and podcasts on merged oracle & bea product lines -- everything from jvm to business intelliegence
SOA Consortium Insights: SOA Case Study Contest deadline extended until July 31, 2008
per member and community request, we are extending the deadline on the SOA Consortium & CIO Magazine SOA case study contest until July 31, 2008. this is the first and last extension. winners to be announced at Sept soa-c meeting in (where else?) Orlando
Why 'How' Matters More Than Ever - Human conduct—how we do what we do...
"..represents the next frontier of powerful differentiation. The qualities that many once thought of as "soft"—trust, integrity, honesty—are now the hard currency of business success and the ultimate drivers of efficiency, productivity, and profitabil

Links for 2008-06-23 [del.icio.us]

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Analyst predictions :) « Technobabble 2.0
ever wonder how those graphs and predictions come to be?
IT Leaders Encouraged to Contribute Enterprise Code to Open-Source Projects - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership
why contribute? "JP Morgan's CIO realized that support costs could be reduced by contributing the source code to the Linux community...important to JP Morgan, the company wouldn't have to invest its own resources in maintaining an internal application"
Scripting languages spark new programming era | InfoWorld | Analysis | 2008-06-23 | By Paul Krill
quick rundown of popular scripting languages - php, perl, python, ruby and javascript in the context of "new era". are folks using these for enterprise apps? does JVM runtime support make scripting language use more likely?
On Clouds, the Sun and the Moon - GigaOM
perspective on economics of cloud computing by Geva Perry, chief marketing officer of GigaSpaces

SOA Stories, SOA & Event Processing in Ottawa, June 25-26, 2008

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 11:28:45 -0500

This week, I'm headed up and left (northwest) to the SOA Consortium meeting in Ottawa, Ontario. We have a great line-up to help us explore two themes -- “SOA Stories” and “SOA and Event Processing”.

During Wednesday’s SOA Stories day, we’ve invited speakers to share anecdotes, insights, lessons and battle scars related to real-life experience. I'm excited that Melvin Greer is returning to speak on SOA Hard Problems/SOA Spirals.

For Thursday's SOA and Event Processing day, we’ve invited speakers to share experiences combining SOA and Event Processing to deliver business capabilities. Interestingly, the speakers are each adding another element to the SOA – Event Processing mix. Ed Lynch from IBM adds the element of BPM, while Bruce Henderson of Savant adds the mashup perspective.

After the invited speaker talks on Thursday, I'll be moderating a roundtable discussion between invited experts and meeting attendees on the current and future relationship of SOA and event processing in the context of delivering business capabilities.

In their opening remarks, I've asked our roundtable leaders -- Ed Lynch of IBM, Bruce Henderson of Savant, Ian Foster of Cisco and Greg Peres of Sun -- to comment on any of the following SOA and event processing relationship aspects:

1) What are the business drivers and/or specific instances prompting organizations to combine SOA & Event Processing? What advantages are they gaining by using both, rather than just one?
2) What are the technology challenges in combining SOA & event processing? Is there a suggested implementation/adoption sequence? How does software/application development change?
3) What are the human/organizational elements associated with an event processing strategy? Are they similar to SOA – cultures of governance and collaboration? How does an event processing environment impact the daily lives of line and/or knowledge workers?
4) Is event processing yet another retro-technology strategy? How does/will event processing differ from pub-sub and/or straight-through processing techniques?

From there, we'll take questions (and answers) from the audience. If you listened to our last roundtables, you'll know the audience is very engaged, limiting my role to passing the microphone around.

Why am I sharing this? Two reasons. First, the meeting is open to the public. If you will be in the Ottawa area June 25-26, please consider joining us.

Second, if you'd like to share your perspective on the SOA-Event processing relationship aspects above, or submit a question to the roundtable, please leave a comment, or send me an email bmichelson at elementallinks dot com. Barring a recording calamity, podcasts from the above discussions will be available at the SOA Consortium Resource Hub.

[Disclosure: The SOA Consortium is a client of my company, Elemental Links. IBM, Cisco, Savant and Sun are not clients of Elemental Links, however they are sponsors of the SOA Consortium.]

Links for 2008-06-18 [del.icio.us]

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0500

George F. Colony: Bill Gates' Legacy: Constructive Monopolism
Gates & Edison, constructive monopolists, pretty good tech, great reach--"What is his single most important legacy? The ability, through monopolistic business practices, to make Microsoft's products global, de facto standards for business and consumers."
Anatomy of a runaway IT project : Bruce F. Webster
must read post of actual project assessment -- "There isn’t enough intellectual honesty within the FUBAR project. Managers reject or explain away bad news and real problems, looking instead for people who will tell them what they want to hear."
Seth's Blog: The power of remarkable -- Little Miss Matched, 3 unmatched sox to a box
"Instead of a strategy built around a consultant's vision of 'utility' or...built around cheap or ...built around excessive retail distribution and heavy advertising, they built their strategy around one girl saying to another girl, "wanna see my socks?""
Every Great Business Is An Argument | OPEN Forum Blog from American Express OPEN
hidden message (for any org) is mission & focus:"every great business is founded in a thesis, a statement of what should be true. It’s then the business’s job to go prove that thesis - in essence, the business becomes the argument that proves the thes

Does your SOA lack social skills?

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 08:02:22 -0500

That’s the question Hub Vandervoort, CTO of Progress Software, has been asking CIOs and EAs of late. Not to be confused with social computing, Hub is talking to organizations about their awareness and ability to form and retain relationships for the betterment of all parties. Why? Because at the core of SOA is federation. And federation requires cooperation.

Technology side federation is obvious. It is the assembly of disparate services, and underlying IT resources, into business solutions. Business side federation is less obvious, but enormously powerful. It is the cooperation of disparate business entities to generate value for all parties, including the end-consumer. In his eBook, Hub cites business federation examples from aerospace manufacturing, financial institutions and travel aggregators. In my own work, I often talk to this as business activity ecosystems.

This moment of federation-ecosystem convergence, diverted my short call with Hub on SOA and the Economy to become an extended conversation on the criticality of applying social as well as technical concepts for successful federations. Hub refers to this as “Socially Oriented Architecture” (eBook).

Although our conversation was far ranging, and occasionally tangential, I’m only going to focus on the core concepts here – contracts, governance, trust & commitment, and empowerment. To learn more about socially oriented architecture, check out the eBook and related webinar, and look for Hub on the conference circuit.

Contracts

As Hub was explaining socially oriented architecture, he spoke of some basic, but not simple, questions. The first:

“How do we organize ourselves as people so that we can in fact form cooperative arrangements?”

In a truly cooperative arrangement, no single party is in control. The parties establish a contract in which they specify responsibilities, timelines, communications, performance expectations, payments and penalties. That should sound familiar to practitioners of service-oriented architecture. This led to Hub’s second question:

“What’s the right sizing of the contract so it doesn’t encumber us with a bunch of decisions that really don’t matter, yet provides enough adequacy so that we can get an effective federation going?”

The answer to this question is all about service-orientation. A right-sized contract:

focuses on “what” each party will do, rather than “how” they will do it
includes performance expectations, payments and penalties
specifies interaction style
defines precise semantics

In respect to interaction style, Hub shared that the most equitable federations interact in an event-driven manner. Parties inform each other of progress and delays with the expectation the other party will respond appropriately. No single party controls the flow of work and information.

Governance

In a service-oriented architecture, governance mechanisms and organizations are put in place to monitor and enforce contracts. A governance approach works for single domain environments, but becomes problematic in a federation. This leads to another of Hub’s questions:

“What are the human dimensions to get people to interoperate together when there is no hierarchy stemming over those people?”

This question, first raised by Hub during a speaking engagement in Europe, led to collaboration with McKinsey during which the following “from-to” was developed:

“Moving from a world where the principle management tool has been hierarchy to a world where the principle management tool now has to become trust and commitment.”

Trust & Commitment

This brings us to the final question:

“How are trust and commitment established?”

Hub shared that you can only achieve a trusting relationship with good transparency. In a business context, this is the timely communication of relevant information. As an example, Hub cited a simple purchase order agreement with terms to send the buyer an advanced shipping notice (ASN) 14 days after the order is placed. If the seller wants to build trust, he should send the buyer notifications from each step of the order fulfillment process. Then, if an issue arises on the fifth day, both parties are equally aware and able to adjust.

Commitment requires agreement on a unit of value appreciated by both parties. In a business context, the most common units of value are time and dollars.

According to Hub, contracts need instrumentation in place to create a trusting transparent environment, as well as monetization to create a canonical unit of measure for commitment. Without these elements, a federation will not succeed.

Empowerment

Bringing the conversation back around to corporate IT, Hub described his vision for the future of IT organizations that embrace social constructs and shift to a trust and commitment management mindset.

“The real shift [for IT] is not to do what you’ve been doing in the past faster, but shift from being delivery mechanism to empowerment mechanism -- truly democratized computing in a Web 2.0 sense. The end-user is always going to operate on the path of least resistance. Find tools that enable him to create his own solution… mashable desktops, data access through services…”

Another point that Hub and I converge on is the opportunity to learn about business optimization from how people “wire stuff together” and how they “react and respond to events”. To capture this information, the wired components and environment must include instrumentation and monitoring. Hub was quick to point out that IT needs to be careful not to institutionalize that learning in rigid, controlled applications.

Hub acknowledges that this is an “unsettling idea” and that perhaps the most unsettling part is ensuring compliance with regulations such as SOX, PCI, and HIPAA.

Wrap and Discussion

As our call ended, Hub spoke to the state of this work. Socially oriented architecture is in the idea, rather than implementation stage. The path to implementation would include education and practices on the case for federation, management change, contract structure and negotiation, organizational change, and technology implementation.

Hub mentioned some might consider socially oriented architecture “granola SOA for the casual pedestrian”, but he was quick to add that innovative times require new techniques.

I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Hub. As folks know, I’m most interested in exploring the connections between business, technology and people. As follow-on, I plan to take Hub up on his offer to learn more about the ‘case for federation’.

Discussion Questions – How Social is your SOA?

1. How federated is your SOA?

Do business solutions (applications, processes, widgets, mashups) consume services from more than one domain? Are those domains within the control of your enterprise/agency?
Are the business capabilities your SOA provides part of a larger value chain? Is service-orientation or events used to interact with other value chain participants (partners, suppliers, regulatory agencies, customers)?

2. Does your basic service design include system and business instrumentation? How are those instrumentation events used?

3. Does your governance model rely on hierarchical relationships? Could it work in a federation with external parties?

4. Is your SOA designed with end-user empowerment in mind? Should it be?

[Disclosure: Progress Software is not a client of my company, Elemental Links]

Links for 2008-06-09 [del.icio.us]

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Google's Schmidt: More US innovation needed | InfoWorld | News | 2008-06-09 | By Grant Gross, IDG News Service
I'm ok w/this "urged audience members to embrace competition and open systems. Control and exclusivity in business settings will be replaced by speed and innovation; his call for early info sharing "hang it all out, compete where you can" is self-serving
A New Approach to Innovation Investment - Harvard Business Online's Conversation Starter
IT innovation is starting to be funded in this VC like manner: "think of ventures or innovations as real options. A real option is a toehold investment that buys you the right, but not the obligation, to make a subsequent investment when you know more."
What if the high price of oil is a blessing?
"Consider the ways that high fuel and energy prices could benefit your organization..maybe $4.00 gasoline leads your company to institute saner telecommuting practices, which leads to lower operating costs, better morale, and higher productivity."

SOA Consortium Practitioner Panels at Gartner's AADI & EA Summits - June 11 & 13

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 07:27:12 -0500

In what's becoming a habit, the SOA Consortium will once again host practitioner panels at Gartner's AADI and EA Summits. There are two great panels lined up.

On Wednesday, June 11 at AADI, Todd Biske, Melvin Greer and Mike Kavis will be talking about measuring the value of SOA. Knowing the panelists, I'm sure the discussion will go beyond 'code reuse'. The panel will be moderated by Gartner's Daniel Sholler and SOA-C's Richard Soley.

"In this session, several practitioners will share firsthand experience of justifying and measuring the value of their service-oriented architecture (SOA) activities: How to make the initial business case and continuously demonstrate the benefits? What metrics to use? What return on investment (ROI) to expect? What challenges have they encountered, and how did they overcome them?"

On Friday, 13 June at EA, John Williams, Maja Tibbling and Marty Colburn will join Todd to discuss SOA & EA lessons learned from the trenches. This panel will be moderated by Gartner's Bruce Robertson and SOA-C's Richard Soley.

"In this user panel, co-moderated by Gartner and the SOA Consortium, several enterprise architecture (EA) practitioners will look at the links, synergies and dependencies between service-oriented architecture (SOA) and EA. How does SOA fit into the EA picture? How can it help make EA more valuable? Does SOA need to be part of a broader EA? Hear the first-hand experience and lessons learned from our panelists, and ask them your own SOA/EA questions."

If you are attending the Gartner events, I highly recommend stopping by these sessions for insights from real-world practitioners.

[Disclosure: The SOA Consortium is a client of my company, Elemental Links]

Quick Poll: Are Senior IT Leaders Cash Flow Managers or Investment Managers?

Sun, 18 May 2008 15:27:48 -0500

I'm exploring some ideas on 'business thinking' for folks in IT leadership positions -- essentially applying business discipline to an IT organization's offerings, capabilities, portfolios and performance -- and one aspect is financial management. In considering this aspect, I find myself wondering which financial dial CIOs and their direct reports are most focused on -- cash flow or investment return.

So, if you would, please take a moment to answer the quick poll below. Feed subscribers, the direct poll link is here.

Enterprise Architecture 2010 Talk -- Where EA Means Business -- at SAP ASUG on May 5, 2008

Thu, 01 May 2008 16:02:00 -0500

Now that I'm only 5 slides short of a full deck, I thought it would be a good to tell folks that on Monday, I'll be representing the SOA Consortium's EA2010 working group at SAP's ASUG conference in, you guessed it, sunny Orlando. I'll be giving a talk on our EA2010 work. Areas of discussion include 21st century business, service-orientation, business architecture, enterprise architecture and enterprise architects. If you are attending the show, please come by, Monday at 9:30-10:30, in 308C.

If you'd like to connect at the show, I'll be at the Sunday evening ESOA Community Networking Session, and taking in sessions and wandering around the expo floor on Monday. Drop me an email at bmichelson at gmail dot com.

Now, I just need to fit in my reading assignment from Paul Kurchina, Mashup Corporations, The End of Business as Usual.

[Disclosure: SAP is not a client of Elemental Links, however they are a sponsor of the SOA Consortium, which is a client of Elemental Links]

SOA Consortium Case Study Contest

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:00:14 -0500

Do you have a SOA story to tell? One that speaks to business value generation, rather than the singular pursuit of technical nirvana? If you answered yes to both, consider participating in the SOA case study contest from the SOA Consortium and CIO magazine. Ripped from my own post on the SOA Consortium Insights blog:

"The goal of the SOA case study contest is to highlight business success stories and lessons learned to provide proof points and insights for other organizations considering or pursuing SOA adoption.

Case study submissions must be for completed projects that used a SOA approach to deliver business value. In keeping with our charter, we are not looking for dissertations on the technical beauty of the architecture and implementation. Rather, we are interested in the business story, the business value generated, the degree of cross-organizational collaboration, and the usages of SOA approaches and supporting technology.

For more information on the contest and participation, please go here."

[Disclosure: The SOA Consortium is a client of my company, Elemental Links]

Jack van Hoof's IT Services Stack collaboration experiment

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 09:07:18 -0500

Jack van Hoof contacted me about his IT Services Stack collaboration experiment. Jack, as many know, is an enterprise integration architect and author of the popular eda-soa blog. In his email, Jack asked if I would let my readers know of his experiment and offer my feedback. Since the work will remain in the public domain, I'm happy to do both.

The Initiative

The best way to describe the work, is to excerpt from Jack's post and show his picture in progress.

"It is not always easy for an enterprise IT architect to keep scope and hold the complete picture. As we have several architects with different competences I felt the urge to develop an IT Services Stack. The IT Services Stack is a picture of a layered view on all aspects of IT from a component perspective."

"I would like to make this premature IT Services Stack more consistent and supply an extended view on every component mentioned in the picture. The model should be defined one level deeper, with the following attributes:

Function of the component

Relationship with other components

Sub-level components and models

Related open standards

Innovative products in the market"

Jack then asks for community help, that's us. So, if you are inclined, jump over to Jack's blog and offer your comments. Or, as I'm about to do, post your comments and link to Jack.

My Three Cents

I suggest the addition of a new (leftmost) column, IT Business Management. This column would contain components related to the 'business of IT'. Top of mind components are:

Business & IT Collaboration: Strategy, Architecture, Planning
IT Offerings - the products and services IT provides to the business. The supplier might be a third party.
Demand and Supply Management
Portfolio Management - Budget, Project and Asset
Talent Development

The Hardware section caught my eye, only because I wonder how much hardware will continue to be under direct management of IT. Beyond interaction devices (laptops, keyboards, mice, pdas) and networking equipment, does hardware ownership and management by IT organizations become obsolete? Do we care about the hardware? Or, just the technical infrastructure services at the next layer up?

In respect to the SOA box, the SOA Consortium's community of practice is working on a planning framework. I sense some sharing in our future.

[Disclosure: The SOA Consortium is a client of my company, Elemental Links]

Green IT Ingenuity at Cork Internet Exchange

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:07:20 -0500

Let me preface this post with the obvious, I am not an engineer. But, it would be fair to say I’m green. So, consider what follows information sharing, but definitely not analysis. Other than, “Hey, what Cork Internet Exchange did is cool”.

I’ve always wondered if there was a green opportunity in data centers. Instead of expending all that energy cooling down data centers, couldn’t the generated heat be redirected for good, such as heating the building? Maybe not the best idea in Florida, but certainly applicable here in the Northeastern US.

Now, not being an engineer, I wasn’t sure if this was a really good question, or a really dumb one. But, since I’m more interested in learning than being right, when people talk of Green IT, I ask my question. This morning, on Twitter, I asked it of James Governor (RedMonk, GreenMonk). In response, James sent a link to a post about Tom Raftery’s data center redesign at Cork Internet Exchange. An excerpt follows, is mine.

“What was the design decision that makes all the difference at Cork? Well you see a normal data center has hot aisles (backs of servers) and cold aisles (fronts of servers), but the data center has an average ambient temperature based on convection and flows of these air streams. Indeed most data centers are pretty much designed and run with the ambient temperature in mind. So what did Tom and team do? They put a cork in it. They sealed the cold aisles, which means that when you walk into the data center you’re hit with a blast of 30 degree celsius air. For humans the temperature is very high, but where it has to be cold, it is. Which is pretty smart if you ask me. Of course this idea would never fly in America where humans can only stand a very small ambient temperate range between 65 and 70 degrees F. But in Europe I can certainly see some organisations trying something similar. To be clear- the data center heat is also used to warm the offices and hot water at cix. Says Tom: “Our central heating is powered by Intel”. The crack about Americans and air-conditioning above is a little unfair- after all- Cork has the native advantage of not being as hot as California, or locations where many US data centers are located. But still- it surely makes sense to concentrate on cooling machines rather than people when you’re designing a data center.”

For readers who are engineers, check out the details here. Perhaps my brother (an engineer) will explain it to me!

So, I’m (continually) curious. Are other organizations redirecting generated data center energy? What other creative Green IT initiatives are folks undertaking? Are these initiatives adding environmental and business value? Or, do you feel greenwashed?

Beware the "Alignment Trap"

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:20:09 -0500

As most know, my IT soapbox has “business-driven” emblazoned on all sides. By business-driven, I’m referring to an IT organization’s imperative – to deliver business value. In this vein, I talk about (harp on) numerous topics including business-focused technology innovation, business-driven architecture, IT gaining business-smarts, and more recently business-IT integration.

I started to use the term 'business-IT integration', because I’m thinking beyond traditional business-IT alignment. Alignment refers to the review and reconciliation of independent activities, in this context the reconciliation of business strategy and plans with IT strategy, architecture and plans.

For business to reap the true value of IT, business and IT must collaborate on the development of strategy, architecture and plans. This collaboration, which should continue through delivery and operations, is business-IT integration. In order to have an integrated environment, business and IT professionals must be more conversant in the other’s discipline. Historically, IT has put this learning burden on the business, but it’s time for IT professionals to 'get business'.

If you bear with me for a moment more, I’d say that business-IT integration will naturally evolve to a business-IT fusion of sorts, at least in the strategy and innovation arenas, but now I’ve gone well beyond the intent of my post…

My intent was to amplify a key message from a MIT Sloan Article on Avoiding the Alignment Trap in IT. The authors, from Bain & Company, share their “growing realization … that the usual diagnoses of IT’s troubles – and the usual prescriptions for fixing those troubles – are often misguided”. In particular, they call out companies “seeking to deliver higher business value performance by harnessing IT have focused on alignment… the degree to which the IT group understands the priorities of the business and expends its resources, pursues projects and provides information consistent with them”.

The authors believe the following is true "A lack of alignment can doom IT either to irrelevance or to failure”. However, they raise an important flag that every IT leader should take to heart “a narrow focus on alignment reflects a fundamental misconception about the nature of IT. Underperforming capabilities are often rooted not just in misalignment but in the complexity of systems, applications and other infrastructure.”

They go on to describe situations in which business alignment run amok actually drives up IT complexity – silo-ed data centers, customized packaged applications, bolting on legacy applications, lack of standards and shared infrastructure – therefore driving down IT performance.

The authors quote Richard F. Connell, senior executive vice president and CIO of Selective Insurance Group “Aligning a poorly performing IT organization to the right business objectives still won’t get the objectives accomplished”. That, the authors say “is the alignment trap”.

For those in the alignment trap, the authors recommend a return to basics “temporarily focusing on effectiveness at the expense of alignment”. And of course, effectiveness requires simplification. Quoting Leonardo da Vinci, the authors remind us “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.

The article has good insights on diagnosing IT pain and shares company anecdotes. If you have access to MIT Sloan Review, I recommend reading the article.

As for the big takeaway – in pursuing business-driven IT, don’t lose sight of the fundamentals, effectiveness, simplicity (to the degree possible), and constant communication. Host cross project/initiative forums with key players (project managers, architects and business analysts). Open lines of communication and collaboration to help your organization “balance well the needs of the entire organization with those of individual businesses”. And always, beware the alignment trap!

Tammy Erickson: Taking the offensive in recessionary times

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 17:18:57 -0500

We've all been in organizations where the first reaction to a downturn is cost-cutting and a myopic focus on keeping the lights on. Sometimes, that is your only option, but for many organizations, a current-term batten down the hatches approach stifles innovation and talent, and inevitably drives the best and brightest out the door -- with their creative ideas!

In a recent post on her Harvard Business Discussion Leader blog, Tammy Erickson calls for a different approach, one that recognizes the unpredictability of the current business climate and emphasizes investing in collaboration, improvisation, and yes -- people:

"A lot of senior managers are now readying their team for Recession 2008. Most are thinking in ways that are completely understandable -- and in my view -- very likely to be dangerously wrong. Most standard wisdom advises caution and control -- review your costs, tighten your approval criteria, pull key decisions and sign offs up to higher levels, make sure everyone in the organization is as fully busy as possible, narrow the business scope.

That approach might work, if the nature of the recessionary environment were known or easy to predict. But it’s not. Rather than trying to tighten control and hunker down, I’d suggest that you think about ways to make your team better able to improvise given whatever comes along. Four things will help your organization become more spontaneous, innovative and reflexive:

(1) Increase your firm’s “collaborative capacity” through relationships, trust, and knowledge exchange. Don’t cut out meetings, intensify the competition among internal teams, or reduce investments in learning. (For more, see our November 2007 HBR article “Eight Ways to Build Collaborative Teams”).

(2) Articulate a compelling “innovation intent” -- something that, in the language of complexity theory, will serve as a “strange attractor” to rally your team around goals that are intriguing, complex and important. Don’t narrow the focus to the mundane or over-specify the way teams should approach their challenges. Keep them engaged.

(3) Ensure that your team has regular on-going exposure to disruptive insights through diversity and external forays. Don’t cut travel or fall back on the old “tried and true” team. Bring in new people and new ideas and take them seriously. Get outside your business sphere.

(4) Provide everyone in your organization with some specific tools to help with innovative thought processes -- teach people how to brainstorm, use scenario analysis, or create ideas through attribute reduction. Don’t cut training -- invest in your people. Teach your employees how to be a business innovator so they can improvise in motion."

Makes sense to me. Seems like you'd want to give your organization a fighting chance, and innovation takes innovators...

Dave Linthicum at OMG's Maximizing BPM Investments with SOA Workshop

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 10:25:59 -0500

Today, I'm in sunny, but not warm, Orlando at OMG's Maximizing BPM Investments with SOA Workshop. Dave Linthicum just gave a keynote speech. Here are some quotes from his talk that convey good SOA, BPM and (yes) architectural common sense.

"The core business motivation is business agility"

"Organizations suffer from the business inflexibility trap. As a result of years of dragging stuff (new technology) in and bolting it on, IT is impeding business change"

"IT practices (quick hits and bolting on) is like hardening of the arteries.... trouble builds over time and eventually requires major surgery"

"SOA is not about connecting things, it is about enabling business processes and continual change"

"SOA is also known as good architecture"

"BPM and SOA were never unlinked. Can't have SOA without process. Process is more efficient with SOA"

"rather than 'rip and replace' old systems - make them work better together"

"SOA is not about technology, integration or middleware"

"Many perspectives on SOA: Business Processes, Services, Technology and Data"

"SOA is not something you buy, it is something you do"

[Disclosure: The OMG, as manager of the SOA Consortium, is a client of my company, Elemental Links]

SOA 2008 - It's the economy...

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:04:18 -0500

This morning’s dismal US Jobs Report and the ensuing analysis laden with the “R-word” reminded me of a conversation the SOA Consortium community-of-practice had on our December 4, 2007 call that I had been meaning to post over on SOA Consortium Insights. During that call, I asked our members the following:

“What does the ensuing (or on-going) economic downturn mean for SOA in 2008? Will the economic downturn and associated budget cutbacks drive organizations to, or away from, SOA in 2008?”

We had a good discussion, the results of which are here. I'm curious, what does this community think? Will SOA be employed as a strategy to cope with, and prosper in, tumultuous times?. Or, will SOA be seen as a budget line to cut? Let me know, via a comment or trackback, here or there.

[Disclosure: The SOA Consortium is a client of my company, Elemental Links]

Quick Poll: Impediments to Business-Focused Technology Innovation

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:20:45 -0500

In October, I asked readers "Who in your organization is the primary source of business-focused technology innovation?". So far, Chief/Lead Architects are leading that poll, followed by Business Architects/Strategists.

Continuing on the business-focused technology innovation theme, now I'm wondering what impedes business-focused technology innovation. Essentially, what (or who) holds innovation hostage in organizations? Or, are there no impediments?

Please take a minute to answer the quick poll below. For feed subscribers, the direct poll link is here.

Thanks!

Quick Poll: Origin of Business-Focused Technology Innovation

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:57:20 -0500

[Note: This is also posted on Elemental Links]

The other night I was chatting with a friend about the archetype of business-focused technology innovator – creative, business-smart, technology-savvy, dot-connector, influencer, and transformation leader. You know, the type of person every organization needs, but doesn’t always know how to find one, or (worse) what to do with.

Anyway, during our conversation, we were chatting about this archetype versus org chart positions or hiring reqs. Depending on the organization, a person of this ilk might be found in (or qualified for) one of several slots, from CIO to senior technician.

So, I’m curious, in respect to enterprise or government IT, what role in your organization is the primary source of business-focused technology innovation? Please note your response on the following poll. Thanks!