My Takeaways from the 23rd TOGAF Practitioners Conference

I attended the 23rd TOGAF Practitioners Conference last week in Toronto, where I was invited to speak on a panel (podcast coming soon on ZDNET) entitled “Architecture’s Scope Extends Beyond the Enterprise.” I had never been to a TOGAF event, so I was looking forward to seeing what the event would be like. I am happy to say that I was not disappointed with my decision to attend. The Open Group were gracious hosts. The attendees more varied in levels of experience than I had anticipated. Many of the presentations and panels were not framework oriented or TOGAF oriented, making for a more well-rounded EA conference that would have benefitted organizations that use TOGAF very little or not at all. But my greatest takeaway from the event was the underlying theme that ran through the keynotes, breakouts, panels, Q&A sessions and hallway conversations – It is time for EA to become a more strategic BUSINESS discipline. For those of you familiar with EAdirections and our time with the META Group, this is not a new message. However, it is refreshing to see a group perceived as heavily IT-focused as The Open Group to promote this message through the non-member and member speakers alike, as well as some of the tracks in the program. Here are some examples:

• The panel I sat on, while entitled “Architecture’s Scope Extends Beyond the Enterprise,” was actually focused on how the role of EA might be evolving in the future. The moderator and audience questioned the ability of EA to reach its potential as an effort within the IT department. While most see that EA has expanded beyond technology architecture, the evolution of EA towards business architecture is just beginning, if at all, in most organizations.

• The afternoon of day 1 featured tracks on “Holistic EA and and the Role of Business” and “EA Implementation and Business Transformation.”

• One of the afternoon speakers, Bill Sheleg of Deloitte, spoke on the topic of “Extending EA to a Business Discipline.” His premise, as we have expressed for years, is that there is a disconnect in many organizations between the defined strategy and the activities that are going on in and organizations, and that EA is uniquely positioned to bridge that gap. One of the key points he made came from a Bain Consulting study, which said “Seven out of eight companies in a global sample of 1,854 large corporations failed to achieve profitable growth, though more than 90 percent had detailed strategic plans ….”

• The highlight of day 1 for me was the end of day roundtable discussion. All of the speakers from the morning panel and the afternoon speakers in the Holistic EA track joined with the audience to share ideas and thoughts on the question: “What’s next for EA?” The resounding consensus of the group discussion was that EA needs to become a tool that the business (not just IT) uses to improve the execution of strategy. How that will happen, however, brought up several different opinions from the group.

• The second day featured an entire track on the role and profession of business analysis and the parallels between business analysis and business architecture. This track was highlighted by a discussion from Kathleen Barrett, President of the International Institute of Business Analysts (IIBA). She spoke on the evolution of the profession of business analysts, going so far as to say that the set of skills and knowledge that business analysts possess are the same as business architects should possess. IIBA just published the Business Analyst Book of Knowledge (BABOK) 2.0, which is something that I would recommend aspiring BA’s (analyst or architect) make a part of their repertoire.

The next TOGAF conference in North America will be in early 2010 in Seattle, WA, where I hope to see that conversation has continued and evolved.

Another interesting speaker was David Foote, of Foote Partners (www.footepartners.com), a research company focused on IT workforce management and compensation practices, trends and issues. David provided quite a bit of interesting data and research conclusions regarding IT jobs, skills and certifications in the US and Canada. His latest press release is available at www.tinyurl.com/ltfpte, containing much of the information he shared with us, but there were three salient points that I want to share:

1 – Although the US unemployment rate is still growing, there are some segments of IT that are losing jobs at a slower rate than most other segments, and in some cases, even gaining jobs in some months. This counter trending is typical of the IT profession in a recession due to the increased dependency on IT.

2 – One of the areas in which David sees a difference in this recession, than in past recessions, is that companies are being very careful about where they cut jobs, so that when the economy begins to rebound, they will be ready with their best people. Specifically, IT professionals with architecture skills and certifications are being valued very highly.

3 – To further solidify the position of architects, including enterprise architects, David presented several data points that show that while many IT skills and certifications are losing value with employers, those of architects are generally trending upward. For instance, Architecture and Project Management certifications that are tracked by Foote Partners have actually increased in value by 4.3% during Q2 2009, one of only 3 areas with growth. Also, of the 19 architecture certifications that they track, none have lost value in the last quarter, with some even gaining value.

Taken altogether, David did a pretty good job of convincing the audience that while some analysts may have predicted a “Death Knell” for Enterprise Architecture in 2009, that does not appear to be the case. My colleague George Paras also disputed this notion in a recent blog entry, www.eadirections.wordpress.com/2009/03/17/will-ea-groups-disappear-in-2009/. Both the data and David’s conversations with executives support the notion that this recession is a great opportunity for IT professionals with architecture skills to thrive.

George Paras – SITPforum in Minneapolis

I will be visiting Minneapolis on August 19 as the guest speaker at the SITPforum.  This is an interactive, executive round-table session beginning with refreshments at 4 PM.  I’ll be leading a discussion on “Aligning Business and IT” with a focus on IT Strategic Planning, EA and Portfolio Management with side discussions on any aspect of those topics of interest to the group.  At previous sessions in Atlanta and New York I touched on Governance, Organizational Models, Business and Information Architecture, Capabilities Analysis, and how to be an effective IT Leader.

If you can’t attend but know someone in the area, please forward this announcement to them. 

Please send an email directly to me at gparas@EAdirections.com if you’d like to attend.  I look forward to seeing you there.

Overcoming the Tensions between Project Staff and EA Groups

A few months back, at the recent EA Symposium in Toronto, I gave a presentation on the tensions that exist between project staff, particularly project managers, and the EA Team.  The audience was primarily of the architect persuasion.  The session was well received in spite of the fact that I was fairly tough on them, challenging them to take responsibility to make sure their relationships with their project communities were healthy and productive.   The core message of the session, as well as the overall conference, was about balance – how to live up to the larger role of an enterprise architect in addressing holistic, enterprise-wide, strategic opportunities while also ensuring that today’s challenges and initiatives are supported through their work.  

I touched on future state EA content creation, governance, and their coach/assist role.  The latter requires rolling up their sleeves and engaging directly with project teams.  Recommendations included warnings to not reside in an ivory tower, and advice to actively engage with project and asset communities, to encourage contribution, to communicate and be transparent in their work, and to not act as the architecture police.   While these messages aren’t a surprise to those of you who have worked with us, the audience seemed to appreciate hearing them, resulting in 40 minutes of group discussion. 

What I enjoyed the most about this discussion was the enthusiasm of the audience.  As a fairly typical conference audience, the group was very diverse in experience, representing private and public sectors, large and small organizations, and veterans of EA work (both successful and wounded) plus newbies and wanna-be’s.  Many described themselves as being in situations not of their making – stuck being reactive vs.  proactive, no time to look forward because they were full time project engineering support resources, they felt they did solid forward-looking strategy but nobody cared, project needs always trumped longer-term objectives, no leadership support, etc.  The better news is that, after some discussion, most saw that applying the techniques we discussed could help them be more balanced, improve their situations, and earn the right to be more influential and better leaders. 

Coming full circle to the main topic, at the end of the discussion I held an informal poll to find out how many of them thought the relationship between their EA group and their project counterparts was “healthy” vs. “room for improvement” vs. “non-existent”.   Despite the fact that the diversity of the audience makes it impossible to draw any statistical conclusion from their answers, and that each likely interpreted the choices differently, the responses were overwhelmingly “healthy” and “room for improvement” with almost no “non-existent”.   So for this group, they generally thought they are doing ”OK”. 

Being a scientist and an analyst by nature and training, I wanted to get an alternative perspective so I sought to gather data in a different venue.  A few weeks ago I presented at the Project World conference in Baltimore, and chose to do a round-table discussion on the same topic.  My audience at that occasion was completely different, primarily project managers and business analysts.   Not surprisingly, it was a very different discussion.  Once we level-set on roles and responsibilities of architecture and the varations from organization to organization it turned into a good discussion.  I believe I left them better informed about the nature of the relationship between themselves and the EA community.

At the conclusion, I asked them the same question I asked the EA Symposium audience.  Not surprisingly, I got the opposite result.  They skewed heavily to the “room for improvement” and “non-existent” side when describing the relationship.  The good news is that they admitted that it wasn’t entirely the fault of their EA teams, and as much a result of the pressures they were under to ”eliminate distractions and just get their project done”.  Most suggested that they now had a better appreciation for the role of EA and would be more open to listening upon their return.  The bad news was that they also said that their EA groups had to do a better job communicating and engaging as well.

So, my advice to the Enterprise Architects out there: Even if you think you are doing well managing the relationship with your project community, you are probably not doing as well as you think you are, at least from their perspective.  Take some steps to health-test that relationship, either formally or informally, and put an improvement plan in place.  Give us a call – we can help.

Finally, to feed my scientific need for more data, please reply to this thoroughly un-scientific poll.  If I get any meaningful data and reach any conclusions, I will let you know in a future post.

Survey: Help Us Plan New EAdirections Events

In response to several inquiries, we have created a survey to the larger community to understand your needs for high-quality, practical and pragmatic education including conferences, workshops, webinars, roundtables, etc.  Please take a few minutes to complete this short survey. 

DRAWING – At the end of the survey you will be asked if you would optionally like to enter a drawing for a complimentary one hour Mentoring Teleconference to discuss your IT Leadership, EA, Portfolio Management, Governance, IT Strategy, Alignment, Cost Containment or Transformational Initiatives.

EA for Everybody!

EA has always been a polarizing phenomenon and remains so today.  The diversity of opinions on exactly what EA is and how to approach it continues.  While there are many variations, two opposing camps dominate.  

• The architecture-driven camp focuses on creation of the various “architectures” (solution, application, technical, project, business, SOA, Cloud, etc.), usually as implemented in projects. 
• The enterprise-coordinated camp focuses on the “enterprise” with emphasis on strategic alignment, transformation roadmaps, and other holistic portfolio perspectives. 

The best EA programs include both approaches, with the enterprise-coordinated perspective providing context for the various “architectures”.  That way it ensures that efforts to “get things done” (i.e. projects) are implemented with all of the larger and longer-term goals in mind; to consistently manage complexity, improve integration, increase agility, balance cost and risk, or achieve whatever future-oriented, holistic objectives the leadership team deems important.  Too often, though, one camp dominates to the exclusion of the other, causing an imbalance.  The divide between the architecture-driven and enterprise-coordinated camps should not exist, yet it does!  Several factors conspire to amplify the divide, not the least of which is the economy.

(Follow this link to read more on the economy and other issues that influence your EA approach, plus suggested remedies, in the full article.)

I have rarely found an organization that couldn’t benefit from EA – from very small to very large, in every industry, in the private and public sectors and in not-for-profits.  Everybody can do it, adopting the “core concepts” of EA in order to enhance decision-making to include an enterprise perspective.  Implement just enough mechanisms to create processes and deliverables that align strategy with implementation across the continuum from the short to the long term, always sensitive to the balancing act described above.  Drive your program with an enterprise-coordinated approach.  You don’t need to call it “EA”, nor do you need to completely implement any particular framework or methodology.  Good, or even just “better”, will come over time.

Directions: A solid EA leader always adjusts his/her approach with the times, with sensitivity to the biases and needs of their enterprise.  Make sure you are focused, delivering value and addressing the needs of leadership.  Don’t get caught up in perfectionism, avoid the extremes, and take a balance approach.  And don’t forget to be leaders yourselves – provide enterprise perspective and context so that decisions are consistent with both short term needs and longer term visions.  If you make your EA program more transparent and actionable, while focusing on the right balance, you will make a difference for your enterprise.

Discipline & Knowledge: Keys To Cost Containment Assessments

The pressure on IT to contain costs is well understood. Every vendor has a presentation about how their products can be central to lowering costs.  Research companies are publishing cost containment frameworks and consultants have lots of white papers. 

Over the past several months we have worked with a number of clients to help them in their cost containment efforts.  At 50,000 feet, it appears that everyone starts with the same playbook – renegotiate with vendors (starting with your telecomm vendor), cut consultants and contracts, virtualize everything, defer some maintenance, cut travel and training…and hope that is enough (so you don’t have to cut permanent staff).  Frankly, this approach gets many CIOs down to an expense level that is “acceptable” to corporate leadership.  Many CIOs also “accept” that this approach will likely increase long-term IT costs as well as inhibit long-term business strategy. 

On the other hand, those clients who seem to make the best tactical and strategic decisions, when executing a cost containment exercise, appear to have two consistent characteristics. 

First, they are very disciplined in their approach to ensure a comprehensive review of all areas of IT costs (i.e.  IT Procurement & Asset Management, Product & Technology Rationalization, Application Portfolio Rationalization, Server Virtualization, Open Source, PC Costs, IT G&A etc.).  Even ‘un-thinkables’ are reviewed to ensure completeness, for example:

• “Are there staff who can use OpenOffice instead of Microsoft?”
• “Should we re-examine our commitment to clusters and look at horizontal scaling?”
• “What are the implications of replacing EMC with NetApp?”

 This discipline includes doing an objective and ‘truly loaded’ cost analysis.  ‘Truly loaded’ refers to being sure that all costs are fully accounted for.  For example, in looking at the cost of internally managing Microsoft Exchange and BlackBerry Enterprise Server versus a specialized outsourcing option (e.g. MailStreet) they make sure they include the cost of internal staff’s travel, training, PCs, cell bills, office space, etc. as well as the full loaded data center/support costs (e.g. Help Desk, space, storage, electricity).  It is very clear that internal IT staff significantly underestimate the ‘truly loaded’ costs of providing specific services.

Second, they make sure they have adequate knowledge to make their evaluation.  They don’t rely on speculation or anecdotes and, instead, look for hard facts and case studies.  And when they see an example they really work to understand what are the dynamics in play at companies like:

• Wal-Mart – which uses SaaS (Red Prairie) to optimize employee scheduling at their stores versus running a similar application in house
• Sabre – which executes 60% of all travel reservations in North America on a server farm using very inexpensive HP Intel servers running Linux and MySQL, which saves Sabre approximately $20 million a year in operating expenses in support of AA.com, Travelocity and several other travel-related sites

 These clients recognize that a meaningful evaluation of Cloud Computing requires an in-depth knowledge of the types of offerings available, and comparative strengths and weaknesses of each category of offering as well as the different vendor offerings in the category. These clients make sure that if they are evaluating an open source alternative to Cognos (e.g. Pentaho) that it can meet their needs.

 The bottom line is that ‘discipline’ and ‘knowledge’ are key characteristics of cost containment assessments that yield  the best tactical and strategic decisions.  (Based on our experience working with clients, we have developed a Cost Containment Workshop that helps ensure these are achieved. 

For more information on this topic and to read a description of a new IT Cost Containment Workshop check out the entry on the Education and Seminars page.