Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conference
April 21-23 2008, Glasgow, Scotland

Highlights of Day Two

Day two of the Glasgow Architecture Practitioners Conference began with a plenary focused on the Architecture Profession. This kicked off with a welcome from Allen Brown, President & CEO, The Open Group.

Following Allen’s opening remarks Murat Erder, Director, Deloitte Ltd., spoke to the audience about "Socialization and Syndication – The Ignored Half of Architecture". Typical views of architects, he explained, range from the ivory tower to the gatekeepers. Most architecture departments focus on building the architecture, yet socialization and syndication are equally, if not more, important. Two key parts of such are how you market the model and governance – how you maintain projects and continuously provide value to the organization. Architects, Murat said, must deploy soft skills as well as technical skills, and also recognize the culture of the organization. He took the audience through the key elements of a successful architecture project, including vision, communications, financials, transition planning, organization, process, and tools. TOGAF™, he said, recognizes the importance of governance and stakeholder management. 

Next, Paul van de Merwe, Consulting Manager, Real IRM, delivered his presentation "An Enterprise Architecture Career Development Program Based on TOGAF and ITAC". Paul said that developing an enterprise architecture career requires skills and experience across five architectural types: business, information, data, application, and technology. He then described the frameworks that Real IRM uses to gauge an architect’s career against the characteristics required by TOGAF and ITAC. The firm found that incorporating the technical, business, and general skills required by both the framework and the certification gave the most complete picture of an architect’s career development. Within their final enterprise architecture career development framework, Paul and his colleagues include three dimensions: the five architectural domains; the capabilities that each architect would like to be able to deliver; and proficiency levels. 

Between speakers, Dennis Kerssens, Principal Architect, Getronics (Netherlands), took a moment to introduce ArchiMate®, an international language for modeling and visualizing enterprise architecture. The ArchiMate language is being transferred to The Open Group and will be maintained and further developed by the newly formed Open Group ArchiMate Forum. 

Gerard Coes, Business Unit Manager, Business, Consulting & Technology, Capgemini Academy, then presented on "What Top IT Architects and Specialist Have in Common". Gerard started on a light note, providing a caricature of an IT Architect and involving the audience in a stand-up/sit-down exercise. He then delved into the real characteristics of top IT Architects and IT Specialists, including education, skills, experience, recognition, and certification. He also outlined the shared certification criteria between The Open Group ITAC and ITSC programs. The two professions, he said, are both necessary to creating a connected and consistent portfolio of IT systems and solutions. He encouraged collaboration between the professions in order to realize many benefits: complete architecture plans, implemented IT systems, consistency, fewer interfaces between systems, and adoption of standards.

Wrapping up the morning plenary was Sheila Thorne, Worldwide IT Specialist Profession Leader, IBM, with her presentation "Dealing with People You Can’t Stand", a guide for interpersonal dealings in a team-based workplace. Sheila advised knowing the type of situation and people you’re working with, particularly the other person’s power situation. She then delved into specifics of interacting with other people in a team situation, using anecdotes along the way to illustrate her points. Issues arise mostly when people are pushed beyond their normal states, she said, so what really happens when people snap? She provided four overlapping categories of people – passive, aggressive, task-focused, and people-focused – and gave advice on dealing with (and being) each one. Final takeaways included letting go of dramatic internal thoughts; identifying the positive intent of a project; and keeping the end game in mind.

The post-lunch sessions provided attendees with diverse content based on three tracks addressing SOA, Enterprise Architecture Development, and Professional Development. Judith Jones, CEO, Architecting-the-Enterprise (UK), hosted the Enterprise Architecture Development Track.

Andras Szakal, Chief Architect, IBM Federal Software Group, began the afternoon’s Professional Development Track with his presentation "IT Architecture Certification – Basics of the Program and How I Get Certified". The hour-long session covered the evolution of the IT Architect career and career path; categories of skills and experience needed in IT Architects; the history of ITAC and its value proposition; an overview of each ITAC level; and a progress report from the ITAC Working Group.

Over in the Enterprise Architecture Development Track, Bruce Miner, QRS (Canada), used a case study of Direct Energy in his presentation "PAMM – Project Architecture Maturity Model". PAMM provides a mechanism to assess a project’s adherence on an ongoing basis and report it, unfiltered, to project stakeholders. PAMM, Bruce said, is now being sought by executive sponsors and steering committees as part of regular governance.

Back in the Professional Development Track, James de Raeve, VP Certification, The Open Group (UK), conducted an in-depth session on The Open Group’s new IT Specialist Certification and steps to getting certified.

Liam Donohoe, Principal Solution Architect, SAIC, Scotland (UK), continued on in the SOA Track with "SOA Governance in Practice – A Case Study at BP". Liam explained the business benefits that British Petroleum (BP) has experienced through SOA. None are as important, he said, as the capability for the company to respond rapidly and effectively to changes in business processes and to leverage those changes to obtain competitive advantage.

Next up in the SOA Track was "Aligning ADM and SOA for Successful Enterprise Architecture", given by Rakesh Radhakrishnan, Chief Identity and SOA Architect, Sun Microsystems (US). Rakesh discussed the synergies achieved when ADM and SOA are combined. He also covered some of the lessons learned from past enterprise architecture assessments within the global telecom industry that leveraged ADM and SOA.

The afternoon’s Enterprise Architecture Development Track continued with Vilas Prabhu, Wipro (UK), presenting on "Governance without Bureaucracy". Vilas suggested a pragmatic governance approach, which includes a more effective use of artifacts from enterprise continuum to enable effective governance.

Dr. Chris Harding, The Open Group (UK), led the SOA Track presentation "A Formal Ontology for SOA", which was based in part on the morning’s SOA Working Group workshop. The SOA Working Group is developing a formal ontology for SOA using the Web Ontology Language (OWL), the objectives of which are to provide an understanding of the concepts of SOA by business and technical people and to be a basis for model-driven implementation. The SOA ontology, Chris said, is complete but subject to review.

Two presentations in the Enterprise Architecture Development Track focused on ArchiMate®, an international language for modeling and visualizing enterprise architecture for which The Open Group has created a new Forum. Dr. Harmen van den Berg, Founder & Partner, BiZZdesign (Netherlands), presented the main concepts of ArchiMate and also hosted the afternoon’s Tracks. Following, Dennis Kerssens, Principal Architect, Getronics (Netherlands), presented a case study of ArchiMate at a Dutch insurance company, in which business strategy was aligned with enterprise architecture.

Next, Dr. Tim O’Neill, Director, Avolution Pty Ltd. and Research Fellow, UTS, presented a case study on "Pan-Government Enterprise Modeling at Capita". Capita, the UK’s leading Business Process Outsourcing and consulting company, established a pan-Government center to work on their government accounts. Tim showcased one of the first outputs of this center: a pan-Government SOA framework.

Wrapping up Day Two’s Professional Development Track was Len Fehskens, Vice President & Global Professional Lead for Enterprise Architecture, The Open Group, in his presentation "Professionalizing the Discipline of Enterprise Architecture". Enterprise architecture has not yet arrived as a true profession, Len said, and in order to progress the discipline into a profession we must provide architects with guidance as to how to advance and learn. Additionally, we need a widely shared, operationally useful definition of enterprise architecture; rigorous certifications; and professional standards of ethics behavior.