On Wednesday evening (18:00-19:30), The Open Group Governing
Board, in cooperation with the Customer and Supplier Councils, invited the membership
leaders (Chairs and Vice-Chairs) to a continuation of the Forum Coordination meetings that
have been held as "birds-of-a-feather" sessions at the previous two Members'
Conferences (Jan'05 and Apr'05).
Specifically, this meeting was intended to explain and discuss The Open Group's
"strategy", with a view to exploring further the mechanisms by which the Forums can more effectively
communicate and coordinate their activities.
On behalf of the Governing Board, Carl Bunje (Customer Council representative on the
Board of Governors) welcomed Chairs and Vice-Chairs from the DIF/IdM, Security Forum,
Management Forum, Architecture Forum, and Messaging Forum. In addition, the Jericho and
UDEF Forums were represented by their Forum Directors.
Carl explained that the Governing Board refreshes The Open Group's "strategy"
each year, and then reviews it in the Q2 Board meeting. The intention of the Board in this
meeting is not only to communicate the strategy's concepts, components, and programs, but
also to consider together with the Forum Chairs and Vice-Chairs the roles of the Forums
and ways to strengthen alignment between the Board's strategy and ongoing Forum
activities.
Carl noted that this discussion on cross-Forum coordination is a follow-up to the
proposal made at the Dublin Conference (April 2005) for Forum Vice-Chairs to take on
the responsibility of facilitating cross-Forum awareness, communication, and coordination.
He then explained (see slide presentation) the Board's
view on the importance of understanding The Open Group's strategy - Boundaryless
Information Flow - and highlighted the vision elements:
- Information flow
- Interoperability
- Security
- Reliability & timeliness
- Base operating platform
He proposed the Governing Board's position that activities in Forums should be checked
as contributing to at least one of these vision elements. He represented The Open Group's
strategy platform as a driver for work items, and proposed we should seek to work in ways
that mirror the Peters & Waterman management approach of "simultaneous
loose-tight properties". He then identified examples of relevant linking between the
vision elements listed above to certain current projects in the Architecture, Jericho, and
Real-Time Forums - using information extracted from the Non-Members Orientation
presentation delivered in this NYC conference, and went on to name projects in various
Forums that the Board believes demonstrate similar relevant links.
Carl concluded that the Board believes we are making significant progress in executing
the Board strategy in support of Boundaryless Information Flow, but we will make even
better progress if we make special effort to focus on projects which we see will
contribute directly to this strategy. The Board wants to take a pro-active role in working
with the Forums on this, through three initiatives:
- Continuing dialogue with Forum Chairs. In this conference the Board is hearing from
three Forums, and will do likewise in the next conference. Their aim is to provide support and
guidance to each Forum on ways to optimize contributions to the strategy.
- BoF sessions at conferences, aimed at addressing specific issues that will facilitate
Forums in the ways they work.
- All-Member sessions at conferences, aimed at raising awareness and support for effective inter-Forum and Board-Forum interactions, communication, and collaboration.
Interactive discussion and clarifications arose throughout this presentation, leading
to general agreement and two additional suggestions:
- Forum Reports could be made higher value by having each Forum highlight those of their
activities which are making contributions to the Boundaryless Information Flow strategy.
- There are several slide sets in existence which several attendees to this BoF believe
represent high-value messages on communicating the value proposition for The Open Group,
its strategy, and how Forums are contributing to realizing it. We should make these more
readily available to all Forum leaders so they can communicate the strategy most easily to
their Forum members.
