Overview
The Open Group Conference Amsterdam 2010 began Monday, October 18 at the NH Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky. The conference gathered to discuss themes along three primary tracks:
- Cybersecurity - architectures for managing uncertainty
- Transforming EA into a business discipline – aligning the practice of EA with the requirements of business decision-making
- Cloud computing – the business impact of cloud computing
Morning Plenary
The theme for Day Two was transforming Enterprise Architecture into a business discipline. The day was marked by interesting and engaging talks from a range of industry experts including Dave van Gelder, Global Architect at Capgemini, and Harry Hendrickx, CTO at HP. Key themes emerging from Day Two included the need for enterprise architects to solve problems from a business perspective, the importance of the language used by enterprise architects to achieve organizational buy-in for initiatives, and the huge opportunity thinking about these issues presents to the profession.
The Quest for Business Architecture
Dave van Gelder, Global Architect, Capgemini
The day started with a presentation that focused on the model developed by the Business Architecture Work Group to better understand what people mean when they talk about business architecture. In his morning talk, Dave van Gelder began by outlining the objectives of the Business Architecture Work Group which include:
- To contribute to the process of expanding TOGAF™ with what is necessary to bridge the gap between IT people and business people
- To work on a common understanding of what the complexity dimensions in (IT) change projects are, in order to be better prepared to deal with the dynamics of the business
- To clarify what interaction between the business and IT is needed in order to manage the success of those change projects
- To define the cooperation and information flow between business and IT people.
- To determine how to make the architectural approach more generic so that it can be used for more than only IT projects
Dave explained that it can be difficult to get case study examples of business architecture in practice because the interpretation of what business architecture is varies. He suggested it was also difficult because often what’s addressed in forums such as conferences is only a snapshot of what’s being done within an organization. He went on to discuss the importance of getting business architecture high on the business agenda, and explained some of the Business Architecture Work Group’s initiatives that have been focused on making this happen. These include working on a book and setting up a wiki to facilitate the sharing of knowledge between members across the globe.
In the following Q&A session, Allen Brown, President & CEO of The Open Group, asked Dave about the extent to which business leaders actually need to understand the language of frameworks such as TOGAF™. He also questioned why other departments such as marketing and finance didn’t have to spend so much time exploring how best to align their work to the wider business. This, Dave commented, was because the profession remains relatively young.
Members interested in getting involved with the Business Architecture Work Group should visit www.opengroup.org/architecture for more information.
Business Architecture: Learning by Doing
Harry Hendrickx, CTO, HP
Harry led a talk on how to develop a prototype business architecture using a well-known case — the Nobel Prize — as a validation mechanism. He explained that the project was set up as it was because participants felt the best way to learn was by "doing".
The experiment, he explained, involved setting up a group of members which had between them over 60 years of modeling and architecture experience to work on a live case study for business architecture. The Nobel Prize was chosen as a subject organization since it is well-known, sufficiently complex, and there is plenty of information about the organization available.
When explaining how the group worked, Harry noted that all those participating in the experiment were allowed to bring their own way of working and models to the group to help solve challenges facing the organization. He also explained how the group had four major domains covered:
- Context
- Customer needs
- Structure based on state-of-the-art technology
- Strategic direction
Summarizing the initiative, Harry provided an overview of lessons learned. These included:
- Controlled language guides analysis by proposing a view on the information
- Words are less important than their meanings
- Process of requirements gathering is as important as the rules of communication
- Teams can easily agree on their own controlled language
In his concluding comments, he said that natural language is adequate for explaining properties and to capture intent. He also stressed how allowing stakeholders to bring their own controlled vocabulary to the table was important as it does not hinder the process when everyone is embracing the right attitude. He ended his presentation by highlighting some issues that had yet to be resolved, including bridging the gap from natural language to modeling language.
Building and Deploying an EA Framework in a Banking Group
Jean-Christophe Mache, Head of Functional Architecture, BNP Paribas
Jean-Christophe began his presentation by providing some background to the bank and its various functions. He then described how IT operations are organized within the group, explaining that BNP Paribas operates a very deferral and de-centralized setup. This means each entity in the group is responsible for its own operations and makes local decisions. He did add, however, that when IT projects involve large-scale investment, they are supervised centrally.
In terms of decision-making within the group, Jean-Christophe explained there are various committees in place to standardize IT practices including:
- Technical Architecture Board
- Functional Architecture Board
- Standards, Methods, and Architecture Committee
He then went on to discuss how BNP Paribas built and deployed its EAGLE architecture framework. When talking through the processes involved in building EAGLE, he said that each evolution had been validated by a Steering Committee, highlighting the importance of building an architecture framework in stages. Ultimately, he explained, EAGLE is the result of a consensus and has been validated by the main architecture players in the group.
Commenting on deployment, he said BNP focused on deploying visual marketing techniques to encourage acceptance and adoption within the organization. He explained they also rolled out a two-day training module to train architects and project leaders about EAGLE. By the end of 2010 the bank will have trained approximately 200 people.
To date, two-thirds of entities in the group have or are in the process of deploying EAGLE, so the initiative is considered to have been very successful. Highlighting key success factors:
- The importance of a clear deployment strategy
- Why it’s crucial to understand policy of the enterprise
- The need to market the framework internally
- How organizations need to start simple and build on the framework once it has been accepted
EA as a Business Discipline?
Chris Forde, VP Enterprise Architecture & Membership Capabilities, The Open Group
Chris Forde began by stating how enterprise architecture is not ideally placed within the IT function. He also commented on the major challenges facing EA, such as the difficulties in getting people to collaborate and work together effectively. From an architecture perceptive, he said the role of an enterprise architect is to allow businesses to flex.
According to Chris, moving EA toward a business discipline does require simplifying as much as possible, but at the same time embracing the fact that complexity is increasing at all times for organizations. He went on to question whether it really matters where EA is located within a business, but noted it does need to be resourced with talented, trained, skilled, and knowledgeable people. Key as well, he added, is ensuring it is recognized at a senior level within organizations. In his concluding comments, Chris explained that although smaller organizations face similar challenges to those much bigger than themselves, the advantages EA has in smaller firms is that everyone is far more aware of what is going on.
Afternoon Tracks
In the afternoon, members had the opportunity to attend sessions on four separate tracks. Tracks focused on:
- Business architecture
- Business transformation
- S0A
Business Architecture: Representation of the Properties of a Structure
Harry Hendrickx, CTO, Certified Global EA, HP
In the opening presentation of the business architecture track, Harry discussed how controlled natural language can resolve the communication problems between disciplines and management levels. He highlighted how IT projects often exceed time and budget allocations due to a lack of communication, but explained this can be overcome through the use of controlled language. He then outlined how there are many stakeholders involved in a project’s lifecycle such as the CEO, CFO, and COO. Since each has their own viewpoint shaped by their backgrounds and goals, this can create significant communications challenges.
He went on to define a limited list of concepts and meanings that he uses, and walked through the steps that may be taken to get the entrepreneur’s or CxO’s vision to the larger question: which information is needed by the business, and how it can or must be exchanged or stored from a business perspective.
Finally, he used case studies to outline what business architecture is from his perspective. He then commented how natural language can be used to capture vision, ambition, and business strategy. In his concluding comment, Harry said that with natural language, the requirements of processes mean IT becomes visible and traceable.
Business Transformation: Rationalization of Information System Landscape at Dutch Transmission System Operator
Tom Coenen, Logica Management Consulting
Tom presented a case study of a successful EA program that Logica implemented for the Dutch transmission system operator, TenneT. He began by outlining how Logica spent a considerable amount of time at the start of the project understanding how the business worked and what it did. This insight, he explained, was then used to create a business function model describing what the organization does regardless of how it is structured internally. Critically, this model uses language and acronyms that business executives speak so they could fully understand the model.
Tom went on to discuss the value of a visual roadmap Logica created for TenneT, which clearly detailed how both business and IT activities would work together over time to achieve a common goal. The document, he said, was very well received as it allowed everyone in the organization to visualize how different components fitted together. On this point, he stressed the importance of collaboration between business and IT and commented on how a blended team made up of business and IT people from both Logica and TenneT worked well.
In summarizing key success factors, he highlighted the following issues:
- Determining results upfront
- Focusing on delivering business value
- Consistent and regular communication
- Not talking architecture to the business but listening to the business
- Creating a visual roadmap to present project aims and deliverables
Business Transformation: ASL – Framework for Application Management/BISL – Framework for Business Information Management
Tom van Sante, Getronics Consulting and Remko van der Pols, Managing Consultant
In the final session of the Business Transformation track, Tom van Sante began by sharing some background on the Application Services Library (ASL), a framework for application management. In particular, he highlighted how ASL has evolved over time, in line with changes in the external environment, such as:
- Complex applications landscape
- Standardized software packages
- Outsourced data centers
- Supply chain cooperation
Remko van der Pols then took to the floor and, in a lively presentation, discussed the Business Information Services Library (BISL), which he stressed is not intended to be prescriptive. Instead, it gives organizations the opportunity to assess what they have in place already and consider any changes they may need to make to bring about improvements.
Remko went on to comment on how although architects are always 100% rational, it’s important to appreciate that, in business, leaders tend to make subjective decisions. Further, business managers always cite the same challenge: their employees; i.e., improving productivity, getting better work produced. They almost never cite IT as a problem. It’s because of these reasons that architects must apply their thinking to solve challenges facing leaders from a business perspective — not an IT perspective.
Afternoon Open Sessions
Trusted Technology Forum
In the Trusted Technology Forum’s first meeting, Sally Long provided an overview of how the new Forum had been established: In 2009, the US Department of Defense supported The Open Group in establishing the ACS Initiative, an industry-wide effort where vendors could identify the current best practices and processes that contribute to the creation of trusted technology and trusted technology providers.
The session focused on the draft White Paper the ACS Initiative has put together and on which the Forum is based. The paper describes a vendor and technology-neutral Trusted Technology Provider Framework that sets forth best practices, identified by the Forum which, if used by a technology vendor, may allow a government or commercial enterprise customer to consider the vendor’s products as more secure and trusted. Members attending the session were encouraged to openly debate and discuss issues covered in the paper.
Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) Forum
Another Forum kicking off in Amsterdam was the Advanced Planning & Scheduling (APS) Forum. APS is the discipline that is concerned with the analysis and (re)engineering of strategic, tactical, and operational planning processes in combination with the design and implementation of the necessary supporting IT systems, which are based on state-of-the-art visualization tools and advanced operations research techniques. APS has a broad range of applications, including (field) workforce management, rostering, transportation, and production planning.
Many types of organizations will be able to benefit from standardization in the APS area, including large and small customers with the strategic and operational concerns of managing a business effectively, APS vendors responsible for supplying business applications to customers, system integrators, consultancies, and government agencies. The APS Forum welcomes member participation. For more information, email the APS Forum at aps-interest@opengroup.org.
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