Mike Walker's Blog

Do Architecture Principles Matter?

Jeff Scott from Forrester doesn't think so. In his post entitled Principles Don’t Matter, he discussed the challenges with principles. Some of his assertions are:

• Principles are not really principles... Instead they are mostly good intentions.
• Principles are passive. A principle sits there until something comes along to test it.

I have to say I agree with Jeff on his assessment. Coming from large organizations that have implemented Enterprise Architecture I have seen this quite a bit. For example, I have seen very large EA organizations create the master set of principles that took them a better part of 3 months worth of very senior talents time to then proceed to frame them on a wall and never to be followed again. This is obviously an extreme but I have seen this behavior at more than a handful of organizations.

My opinion on issues with principles are:

• They are subject to interpretation by the architect. Meaning that since principles are very high level there is a lot of room to make an interpretation.
• Effectiveness hinges on the competencies of the architect.
• Is an all or nothing implementation. Meaning, if only a select few architect follow them and the rest don't this breaks down.
• What is a principle any ways? Jeff Scott eludes to this when he makes reference to: “buy before build” principle? Isn’t it really a strategy?".
• The problem is that the term principle is too generic and means different things to different people.
• There are issues of abstraction and scope.

While there are issues, there are positives about principles as well. I would caution folks looking at building a robust set of principles from scratch in today's economic climate and pressure on IT. I definitely wouldn't recommend a multi-month organizational soul searching exercise on what are my company's principles. What I would recommend is similar to Jeff's assessment. Build out a set of pragmatic principles that are actionable and relatable to your IT strategies. Make the higher order bit the strategies rather the principles themselves.

Tags: Enterprise Architecture

Is Architecture Different Based on Where You Live?

I have always enjoyed talking to architects when I visit to different places all around the world. What I find most interesting is different perspectives and approaches on how to solve technology challenges. Normally, there is many ways to solve any given problem but what I have found fascinating is that in different regions around the world, the variables change quite a bit. 

As an example, I really started to notice this with my trips to Japan. There is a very large divide between how problems are addressed in the US, than in Japan. Like many other places in the world there are multiple contributing factors or variables to this.  Most of which are not even IT related.

These factors or forces as I call them, have an both a direct and indirect impact on how the solutions are designed and subsequently developed. There are more forces but below is a  sampling of these forces to give us some context:

• Cultural - How people interact, customs, formalities, etc.
• Economic - The economic condition of the area, is it a developing country, is that country struggling (recession), etc.
• Government - Form of government, how much influence that government has in business
• Regulatory - Rules that are implemented based on laws in individual countries.
• Geography - Specific natural locations have requirements.
• Natural Disasters - If areas are prone or could be prone to natural disaster very specific considerations are taken.

With our example of Japan, these factors play a major role in IT. Let's take a look at the some of the more relevant attributes:

• Cultural - The cultural aspects have the most direct impact on the business than any other factor it seems.  Unlike in many other countries where IT has become less formal, this is not the case in Japan. Even IT is very formal and has a distinct etiquette. You may wonder how this effects IT, well it has a very strong impact on the IT decision making process. Since there is a greater level of formality decisions may take longer than it would in a less formalized environment. One could also argue that since there is more formality that the decisions are more meaningful and accurate as well. Another defining quality of the Japanese culture is attention to detail. This is everything from food preparation to IT systems. This has a profound impact on how technology solutions are built.
• Economic - Japan is a very mature market and doesn't fall into considerations of emerging markets. One surprising business aspect that impacts how architecture is created in Japan is that most IT work is outsourced to a Japanese consulting firms. Companies in Japan have a much smaller IT staff than most organizations in the world. What they do have are senior IT planners (project management) and strategists. 

Note: This is a general interpretation based on the exposure I have had with companies in Japan.

As a result of most  development work being done outside the company it interjects interesting dynamics on how their systems are architected. With this one detail of outsourcing a large chunk of IT impacts architecture decisions. Where are some of the impacts:

1. Strong emphasis on systematic reusability, mechanizing IT through frameworks
2. Time to market usually takes a little longer but the trade-off is quality. Attention to detail is a key aspect of the culture and radiates through-out IT solutions.
3. Considerable amount of architects that are in the system integration company instead of the organization company of the services which could result in efficiencies for the Japanese enterprises because these consultants will have a large amount of experience with a variety of different organizations in that market thus increasing quality and time to market.

As you can see from the above points that these external forces have a concrete impact on IT. These forces are different all over the world and can be localized to a country, region or state based on these various factors. As architects it is important for us to understand these forces, why they impact our work and how we can leverage this knowledge to  create the right IT solutions for our businesses.

This is just a high level analysis of my thoughts on how we architect based on where we live. I haven't seen any research that shows this at a global level but defiantly see it from a regional level. It would be an interesting study to see these attributes formalized and take areas from all around the world and apply them to a matrix. For global organizations this would be a very valuable resource.

Tags: Enterprise Architecture

Role and perception of Enterprise Architects needs to align better with business goals

Dana Gardner  shares a panel discussion, at The Open Group’s 22nd annual Enterprise Architecture Practitioner’s Conference in London through his post on the EA's Aligning better with business goals. The topic was probed, “Resisting Short-term Thinking: Rationalizing Investments in Enterprise Architecture During a Recession” uncovered surprising insights into how enterprise architects can help businesses and IT departments, especially during periods of turmoil.

Guests include Henry Peyret, principal analyst at Forrester Research; Phil Pavitt, the group CIO for Transport for London; Thomas Obitz, a principal architect at Infosys; Mike Turner, enterprise architect at Capgemini, and Terry Blevins, a senior principal information systems engineer at MITRE and Open Group Customer Council Board member.

Read a full transcript of the discussion. Find it on iTunes and Podcast.com.

Tags: Enterprise Architecture, Architect

CEO's Embracing YouTube

I ran across an interesting article in the New York Times entitled, "The C.E.O., Now Appearing on YouTube". It is really refreshing to see how Zuirch Financial Services has embraced these newer social technologies to create value in their business. This not only shows how to get creative in these uncertain economic times but also shows how to embrace the right technologies for the right job.

The chief executive James Schiro has created a YouTube channel for the company that documents his road show across the globe.

An example of this below:

James outlines the following benefits to using this method of communication:

• Lower costs in communications (the non-private ones that is)
• Embracing the mediums that younger generations prefer and ultimately relate to
• Tied to the bullet above, there is a hope to draw in talent into the company as well by showing the progressiveness of the company
• Demonstrate how to communicate without PowerPoint

There are some other great topics discussed in the article around leadership. The interview is worth the time to read.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/business/10corner.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

CFOs & Enterprise Architects

A great clip from Gartner analyst Brian Burke. He identifies the key concerns for CFO's and the role of Enterprise Architects.

Tags: Enterprise Architecture, Economy

Seven Out of 10 Workers Surveyed Say Recession Has Had Some Positive Career Impact

I found a very interesting article on ResumeBear.com regarding how the recession has impacted workers.

Although the downturn has proven tough for workers, those who are still employed say they’re gaining more from the experience than just managing to keep their jobs. Seventy-seven percent of professionals interviewed cited at least one positive effect the recession has had on their jobs, including the ability to tackle new projects (53 percent), assume additional responsibility (52 percent) and take on more challenging work (52 percent). But according to most respondents, the extra work has yet to be formally rewarded: Only 12 percent said they have received promotions.

The national survey included responses from 457 workers 18 years of age or older and employed full or part time in an office environment. It was conducted by an independent research firm and developed by Accountemps, the world’s first and largest specialized staffing service for temporary accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals.
Workers were asked, “What positive effects, if any, has the recession had on you and your job?”

Their responses*:

Taken on new projects........................................... 53%
Gained more responsibility..................................... 52%
Taken on more challenging work ...........................52%
Had more interactions with management ................44%
Had more interactions with clients or customers .....38%
Been promoted....................................................... 12%
None of these.......................................................... 23%

* Multiple responses were allowed

Read more here:

http://www.resumebear.com/blog/index.php/2009/05/05/seven-out-of-10-workers-surveyed-say-recession-has-had-some-positive-career-impact/

More on Certification

I ran across an interesting post from Tom Graves on his feedback on TOGAF. Specifically he talks about certification in his post entitled More on TOGAF Certification. I would also encourage you to take a look at a post I wrote entitled: Making sense of EA Standards.

Tom, like myself hopes to provide objective feedback to the architecture community when it comes to standards. I myself have provided some (what I think is) constructive feedback to various frameworks such as Zachman and TOGAF.

In the post, Tom provides some good fodder to think about when it comes to TOGAF certification. I agree with a lot of his points and I view this as an opportunity for the contributing members of TOGAF to add to the certification. To be objective, what is missing from Tom's assessment is the ITAC certification. I view ITAC as the more comprehensive of the two (TOGAF / ITAC).

On Tom's four points: reference architectures being out of date, lack of ADM prescriptive usage, scope of EA not just being IT, EA as a professional discipline... I have commented (here ) in various posts in the past but glad that Tom surfaced these as these are known issues not only in the architecture community but also at the Open Group (as Tom points out).

What I want to highlight out of the entire article is a very powerful statement:

an enterprise architecture certification does not and cannot indicate competence: it needs to be balanced by real-world practice. For which, again, crucially, this profession at present has no means to monitor or measure.

I agree with this statement 100%. I think there are ways to measure confidence we have in a architects' competency, but it isn't a sure thing.

As an example, Microsoft Certified Architect (MCA) program has a measure for determining competency based on a board of MCA professionals. The candidate has a limited amount of time and is often quizzed on what would be included in a Jeopardy episode, "Zachman quadrants for 2000, Alex". This is combined with some real-world discussions around what the architect has done and why they have built a solution in a particular way. The problem however is MCA is solution architect or infrastructure architecture not EA. Determining business forces on why a technology decision is made is not often asked. Whether it is EA or solution architecture, the business considerations must be taken into account. No offense to the MCA folks, I know some of them well and they are good guys but I am providing some constructive feedback.

I would much rather to see something like an apprenticeship (like a carpenter) or residency (medical field) type of program for architects that can prove out their competencies in a real world setting. Like other professions, it is important to go through the educational aspects early on and pass on the knowledge aspects but it must be followed by how an architect implements that knowledge.

Thoughts? Comments? Disagreements?

Tags: Enterprise Architecture, TOGAF, Certification