Day 1 of the Open Group Conference was kicked off with a bang. Jeanne Ross, whom I refer to as our EA Rock Star started the day with some fresh thinking about how we approach EA.
For al the presentations we had a set of key themes:
- Pragmatic and realistic approaches
- Business centric
- Value focused
What a great set of speakers!
The Enterprise Architect: Architecting Business Success
Jeanne W. Ross, Director & Principal Research Scientist, MIT Center for Information Systems Research
Session: Enterprise architecture has typically been the domain of IT groups, but the impact of enterprise architecture is felt enterprise-wide. Research at MIT Center for Information Systems Research has shown that adoption of enterprise architecture leads to greater efficiencies and business agility But how can enterprise architects work with senior leaders to envision and lead successful business transformations. This talk describes how enterprise architecture has contributed to the success of firms like Campbell Soup, Southwest Airlines, and USAA. We’ll also discuss how enterprise architects have helped lead the way.
Highlights
- The days of Enterprise Architects trying communicate it’s value is over. EA has been widely accepted
- However, now we need to pull it off the promise of EA
- We have to make sure we don’t blow it and deliver on our promise
- The traditional IT Architecture method of Plan, Build, Operate is broken because it doesn’t allow organization to capitalize on their own capabilities.
- A new model is needed, a business value cycle, NOT a value chain
- Architects must consider reality in their value
A New Model is Needed
Below is the Exploit, Commit, Build, Run model that is adapted from Jeanne Ross’s presentation.
This model is a change of thinking and how we operate as Enterprise Architects. The goal of this model is to facilitate the shift of focus to capability thinking. The challenges highlighted were:
- Company capabilities are under utilized
- Company capabilities are often overlooked
- EA is not always business value driven
- New capabilities developed
Start with Exploit to direct us. Exploit doesn’t eliminate planning but makes it more effective.
Companies are doing similar things today and referenced in the presentation:
- Aetna
- Protection 1
- USAA
- Pepsi
- Commonwealth of Australia
How does this change?
- Information is key.
- Get it in the hands of the everyone.
USAA was used as an example of a company that has embraced this:
- Shifted their products around life events for their customers
- Enterprise strategy was put outside IT
- EA’s shift to advisors to the business
The role of EA’s in business value is to:
- Help senior execs clarify their business goals. EA’s should provide strategy to CIO’s as an advisory services.
- Identify architectural capability that can be readily exploited
- Present options and their implications for business goals
- Build capabilities incrementally
How Enterprise Architecture is Helping NISSAN IT Transformation
Celso Guiotoko, Corporate Vice President and CIO, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
In 2005, Nissan Global IS Dev developed "BEST" as an IT mid-term plan which significantly improved the efficiency of its information systems. This was followed in 2009 with the development of the "Change" program, which provided the basis for further advances by changing "people", "technology" and "process". And, in 2011, the next IT mid-term plan "VITESSE" was launched, designed to bring direct profit in the company by IT Dev.
Nissan focused on a core set or principles. They have some really good ones.
Nissan Principles
- Business Value
- Information is an asset
- Reduce complexity
- Independent from physical
- Business driven
- Change
- Reuse
- Competitive advantage
- Best Practice
A program they established to make the transformation is called the BEST program.
BEST Program Elements
- Business Alignment
- Enterprise Architecture
- Selective sourcing
- Technology Simplification
Some of the tools used by Nissan to deliver on BEST are:
- Business Process Reference Model
- Business Process is defined use
- Information Architecture – Entity modeling and
- Linking business architecture to information architecture
- Information data map
- Platform rationalization model
Business Process Reference Model
As a result of these EA efforts Nissan has a :
- Reduced cost per user from 1.09 to .63
- 230k return with 404 applications reduced
- The solution deployment time has been improved
- Significantly reduced hardware costs
The Transformed Enterprise
Andy Mulholland, Global Chief Technology Officer, Capgemini
If it is different to the well understood enterprise of today with its enterprise IT model what is different and why is it an advantage? These are basic questions which need to be addressed, and understood, before attempting to consider how business processes and resulting technology architectures will need to change.
Andy Mulholland author of three books since 2005 defining using the Web for business, changing to a collaborative working model and using clouds for enterprise business uses his experience to bring a cohesive answer to the questions
Highlights
- Inside Out vs. Outside In
- IT is Inside Out, focusing on the activities and problems within the 4 walls of the company wheras the business looks at problems Outside In.
- Two very different models
- The assertion is that we need to understand both of these forces
- The Outside In focus must be given a great deal more thought
- Conway's Law - Enterprises cannot change beyond the constraints of their communications
- Recommendation by Andy- "Seizing the Whitespace" by Johnson - for business model innovation
- Andy highlights the Gartner Nexus model of Cloud, Social, Information and Mobile as the transformation catalyst
- Social networks work better in fast environs to share knowledge efficiently than email
- Cloud forces down a transformation path
- TOGAF has to accept a new way of exposing value from the traditional inside out to a TOGAF focused on a Outside In model
The Transformed Enterprise
Making Business Drive IT Transformation Through Enterprise Architecture
Lauren C. States, Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Cloud Computing and Growth Initiatives, IBM Corp
Todays business demands and pressures have accelerated the pace of change. This focus on growing the business, entering new markets, enabling new, faster, better and less expensive services to customers creates challenges. While enterprise systems that may address these challenges are emerging:
- How is an enterprise to choose which IT systems to utilize?
- What strategies should they employ for short-term realization and longer term value of IT investments?
- How does the CIO ensure that business and IT infrastructures cohesively evolve while keeping pace with economic challenges and associated uncertain business implications
The Reality of the Forces on IT
- Customer – Unlimited real-time access to ever changing information and expertise
- Partners – Acting as an extension of the enterprise
- Employees– Engaging externally in ways that are outside the traditional scope of work
- Competitors – Entering new spaces quickly
Highlights
- We are the beginning of the next major shift
- IBM has reduced their application portfolio by 2/3 with cloud transformation
- Technology is changing the way the CMO is doing there job. Most are not ready because they go through a noisy set of data and a lose of control over brand
- Highlights the CIO survey http://www-935.ibm.com/services/c-suite/cio/study.html
IBM’s Cloud Transformation Model
Macro method used by IBM
