SOA Liberates Productivity

Harvard Business Review (HBR), June 2008, has a wonderful article (by Ric Merrifield, Jack Calhoun, and Dennis Stevens) on how SOA is “the next revolution in productivity.”

SOA defined:

“It is becoming possible to design many business activities as Lego-like software components that can be easily put together and taken apart…service-oriented architecture [is] a relatively new way of designing and deploying the software that supports a business activity.”

With SOA, business activities can be accessed via the Internet through web services. Rather than build proprietary, redundant business services, our organizations can re-use standardized services, developed internally or outsourced, as components that plug and play into our enterprise.

“Virtually all large companies suffer from an enormous duplication of activities; they continue to create and perform hundreds of non-core tasks that would ideally be outsourced; and they are spending exorbitant amounts on IT projects in order to support redundant and nonstrategic operations and to update core processes.”

How does this differ from other quality improvement initiatives?

Prior quality improvement efforts like Total Quality Management (TQM) and Six Sigma have focused on reducing waste and defects and eliminating unnecessary tasks and integrating disparate ones.

“For the most part, however, reengineering has involved recasting processes and the information systems that support them in a proprietary, rather than a standardized, form—that is, customized for individual organizations. Such designs make it difficult and expensive for business to share, consolidate, and change processes.”

Now with the Internet and web services, we can access standardized services that can be shared and re-used throughout disparate business units in the same enterprise and across organizations globally.

The result is business units and organizations that can simply plug and play to make use of needed services, eliminating proprietary processes and redundant systems and enabling outsourcing of noncore mission functions and activities and easier upgrades to new superior services as they come online.

What are some of the issues holding SOA back?

Firstly, many people do not truly understand SOA, what it is, what benefits are possible, and what the challenges are to doing it right.

Second, SOA is viewed by many executives as yet another hype or bubble that will cost the enterprise lots of money, but fail to provide the promised return. So, they are wading into SOA only enough to “deploy it in a limited fashion,” but without first rethinking the design of their business.” However, to really reap the benefits of SOA, organizations need to transform from “collections of proprietary operations into a collection of standard plug-and-play activities,” and this requires redesigning not only IT systems, but operations.

In designing SOA-based processes, the unit of analysis and reengineering is no longer the task (as in Frederick Taylor time and motion studies of the late nineteenth century) or the department, or even the division. “In the age of the Internet and SOA, the unit of analysis is not a company’s way of conducting its operations at all; it is the primary purpose or desired outcome of each activity no matter how that activity is accomplished.”

Where are we today with SOA implementation?

“Unfortunately, few companies are using SOA to create more productive and focused organizations or to slash costs by purging duplicative operations and technologies. They are not revisiting the fundamental design of their operations.”

To overcome the obstacles in reaching SOA enabled organizations, we need a strong dose of enterprise architecture to identify and decompose our performance outcomes we are driving toward, the business processes to achieve these, the information required to perform these, and the systems that can serve them up.

According to HBR, our business model activities can be categorized into the following for SOA implementation:

• Primary (I would call this core mission)—those that should be kept in-house and are “top priority of programs to improve operations and technology” (i.e. through business process improvement, reengineering, and the introduction of new technology).
• Shared—those that “can be shared with other divisions” (i.e. through common solutions).
• Shifted—those that “can be transferred to customers, suppliers, or operational specialists” (i.e. outsourced).
• Automated---those that can be “automated so they can be turned into web services.”

All but the primary activities are ripe for SOA-based enhancements. And according to HBR, only about 20% of activities are primary, so that leaves plenty of room for a SOA plug-and-play.

The idea is to cease defining our noncore mission processes and activities as proprietary, requiring elaborate and expensive customized solutions for these. Instead, we should use standardized “swapped, bought, or sold” services. Then, we can truly focus our business process reengineering and IT investments on our organization’s core mission activities—working to to differentiate ourselves and develop unsurpassed competitive advantage.

SOA Liberates Productivity

Always Forward and Enterprise Architecture

ComputerWorld Magazine, 26 June 2008, has a terrific interview with Loraine Rodgers, formerly Xerox CIO, Citibank senior VP, city of Phoenix CIO, and American Express director.

Her early years…

Ms Rodgers found out at 16 that she was adopted and was “so angry at being lied to I threw away my merit scholarship and refused to go to college. But I took a programmer aptitude test and I aced it, so I started in IT as a programmer. I started in the weeds.”

Over the years, “I always volunteered for seemingly thankless jobs—challenging assignments that nobody wanted.”

Here’s the best part of what she said and I believe very inspirational…

“I am self-propelled, driven, excited about life, love to learn. I got my undergraduate degree at age 40, and my MBA at 42—all working full time. I move forward always—not necessarily in a straight line, but always forward. I have been fired once, laid off twice and promoted over 27 times. I repackage myself regularly and keep moving forward. I perceive the possibilities. I am not hindered by obstacles. There are no obstacles. Some things just take longer.”

WOW!

Ms. Rodgers is inspirational on an individual and organizational/enterprise architecture level.

Ms. Rodgers story is one of overcoming life’s challenges to succeed beyond probably her wildest dreams and most of ours. To succeed individually or as an organization, there are always challenges. Life is not a straight line upward, but is marked by up and downs, hopefully like Ms. Rodgers professional life, it has generally more ups then downs, and going always in an upward pattern.

Ms. Rodgers idea of always repackaging herself and constantly moving forward is terrific and in EA can be associated with an organization continually looking to reengineer and improve their processes and introduce new technologies to enable the mission and results of operation. The key is to always being grateful for what we have been granted, yet to always strive to improve things one step further: never to be satisfied with status quo or mediocrity.

Similarly, architecting the organization is not a one-time event; rather, it is an ongoing cycle of planning, governing, and transforming. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Whether on an individual or organizational level, we must learn to “move forward always—not necessarily in a straight line, but always forward!"

Always Forward and Enterprise Architecture

Information Warriors and Enterprise Architecture

In the digital age, information is critical to decision making. This is the case in the board room as well as on the battle field.

Information superiority is critical to our warfighters ability to intelligently and efficiently defeat our enemies. Many of the Department of Defense‘s modernization initiatives are aimed at getting the right information to the right people at the right time. Unfortunately, there are still some information gaps.

National Defense Magazine, December 2007, reports “troops in digital age, disconnected.”

Apparently, not everyone in the military is getting all the information they need (at least, not yet).

“The problem often is described as a ‘digital divide’ between the technology haves—the upper echelons of command—and the have-nots---the platoons and squads that are deployed in remote areas. These small units for the most part are disconnected from the Army’s main tactical networks and only are able to communicate with short-range voice radios…[however,] at the top echelons, commanders can tap into loads of data—maps, satellite images, video feeds, and reams of intelligence reports.”

Often though it is the small units on the front lines that need to send and receive critical information on combatants or other situational updates that can have life and death implications. This is why the net-centric strategy for virtually connecting all units is so important to achieving the vision of true information dominance.

Here are just a few important ways that information can help our warfighting capabilities:

• Providing information to soldiers to locate enemy combatants (such as from “live video from unmanned aircraft)
• Enabling location tracking of soldiers to save lives when they are endangered (such as from GPS locators)
• Sending information updates back to command for coordination and enhancing decision capabilities (such as from streaming voice and video, instant messaging, etc.)

The good news is that there are a lot of new information technologies coming online to aid our military, including the Future Combat Systems (FCS) and Joint Tactical Radio Systems (JTRS).

To ensure the success of these technologies, we need to manage the solutions using enterprise architecture to validate requirements, reengineer the processes, and effectively plan and govern the change.

1. Requirements management—“how to identify essential needs for information as opposed to providing information indiscriminately”
2. Business process reengineering—according to Marine Corps. CAPT Christopher Tsirlis “it’s not just about the latest and greatest technology but also changing the organization to use new technology.”
3. Planning/governance—we need link resources to results;“the technology exists, the question is how we resource it, and what is the right amount for each level.”

With a solid enterprise architecture and innovative technologies, we can and will enable the best information warriors in the world.

Information Warriors and Enterprise Architecture

The Paperless Society and Enterprise Architecture

For years, we’ve all heard the promise that technology will soon make us a paperless society—but it hasn’t!

In the book, Sacred Cows Make The Best Burgers, by Kriegel and Brandt, the authors state that “most people’s desks look like they’ve been hit by a paper avalanche.”

Have things gotten better or worse?

Kriegel and Brandt state that between 1983 and about 1996, “shipments of paper actually increased by 51%.”

Further, they state that “a vice president of a major telecommunications company showed us a study that...on average, people got over 90 hours’ worth of “stuff” to read each week! And only 20 percent of that was electronic...the same study showed that despite all the advancements in information technology, the amount of paper received today had not been reduced from ten years ago.”

Do we need all this paper?

Absolutely not. “50 percent of a company’s paperwork could be eliminated without the slightest disruption to business.”

In fact, the authors recount a telling story about how a courageous manager and his/her employees slowly eliminated parts of a costly, time-consuming detailed 10 column monthly report they put together for the management committee, by first eliminating some columns and then more and more until finally they produced only 4 key columns quarterly. Instead of the management committee complaining, no one even noticed anything was missing (the columns or later the monthly report), until after a number of months, the CEO congratulated them on their good work with the new clear and simple quarterly report.

What has the government done to reduce paperwork?

• Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, “one of the principal requirements of the PRA is that organizations must have OMB approval before collecting information from the public (such as forms, general questionnaires, surveys, instructions, and other types of collections).” (http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/reqs_bestpractices/laws_regs/paperwork_reduction.shtml)

• Government Paperwork Elimination Act of 2002 “requires that, when practicable, federal organizations use electronic forms, electronic filing, and electronic signatures to conduct official business with the public, by 2003.” (http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/reqs_bestpractices/laws_regs/gpea.shtml)

What should we do in our organizations to reduce the paperwork?

According to Kriegel and Brandt, if paperwork doesn’t “add value to the customer, increase productivity, or improve morale,” then it should be eliminated.

From a User-centric EA perspective, we need to ask our users and stakeholders if they really need or want the paperwork we’re giving them, and if not we need to update our business processes and enable technology solutions to eliminate the legacy paper-based solutions. To some extent this is occurring already, in other cases, it is not. The more we become an information-based society, the more we need and crave information and some people don’t trust the technology or simply want a hard-copy to read or for their records. Paper is not a bad thing. It is a tried and true method of recordkeeping and communication, but when we have so much that we cannot even keep up with it, then it’s definitely time to reevaluate our true needs and go a little easier on our environment. Why chop down all those trees, for reports, proposals, print-outs, and projections that often just end up, unread in the round file (i.e. the garbage) anyway?

The Paperless Society and Enterprise Architecture

“Sacred Cows” and Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise architecture develops the organization’s baseline and target architecture and transition plan. EA is an endeavor of change and transformation from current state to future state. To achieve organizational change successfully, the “sacred cows” must be made change-ready.

In the book, Sacred Cows Make The Best Burgers, by Kriegel and Brandt, the authors explain that the greatest inhibitor to organizational change is people’s resistance—people are the gatekeepers of change and people are the enterprise’s most stubborn of sacred cows!

“Sacred Cow—An outmoded belief, assumption, practice, policy, system, or strategy generally invisible, that inhibits change and prevents responsiveness to new opportunities.”

What’s with this analogy to cows?

“Cows trample creative, innovative thinking. They inhibit quick response to change, and cost money and time. They roam everywhere…yet many organizations continue to worship their sacred cattle. They’re afraid to abandon what once made them successful, and they extract a heavy fine from those cow hunters who would ‘pasteur-ize’ them.”

What’s the imperative for change now?

“It’s hurricane season for American business. Winds of change are barreling in from all directions. Competition is tougher than ever and coming from places you least expected. The customer is more sophisticated and demanding. Technological change is incessant. Government regulations are tougher. And everyone is restructuring, reorganizing, reinventing, downsizing, outsourcing—all at ultrasonic pace.”

What are we doing about it?

“New programs, processes, and strategies have been introduced to help you keep ahead of these changes and eliminate sacred cows. In fact, they’re emerging almost as fast as the changes themselves…reengineering, total quality, virtual teams, ‘horizontal’ corporate structures…”

What are the results of these change efforts?

• “Though it’s predicted that U.S corporations will spend $34 billion on reengineering, most efforts will flop.”
• “Some statistics say seven out of ten reengineering initiatives fail.”
• A McKinsey study found that “a majority of companies researched achieved less than a 5 percent change due to reengineering.”
• “Two-thirds of American managers think TQM has failed in their companies.”
• “The number of applicants vying for the Malcolm Baldridge Award…has fallen since its peak year in 1991.”

In short, “The ’Q’ [quality] word has become cheap currency.”

Why do these change efforts fail?

• “People’s resistance to change is ‘the most perplexing, annoying, distressing, and confusing part’ of reengineering.”
• People resist change because “change is uncomfortable, unpredictable, and often seems unsafe. It’s fraught with uncertainty and always looks harder than it is….change brings us face-to-face with the unknown, and that evokes our worst imagined fears: We’ll be fired, humiliated, criticized. So we dig in our heels.”
• “We’ve seen workers fight change for months and years because they didn’t understand it, were afraid of it, or didn’t see it being in their self interest. It’s naïve to assume that the bulk of the workforce will come around. Even when resistance seems to disappear, most often it’s just gone underground, and will resurface when you least expect it.”
• “Management consultants who deal with companies in transition know that the ‘people’ part of change is critical. And that it is most often overlooked and undervalued.

“The reason that three fourths of reengineering efforts fail…is that the focus of change is on work processes, new technology…and decentralized services rather than on the people who must implement change.”

From a User-centric EA perspective, this last point is critical. Enterprise architecture efforts, by definition, are focused on business, technology, and the alignment of the two. EA looks at business process improvement and reengineering and the introduction of new technologies to enable mission success. Traditionally, EA did not look at the human element—the people factor. The necessity of measuring people’s change readiness and assisting people in transitioning to new ways of doing things is one of the most important elements of any change initiative. As I’ve written previously, Human Capital is the missing performance reference model in the Federal Enterprise Architecture. All this points to the importance of transitioning from traditional EA to User-centric EA, where the end-users and stakeholders (i.e. people) are the most important element of the enterprise architecture. How would my kids phrase this, “in the end it’s not the business process or the technology, but the people, stupid!”

What happens if we don’t recognize the centrality of people to the change process?

Plain and simple, change efforts will continue to fail. Money and time will be wasted. Our competition will continue to gain on us and overtake us. Our organizations will be made obsolete by our own inattention to our most important asset—our people!

“Sacred Cows” and Enterprise Architecture