IT Portfolio Management and Enterprise Architecture

IT portfolio management (ITPfM) is the application of systematic management to large classes of items managed by enterprise Information Technology (IT) capabilities. Examples of IT portfolios would be planned initiatives, projects, and ongoing IT services (such as application support). The promise of IT portfolio management is the quantification of previously mysterious IT efforts, enabling measurement and objective evaluation of investment scenarios.

Debates exist on the best way to measure value of IT investment. As pointed out by Jeffery and Leliveld (2004), companies have spent billions of dollars into IT investment and yet the headlines of misspent money are not uncommon…IT portfolio management started with a project-centric bias, but is evolving to include steady-state portfolio entries such as application maintenance and support, which consume the bulk of IT spending. (Wikipedia)

• ITPfM is related to the federal requirement for capital planning and investment control (CPIC), especially the select phase in which investments are authorized and funded.

The IT Management Reform Act of 1996 (Clinger-Cohen Act) specifies that executive agencies “establish effective and efficient capital planning processes for selecting, managing [controlling], and evaluating the results of all its major investments in information systems.”

The Architecture Alignment and Assessment Guide by the Federal CIO Council, November 2000 defines capital planning and investment control (CPIC) as—“a management process for ongoing identification, selection, control, and evaluation of investments in information resources.”

• CPIC/ITPfM and EA are closely linked processes. Enterprise architecture conducts technical reviews of proposed new IT projects, products, and standards and provides findings and recommendations to the IT Investment Review Board for decision-making on authorizing, prioritizing, and funding IT.

The Architecture and Assessment Guide states that “CPIC and enterprise architecture functions are closely linked…both have a common focus: the effective and efficient management of IT investments.

Further, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-130 requires that agencies establish and maintain a CPIC process and that they “must build from the agency’s current enterprise architecture.”

According to the Architecture Alignment and Assessment Guide, the three phases of CPIC align to EA as follows: CPIC’s select, control, and evaluate align to EA business alignment, technical alignment, and architecture assessment.

The Journal of Enterprise Architecture, February 2008, has an article by George Makiya that discusses “Integrating EA and IT Portfolio Management Processes”.

Makiya states “at the strategic level, the EA has to agree with the business side, what objectives the IT portfolio will be designed to achieve. It is imperative that the EA negotiate with the business side what constitutes value-add. The EA must then use ITPfM to engage the business to document or articulate its strategy and business objectives.”

Further, “at the operational level, the EA using ITPfM employs prioritization and selection processes to ensure that IT investment reflects the objectives and priorities of the business…through proactive management EAs can help the CIO align the IT budget with the demands of the portfolio.”

According to the Federal Enterprise Architecture Practice Guidance, November 2007, the performance improvement lifecycle starts with the agency’s strategy, and then has the three phases of architect (“develop and maintain EA”), invest (select investments and “define the implementation and funding strategy”, and implement (“execute projects”), which in turn yields strategic results.

• Generally speaking, ITPfM decisions are made on the basis of return on investment, risk mitigation, strategic alignment, and technical alignment to the EA.

There are many touch points and linkages between EA and CPIC.

• EA’s target architecture and transition plans drives the investments and portfolio make-up in the CPIC process.
• CPIC investments are used to provide updates on systems, technologies, and standards to the EA.

EA and CPIC/ITPfM are truly mutually dependent and create synergy and value for the organization through enhanced decision making and IT resource control.

IT Portfolio Management and Enterprise Architecture

Robotics and Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise architecture is about engineering the organization—people (the who), process (the how), and technology (as the enabler). However, the people and technology aspects to the organization are reaching a convergence through robotics.

The Associated Press, 2 March 2008, reports that “Japan Looks to a Robot Future.”

“For Japan, the robotics revolution is an imperative. With more than a fifth of the population 65 or older, the country is banking on robots to replenish the work force and care for the elderly.”

How big is the projection for robotics in Japan?

“The government estimates the industry could surge from about $5.2 billion in 2006 to $26 million in 20101 and nearly $70 billion by 2025.

“A 2007 national technology roadmap by the Trade Ministry calls for 1 million industrial robots to be installed throughout the country by 2025. [And] a single robot can replace about 10 employees…thats about 15% of the current workforce.”

“Robotics are the cornerstone of Japan’s international competitiveness.”

“The cost of machinery [like robots] is going down, while labor costs are rising.”

What type do jobs do the robots currently perform?

“Japan is already an industrial robot powerhouse. Over 370,000 robots worked at factories across Japan in 2005, about 40% of the global total and 32 robots for every 1,000 Japanese manufacturing employees.”

“There are robots serving as receptionists, vacuuming office corridors, spoon-feeding the elderly. They serve tea to company guests, and chatter away at public technology displays. Now startups are marching out robotic home helpers.”

What are some challenges with robotics?

1. Inanimate—robots do not feel emotions and have a conscience like humans do; they cannot interact with human in a truly personal, natural, and meaningful way.
2. Cost—“for all its research, Japan has yet to come up with a commercially successful, consumer robot” for the mass market.

From a User-centric EA perspective, we need to plan, invest, and transition for the new robotic revolution—it is at our threshold and will bring together and augment the information age we are in and the drive for process reengineering and improvement. Robotics is the natural evolution of machine/computer and human interface for providing information and performing processes for ourselves and our organizations.

As Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University says: “One day, they will live among us. Then you’d have to ask me: ‘Are you human? Or a robot?’”

Robotics and Enterprise Architecture

Types of Followers and Enterprise Architecture

A leader directs or guides and is in charge or commands others. Almost by definition, a leader must have followers. An enterprise architect leader influences and guides decision-making and direction of the enterprise business and IT planning and governance.

Harvard Business Review, December 2007, reports “there is no leader without at least one follower” and “increasingly, followers think of themselves as free agents, not as dependent underlings.”

HBR provides an interesting typology of followers based on their engagement—there are five types:

1. Isolates—“completely detached…scarcely aware of what’s going on around them. Moreover, they do not care about their leaders, know anything about them or respond to them in any obvious way. Their alienation…by knowing and doing nothing...[they] support the status quo…[they] can drag down their groups or organizations.”
2. Bystanders—“observe but do not participate. These free riders deliberately stand aside and disengage, both from their leaders and from their groups or organizations. They may go along passively when its’ in their self-interest to do so, but they are not internally motivated to engage in an active way.”
3. Participants—“are engaged in some way. Regardless of whether these followers clearly support their leaders and organizations or clearly oppose them, they care enough to invest some of what they have (time or money, for example) to try and make an impact.”
4. Activists—“feel strongly one way or another about their leaders and organizations, and they act accordingly. These followers are eager, energetic, and engaged. They are heavily invested in people and process, so they work hard either on behalf of their leaders or to undermine and even unseat them.
5. Diehards—“are prepared to go down for their cause-whether it’s an individual, an idea, or both. These followers may be deeply devoted to their leaders, or they may be strongly motivated to oust their leaders by any means necessary…they are willing, by definition, to endanger their own health and welfare in the service of their cause.”

Some lessons for leaders:

• Follower engagement--“Followers who do something are nearly always preferred to followers who do nothing.”
• Leadership support--“Good followers will actively support a leader who is good (effective and ethical) and will actively oppose a leader who is bad (ineffective and unethical.”
• Organizational contribution—“Bad followers will do nothing whatsoever to contribute to the group or organization.”
• Power and influence--“Followers act in their own self-interests, just as leaders do. And while they lack authority, at least in comparison with their superiors, followers do not lack power and influence.”

From a User-centric EA perspective, it is helpful to focus not only on leadership qualities, skills, and their development, but also on the types of followers and on their engagement, support, contribution, and power.

To lead an enterprise--establishing a target architecture, transition plan, and governance--the chief architect, must be able to develop a high energy, synergistic, A+ team of individuals that care, can perform, and are engaged and committed to drive effective change and organizational excellence.

Types of Followers and Enterprise Architecture

IT Project Engineering and Enterprise Architecture

Architecture and Governance Magazine, Volume 4, Issue 1, has an article called “The Secrets of IT Success: Transforming Companies” that identifies three critical architectural elements necessary for successful IT project execution, or as I see it, project initiation.

These critical IT project elements are as follows:

• Community Analysis—“It must understand the needs of the customers, the supply chain, and the transactions necessary for the day-to-day running of the business…generate understanding on both the business and IT sides of the equation, to capture organizational goals comprehensively, and to enable effective training and buy-in, IT analysts and engineers must identify with and embrace the community to be transformed.”
• Operations Analysis—“A deep understanding of the operational activities, capabilities, and business processes…Here work activities are identified, captured, and catalogued so that information flows, technologies, roles, and other processes and elements can be accurately mapped. The analytical results from this phase give a clear perspective to move from the business’s needs to the requirements of the new technology that will need to be implemented.
• Technology Analysis—“technical needs are defined and blueprinted, and their intersections with business rules are specified…A multidimensional analytical view encompassing user workflow, technologies, data, security, business rules, and interfaces can greatly enhance the pure IT view of transformation.”

To me this translates in simple terms to the following:

• Business needs
• Functional and technical requirements
• Technology solutions

While these IT project elements factor into the development of the enterprise architecture, they are more the domain of segment and solutions architecture that work toward business and operational outcomes, rather than strategic-level outcomes.

The article also calls for the use of visual tools to aid in IT project analysis:

• “In all three phases, a key ingredient is supplying a visual tool as part of the universal language that will be used throughout the project to facilitate clear communications between members of the community affected by it. Consistent and unambiguous visual expressions of the operational need and intent immeasurably enhance the likelihood of a successful IT implementation.”

This call for the use of visual tools is similar to and supportive of the use of information visualization in User-centric EA, where information visualization is especially helpful in the high-level, strategic profile views of the architecture as well as in modeling business, data, and systems. In all areas of User-centric EA, the principles of communication and design are critical for developing useful and usable information products and governance services for the end-user.

IT Project Engineering and Enterprise Architecture

A Pocket Printer and Enterprise Architecture

Ever wonder what happened to the old Polaroid cameras—you know point, click, shoot, and out pops your photo? Very cool technology for a society that expects, no demands, instant gratification.

Polaroid photos were great while they lasted, but their pictures have become obsolete with new digital photography.

However, Polaroid has a new architecture to transform itself. They have developed a pocket printer to enable the printing of digital photos from cell phones and cameras.

MIT Technology Review, 7 January 2008, reports that Polaroid’s “new handheld printers produce color photos using novel thermal-printing technology developed at Polaroid spinoff Zink Imaging…[and] will be priced at less than $150.”

How does the pocket printer work?

“The printer is about the size of a deck of cards. A user who takes a picture on a cell phone or camera can wirelessly send the file to the printer using Bluetooth, a common short-range wireless technology used in cell phones, or PictBridge, a wireless technology found in a number of cameras. The result is a two-inch-by-three-inch photo printed on paper engineered by Zink.”

Where does the printer cartridge go in the small pocket printer?

The printing technology is similar to that of a common thermal printer…since Zink's technology eliminates the need for printer cartridges...it has led to the smallest printers on the market, and it could eventually be integrated into cell phones and cameras. It would also dispense with the inconvenience of ink cartridges that unexpectedly begin to run out of ink, and which have to be replaced. "When you go to replace an ink-jet cartridge today, it's in the $40 range," Herchen says. With Zink, a person pays only by the print. Polaroid expects to sell the photo paper for $0.30 a page.”

What challenges does the pocket printer face?

“People are accustomed to e-mailing pictures to each other or sending them to each other's phones, and they probably won't want to carry around another gadget just to print pictures on the spot.” But this concern can be obviated if the printer can be integrated into the cell phone or camera, in essence creating a modern digital Polaroid camera equivalent.

From a User-centric EA perspective, you’ve got to hand it to Polaroid to extend their expertise in instant photography to the digital photo age. They have come up with a novel idea and have executed on it, so that it is standards-based (Bluetooth and PictBridge), interoperable with other technologies (cell phones and cameras), small and affordable—thus, appealing to end-users. It would be nice to see the pocket printer work with MS Office applications, so I can print my blog and other work on the go.

A Pocket Printer and Enterprise Architecture

Bionic Eyes and Enterprise Architecture

Remember the TV shows The Bionic Man and Woman? These folks had implants that gave them amazing super-human strength, speed, hearing, and vision.

“Bionics is a term which refers to flow of ideas from biology to engineering and vice versa…In medicine, Bionics means the replacement or enhancement of organs or other body parts by mechanical versions. Bionic implants differ from mere prostheses by mimicking the original function very closely, or even surpassing it. (Wikipedia)

Believe it or not, bionic eyes are now a reality, at least in a research stage.

MIT Technology Review, 25 January 2008, reports that “researchers have created an electronic contact lens that could be used as a display or medical sensor.”

Although, this bionic eye cannot see miles away like a telescope yet, it was created to see if it would be possible to fulfill two primary purposes:

1. Augmented reality display—a “display that could superimporse images onto a person’s field of view, while allowing her to see the real world...soldiers could use the technology to see information about their environment, collected from sensors. Or civilians could use the electronic lens as a cell-phone display, to see who is calling and to watch videos during a commute.”
2. Noninvasive medical monitor—“use the lens as a sensor that could monitor chemical levels in the body and notify the user if they indicate signs of disease...many indicators of health can be monitored from the surface of the eye. The live cells on the eye are in direct contact with blood serum, which contains biomarkers for disease."

How is the bionic eye made?

It “incorporates metal circuitry and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) into a polymer-based lens...a functional circuit that is biologically compatible with the eye.”

What are some of the challenges in making the bionic eye work in the real world?

1. Heat—The bionic eye is a functioning circuit and could generate heat that could adversely affect the eye.
2. Power—How will the contact lens be powered while worn?
3. Size—To create a visible display, the LEDs will have to shrink in size and in the process not break in the lens-shaping process

From a User-centric EA perspective, bionics is one of those incredible fields where end-users really benefit in everyday functions, in life-altering ways. Bionics opens up possibilities for people with disabilities (due to illness or accident) that are nothing short of miraculous. Imagine people being able to walk, look, hear, and so on not only on par with healthy individuals, but maybe even with an edge. Of course, this could open up all sorts of ethical dilemmas. If we think Olympians taking steroids is an issue, we haven’t seen nothing yet. Bionics is a field that is only just beginning, but it will have enormous implications for process improvement and reengineering based on new incredible capabilities of those that have these implants. Bionics is an example par excellence of technology enabling process (in this case, the very elements of mechanical human processes).

Bionic Eyes and Enterprise Architecture

Pepsi and Enterprise Architecture

Pepsi knows and practices User-centric Enterprise Architecture. They plan, develop, and manage their business to meet end-user needs, and the CEO, India-born Indra Nooyi is the mastermind behind their approach.

In Fortune Magazine, 3 March 2008, the article “The Pepsi Challenge” describes how Ms. Nooyi has remade Pepsi into a totally user-driven, architecture astute, mega-food company that is firing on all cylinders.

• Architecting with a global view—“her South Asian heritage gives her a wide-angle view on the world…Pepsi’s international business grew 22% last year, triple the rate of domestic sales, and now contributes 40% of total revenue ($39 billion last year).
• Architecting wise acquisitions and divestitures—in 1997, seeing that “the fast-food market was saturated and the real estate a hard investment to maximize,” she spun off Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC. In 1998, she championed the acquisition of Tropicana, the largest branded-juice producer, and the 2001 acquisition of Quaker Oats, maker of Gatorade.
• Architecting the corporate culture—Ms. Nooyi is an expert in the art of persuasion and rallying the troops to her cause. “She can rouse an audience and rally them around something as mind-numbing as a new companywide software installation.” “She has created the motto—‘Performance With Purpose’” as a means of ‘herding the organization’ towards her vision.
• Architecting through good people and demanding performance excellence—Ms. Nooyi relies on the expertise of her staff and has “broadened the power structure by doubling her executive team to 29.” Moreover, “she expects everyone around her to measure up.”
• Architecting a healthy diet, green environment, and care for her people—“she…puts a positive spin on how she wants PepsiCo to do business…balancing the profit motive with making healthier snacks, striving for a net-zero impact on the environment, and taking care of your workforce.” For example, Pepsi got into healthy foods (such as bottled water, sports drinks, and teas) earlier than Coke and now “commands half the U.S. market share—about twice Coke’s share, according to Beverage Digest. Ms. Nooyi’s plan is continue shifting to healthy snacks (currently at 30% to 50% of the product portfolio).

What I find inspiring about Ms. Nooyi is that she is not only a strategic, big picture minded leader, but that she performs with the eloquence of a master architect that knows her users and their needs, strives to fulfill them, and doing so with an apparent conscience that dictates ethical behavior toward her people, the environment, and the health of her customers.

That is an amazing EA legacy!

Pepsi and Enterprise Architecture

Microsoft Reveals Secrets and Enterprise Architecture

This week Microsoft said they had a big announcement, and that it wasn’t about Yahoo! It turns out that Microsoft decided to reveal some of their technical documents for Microsoft Vista, Office, and other applications.

Why would a company like Microsoft reveal their technical secrets to partners and rivals alike? How is this decision a good architecture move, especially by the master architect himself, Bill Gates?

We all know that companies strive to achieve strategic competitive advantage and that one major way to do this is by product differentiation. The goal is to develop a unique product offering that customers want and need and then build market share. In some case, this results in a situation like Microsoft’s virtual monopoly status in desktop operating systems and productivity suites.

So why give up the keys to the Microsoft kingdom?

Well they are not giving up the keys, maybe just giving a peek inside. And an article in The Wall Street Journal, 22 February 2008 tells us why Microsoft is doing this:

1. Internet Revolution—“For 30 years, Microsoft has…tightly held onto the technical details of how its software works… [and] it become one of the most lucrative franchises in business history. But Microsoft traditional products aren’t designed to evolve via add-ons or tweaks of thousands of non-Microsoft programmers. Nor can they be easily mixed or matched with other software and services not controlled by Microsoft or its partners. Now the Internet is making that kind of evolution possible, and transforming the way software is made and distributed.” As Ray Ozzie, chief software architect of Microsoft states: “The world really has changed.”
2. Do or die—Microsoft’s prior business model was leading it down a path of eventual extinction. “The more people use these applications [free technologies and shareware], the less they need they have for Microsoft’s applications.” Microsoft is hoping to maintain their relevance.
3. Antitrust ruling—“Last September, an appeals court in Luxembourg ruled against Microsoft in a long-running European case that forced Microsoft to announce a month later that it would drop its appeals and take steps to license information to competitors.”
4. Interoperability—“Microsoft announced in July 2006 [its “Windows Principles”]…such as a commitment to providing rival developers with access to interfaces that let their products talk with Windows.” The key here is customer requirements for systems interoperability and Microsoft is begrudgingly going along.

Is this fifth such announcement on sharing by Microsoft the charm? I suppose it all hinges on how much marketplace and legal pressure Microsoft is feeling to divulge its secrets.

So it this the right User-centric EA decision?

If Microsoft is listening to their users, then they will comply and share technical details of their products, so that new technology products in the market can develop that add on to Microsoft’s and are fully interoperable. The longer Microsoft fights the customer, the more harm they are doing to their brand.

At the same time, no one can expect Microsoft to do anything that will hurt their own pocketbook, so as long as they can successfully maintain their monopoly, they will. Not that Microsoft is going away, but they are holding onto a fleeting business model. In the information age, Microsoft will have to play ball and show some goodwill to their users.

Microsoft Reveals Secrets and Enterprise Architecture

Solid-State Drives and Enterprise Architecture

What is one, if not the biggest fear, with putting data on a computer?

Yes, that the hard drive crashes #@$%&!!

Well a new bred of hard drives will help prevent the hard drive failures (and those Monday morning blues).

The Wall Street Journal, 7 February 2008, reports that “Solid-State Drives [SSDs]…because they lack moving parts, they are faster, draw less power, are harder to damage and are quieter than [mechanical] hard drives.”

“Hard-disk drives, or HDDs, are mechanical devices. They work by recording data on a spinning magnetic platter or platters. By contrast, solid-state drives are made of chips and have no moving parts.”

The new SSDs are “close cousins to the so-called flash memory used in digital cameras, cell phones and smaller-capacity music players. They record data to special memory chips that retain their contents even when the device is turned off.”

SSDs are expected to become more popular as “their capacities increase and their prices drop.”

From the User-centric enterprise architecture perspective the value proposition, cost-benefit, for SSDs is not there yet. But it soon will be and then it will time to help alleviate your user angst of hard drive failures with safer, faster SSDs.

Solid-State Drives and Enterprise Architecture

Management By Walking Around and Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise architecture is about planning and governance; it is a leadership function. But after this comes execution — implementation; a management function. And what better way to organize, coordinate, direct, and make things happen “on the ground” than by using management by walking around (MBWA)?

What is MBWA?

MBWA is about getting managers out of their lofty, ivory tower offices and spending time with “the troops.” In MBWA, managers literally make their way around to their staff and spend time talking with them, learning, guiding, building relationships, and motivating. MBWA is about being in regular touch with your people; having straight-talking and trusting dialogue. These are impromptu conversations and informal “coffee talks,” rather than planned, scheduled, agenda-driven meetings. It is a way to understand what employees are facing and experiencing and as the same time to build purpose, team, and keep things “on track”.

Where did MBWA come from?

“As HP grows [in the 1940s], Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard create a management style that forms the basis of HP's famously open corporate culture and influences how scores of later technology companies will do business. Dave practices a management technique — eventually dubbed "management by walking around" — which is marked by personal involvement, good listening skills and the recognition that ‘everyone in an organization wants to do a good job.’” (http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/timeline/hist_40s.html)

Later in the 1980s, Tom Peters promoted MBWA as a way for organizations to “find greater success interacting with employees and customers than by remaining in isolation from them. Rather than micromanaging employees, MBWA allowed management to informally communicate with employees and to coordinate at a more personal level.”

(BI Review Magazine, 3 December 2007)

How is MBWA most effective?

According to futurecents.com, here are some guidelines for effective MBWA:

• Do it to everyone
• Do it as often as you can
• Go by yourself (one on one)
• Ask questions
• Watch and listen
• Share your vision
• Try out their work
• Bring good news (successes, positive initiatives, share optimism)
• Thank people
• Don’t be critical

With MBWA helping managers and staff to connect, communicate, and carry out, enterprise architecture plans and governance have a much better opportunity to succeed in the day-to-day lives of the users being asked to execute.

Management By Walking Around and Enterprise Architecture

“Instant Boot-Up” and Enterprise Architecture

Who doesn’t get a little frustrated at the length of time for booting up a computer?

MIT Technology Review, 16 January 2008, states “many office workers have the same morning routine; turn on the computer, then grab coffee catch up with coworkers, or look at paperwork while Windows boots up. Others save time, but waste energy, by keeping their machines on all the time.” –So which category are you in?

This is an Enterprise Architecture issue. If it takes a computer a long time to boot, there is a human impact and a business-productivity impact to the organization. Form the human perspective, people do not like to wait around or be aimless or idle. We’re an inpatient society and one that is addicted to immediate gratification. Being forced to wait for a computer that is supposed to be expediting and simplifying your life and work is not only counter-intuitive, but annoying and frustrating to people who want to be productive human beings, and excel personally and professionally. Sitting staring at an empty screen, looking for something to occupy your time, or just twiddling your thumbs is not a user-centric EA way to meet users’ needs. From a productivity perspective, lost time is lost money. Enough said on that.

I googled online and found oodles (actually almost 13 million) articles and blogs addressing the issue of boot time.

One blog wrote “Most of us have had a brand new computer at one time. It's a great feeling. You boot up windows and within 30 seconds you are surfing the net, checking your email, or playing your favorite game. 10 months down the road things aren't so nice anymore. You power up your computer and it seems to take forever to load.” Doesn’t sound like a happy Windows user to me. (http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2006/09/why-windows-takes-so-long-to-start-up.html)

MIT Technology review reports that some vendors are taking up the cause and are developing products that “circumvents the everlasting boot-up.”

One such technology is called Splashtop by Device VM; “a person using the software—which is is based on open-source operating system Linux—can start surfing the web or watching a DVD These days that would be boot up nirvana, I believe. in less then 20 seconds, and in some case, in less than five.”

“Splashtop is embedded in the BIOS so it starts before the operating system is up and running. The user sees a screen with a simple interface offering a handful of options, including launching Firefox Web browser, a media player, Skype [telephony], or an instant messaging program, or allowing Windows to boot.”

The director of Intel’s business-client architecture group states “it’s a positive development in that it’s making the PC easier to use in certain circumstances.”

Maybe the issue with computer boot time is two-fold. First is that the darn thing actually does takes too long to start up. Imagine if your toaster, light bulb, television, or automobile took as long. We’d be going around like mimes, starting and stopping our activities in jerking motions, constantly waiting for something to activate. Secondly, there’s an expectation aspect to this. Powerful computers can perform trillions of transactions per second, yet they can’t even get to a functional screen without us having to slumber around waiting. It’s an inconsistency and a dashed consumer expectation every time you turn on the computer. It doesn’t make sense and its time to make the automation meet reasonable consumer expectations.

“Instant Boot-Up” and Enterprise Architecture

Business Process Management and Enterprise Architecture

Modeling business processes, information flows, and the systems that serve up that information is core to developing enterprise architecture

DM Review Magazine, February 2008 reports that Business Process Management (BPM) changes the game for business performance through process innovation, creating a process-managed enterprise that is able to respond to changing market, customer, and regulatory demands faster than its competitors.”

How does BPM enable enterprise efficiency?

“It acts as the glue that ties together and optimizes existing attempts at employee collaboration, workflow, and integration. It drives efforts in quality improvement, cost reductions, efficiencies, and bottom-line revenue growth.”

BPM drives “the ability to design, manage, and optimize critical business processes.”

Essentially the decomposition of functions into processes, tasks, and activities along with linkages to the information required to perform those and the systems that provide the information enable the enterprise architect to identify gaps, redundancies, inefficiencies, and opportunities for business process improvement, reengineering, and the introduction of new technologies.

Business, data, and systems models are an important tool for architects to integrate and streamline operations.

How effective is BPM?

The Aberdeen Group reports “more than 50% of companies surveyed were expected to turn to BPM in 2007 to get the process right at the line-of-business level without having to throw out their expensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) or custom back-end applications investments.”

Similarly, Gartner reports that “organizations deploying BPM initiatives have seen more than 90 percent success rates on those projects.”

What are some critical success factors in BPM?

1. Usability—“intuitive and flexible user interfaces.”
2. Process analysis—“knowledge management, analytics, reporting, and integration functionality.”
3. Collaborative—“portals, attached discussion threads, document management capabilities, and configurable task views.”
4. Self-optimization—“ability to ‘self-optimize’ the process.”
5. Focus on high-value areas first—“initial BPM project should include areas of medium-to-high business value combined with low process complexity…choose processes or business areas that have high visibility.”

From a User-centric EA perspective, modeling business, data, and systems is a key element at the segment and solutions architectures. These models enable the development of business requirements, information flows, and technology needs that help determine the ultimate solution design and line of business projects. These in turn feed the enterprise architecture target architecture and transition plan. So the food chain often starts with core modeling initiatives.

Business Process Management and Enterprise Architecture

Where’s the Satisfaction in Enterprise Architecture?

Throughout history, people have labored and seen the fruits of their labor. Whether as hunter/gathers, farmers, or working on the assembly lines, with hard work, people have been able to see tangible progress and in a sense, savor the results of their work.

Today however, in an information society, we are too a great extent divorced from truly delivering products or services to the end-user.

The Wall Street Journal, 20 February 2008, reports “A Modern Conundrum: When Work’s Invisible, so are its Satisfactions.”

“In the information age, so much is worked on in a day at the office, but so little gets done. In the past people could see the fruits of their labor immediately: a chair made or a ball bearing produced. But it is hard to find gratification from work that is largely invisible…not only is work harder to measure, but it’s also harder to define success…The work is intangible, and a lot of work gets done in teams, so it’s difficult to pinpoint individual productivity.”

Homa Bahrami, a senior lecturer in Organizational Behavior and Industrial Relations at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business states: “Information-age employees measure their accomplishments in net worth, company reputation, networks of relationships, and the products and services they’re associated with—elements that are more perceived and subjective than that field of corn, which either is or isn’t plowed.”

As enterprise architects, we are in the business of providing information to enable better organizational decision-making. And unlike producing widgets or harvesting the season’s crops, architectural performance may seem hard to measure and their activities unsatisfying.

However, developing enterprise architecture based on a user-centric approach is actually very meaningful and satisfying. In User-centric EA, we develop only information products and governance services that have clear users and uses, and which benefits the organization in terms of enabling sound IT investments, reengineering business processes, and addressing gaps, redundancies, inefficiencies, and opportunities.

EA is a strategic, big picture view of the organization. It is a planning function and with the commitment of leadership can have an enormous influence on the future direction of the organization. This is a big responsibility for enterprise architects and is very satisfying work especially when cost savings are realized, processes improved, information needs met, business outcomes enabled with technology, security assured, and strategic objectives met.

So just because we’re working in information, it doesn’t mean that EA is invisible. It touches the lives of stakeholders across the business and technical domains of the enterprise.

Where’s the Satisfaction in Enterprise Architecture?

Difficult IT Users and Enterprise Architecture

User-centric Enterprise Architecture focuses on serving the business and IT end-user with useful and usable information products and governance services. But what do architects need to know about the types of users they face out there?

ComputerWorld, 4 February 2008, reports on “The 5 Users from Hell: Difficult IT customers can drive you crazy.”

Here are the 5 types of users:

1. “The Know-It-All—he knows a little HTML, and he defragged his hard drive once, so now he thinks he knows more than you. He often refuses to follow policies and instructions and has been known to poke his head into the server room ‘just to see what you’re up to to.’
2. The Know-Nothing—this is the clueless user who looks in vain for the ‘Any’ key when his computer prompts him to ‘hit any key’…requires hand-holding for even the simplest tasks. He demands attention and may need multiple visits. Also, he’s frequently unable to articulate problems.
3. Mr. Entitlement—often heard uttering the phrase, ‘Do you know who I am?’…He may be the CEO…or he may be a peon…who thinks he’s entitled simply because you’re in customer service.
4. The Finger-Pointer—he never thinks (or at least, never admits) that he’s in any way to blame for any of his problems—you are.”
5. The TwentySomething Whiz Kid—“this person has dozens of freeware applications on his computer, along with three IM clients and a passel of unauthorized open-source software, and he knows how to use a proxy web site to bypass the company firewall.”

And the 6 type of user is The Angel—“They take the knowledge you give them to solve one problem and are able to apply it to another problem…My dream user is someone who actually listens to what I have to say.”

Obviously serving any sort of customer is never easy. It means that we have to provide products and services to customers, who may be annoying, rude, arrogant, and less than grateful. They may actually be a “bear” to handle, but it’s our job to deal with them gracefully and provide them top notch service. And so we shall, heads held up high.

Difficult IT Users and Enterprise Architecture

Presentation Style and Enterprise Architecture

User-centric Enterprise Architecture employs principles of communications and design, such as maximizing information visualization in making information products useful and usable to the end-user.

In ComputerWorld , 24 September 2007, Michael Hugos, a principal at the Center for Systems Innovation, presents “Five Diagrams Beat A Victorian Novel.”

The article states: “Consider two methods of collecting and presenting computer system specification [or apply this to presenting enterprise architecture] to users. One is far more likely to result in disastrous development projects plagued by miscommunication and users who are unhappy with the systems that are developed to them.” This disastrous method for presenting IT, Mr Hugos calls the ‘Victorian Novel’ is based on “text specifications for systems development [and] it simply mire readers in a swamp of boring words.”

This method uses Unified Modeling Language (UML)…”they rely on use cases that seem very rigorous yet manage to reduce everything-from trivial details to important processing logic—into a monotonous blur of text that few people can read for more than a minute or two. The only diversions from this text are some abstract charts. UML documents seem to purposely designed to confuse and disengage the typical business user.”

I do believe Mr. Hugos could be equally describing traditional EA “artifacts” that mire the users in eye sore diagrams that cover entire walls or fill boxes and are they typical architecture shelfware that defies general readability, usability, and do not meet end-user requirements for information that adds value!

Mr. Hugos goes on to describe his method for presenting IT information, which aligns beautifully with the User-centric EA approach.

He states as follows: “Instead, I use a method based on the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. I use schematics and diagrams that give both business users and developers an easy way to understand the system under development [applies as well to EA].

Here are the five diagrams proposed:

1. Process flow diagram—excellent, get the processes ironed out before automating, and enable business process improvement and reengineering.
2. Logical data model—yes, capture the data requirements as the driver for the system solutions to serve up the information.
3. Screen Map—right on, provide the end-user a storyboard of screens that show how they will interact with the system; that is User-centric.
4. Systems architecture diagrams—nice, what is the technical infrastructure that underlies the system.
5. Software object model—not one that I am familiar with, but sounds like it supports systems interoperability. It “defines the processing logic for the custom code and the data interfaces between custom software objects and packaged software.”

The five diagrams that Mr. Hugos proposes “enable effective communication between business and technical people so the system that gets delivered meets user expectations”.

It is truly wonderful to hear about architecture diagrams that are not typical shelf-ware, that help meet user requirements, that add value, and that are based on sound principles of communication. All too often these areas of architecture development are overlooked and at great expense to the enterprise and the end-user!

Presentation Style and Enterprise Architecture

Leadership, Change, and Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise architecture is about planning, managing, and measuring change in an organization. To effect change requires true leadership, and this requires multiple skills.

In the book, The Leadership Triad by Dale Zand, three essential forces of leadership are presented—knowledge, trust, and power. These leadership forces guide constructive organizational change.

“Like three horses pulling a chariot, these forces, if coordinated and working together, provide a swift and exhilarating ride. But if one force is mismanaged or pulls against the others, the ride is bumpy and can end in disaster.”

Effective leaders integrate the three forces of knowledge, trust, and power to drive effective change and maintain efficient operations in their organizations: “They know what should be done, they have the trust of their people, and they use power appropriately:

1. Knowledge—“leaders know or can find out what should be done…they have vision and they know how to fulfill that vision. They set clear, challenging goals, and they know what needs to be done to reach the goals…they know how to gain access to the knowledge of others, and they know how to work with people to convert that knowledge into action.”
2. Trust—“people trust effective...leaders, giving them loyalty and commitment… [They] earn trust by disclosing relevant information, sharing influence, and competently using knowledge. They earn trust by fairness in their dealings with others—fulfilling the spirit of their agreements, sharing rewards and hard times and not abusing their power.”
3. Power—“leaders use their power appropriately. They know how to be directive or to delegate. They know how to review and evaluate constructively. They know how to be consultants, providing guidance rather than issuing commands.”

Why not just lead in a command and control fashion like in the military or law enforcement organization?

“The heroic fantasy of one person at the head of a column and followers shouting ‘charge’ as they mount the battlements is outdated. Instead leaders need to learn to use the sensing, searching, and thinking ability of all people within the organization.”

How are these leadership skills similar to those necessary for implementing enterprise architecture?

Knowledge, trust, and power are the cornerstones of an enterprise architecture program.

1. EA makes information transparent and provides information products to distribute knowledge and enable better decision-making. EA information is critical to decision-making, particularly in terms of ensuring sound IT investment management decisions, IT planning, analysis of problem areas—uncovering gaps, redundancies, inefficiencies, and opportunities--driving business process improvement, reengineering, and the introduction of new technologies to the organization.

“In the twentieth century society crossed…into the information age, marked by the emergence of the knowledge organization.”

“Competitive advantage in the information age is in constant jeopardy—knowledge is fluid, and creative thinkers leapfrog over existing knowledge.”

“Knowledge travels with the speed of thought, but can be blocked by the smallest emotional barrier. It can enlighten the entire organization’s operation, yet it can easily be concealed if people do not want leaders to see it. People throughout organizations continually acquire and create important, critical knowledge about customers, [suppliers], products, technology, costs, and competitors. But that knowledge can remain hidden and inaccessible to leaders. In the new world leaders need to liberate knowledge and creative thinking at all levels and in all corners of the organization. To compete, leaders need to move knowledge from where it is to where it can be used to define and achieve appropriate goals.”

EA helps to synthesize information and liberate knowledge to meet strategic goals.

2. EA is based on the trust of business and technical leaders and staff across the enterprise. EA synthesizes business and technology information. It relies on the trust of divisions, departments, and subject matter experts (SMEs) throughout the organization to share (and not hoard) information and build a results-driven, process-oriented, interoperable, standardized, cost-effective organization, rather than a siloed, ineffective one. In an EA-directed organization, siloed functions and management relinquish their own personal interests and perhaps, selfish motives and instead plan for the good of the overall organization. For example, decisions on IT investments are made based on enterprise priorities and cost-benefit-risk-architecture considerations, rather than who has the money to spend.

“Trust regulates the disclosure of information—how open people are with relevant information…trust regulates mutual influence—how receptive people are to each other’s goals and concerns, and trust regulates control—the intention to fulfill the spirit of a decision and willingness to rely on another person to implement her part of the decision.”

“Mistrust causes people to censor, delay, and distort relevant information. Social uncertainty compounds ambiguity, masks difficulties and deprives leaders of the opportunity to make high-quality decisions

3. The EA Board (chaired by the chief enterprise architect) ensures that proposed new IT projects, products, and standards align to and comply with the enterprise architecture. EA must have the power to mandate and enforce alignment and compliance or else the target architecture and transition plan is just a sham that will not yield enterprise results and achieve stated goals. Additionally, EA must have the ability to require SMEs to contribute regularly to the development, maintenance, and use of the EA. The business and technical SMEs are the owners of the EA content and must be partners with the EA team in ensuring that the architecture is kept current, accurate, and complete.

“Power is the ability to influence others so that they do or do not do something.”

“Leaders have legitimate power to determine the process by which decisions will be made.”

Knowledge, trust, and power are three dimensions of leadership that are the foundation for an effective EA program. EA ensures that the information needs of the organization are met in terms of business and technical baseline and target architectures and transition plans. EA relies on the trust of its organizational partners in the business and technical domains to share information and adhere to architectural decision and standards that are in the best interests of the overall organization, rather than any one individual, group, or function. And finally, EA requires the power to ensure alignment to and compliance with the architecture and the decisions of the architecture board or else EA is just a paper tiger and will fail.

Leadership, Change, and Enterprise Architecture

DoD Enterprise Architecture

In a world where information superiority can mean battlefield victory, enterprise architecture is critical to military transformation and execution.

Military Information Technology, 11 February 2008, reports “Enterprise Architecture: Key to Netcentricity.”

http://www.military-information-technology.com/article.cfm?DocID=2328

Why is EA important in general:

“An actionable EA provides organizational leaders information sufficient to make enterprise plans, investment resource and management decisions, and to optimize key operational and support processes.”

Why is EA important to The Department of Defense?

The warfighter relies on information superiority to sense a threat, decide on a course of action, and execute faster than the enemy. This is not much different than survival in America’s Wild West years ago, by those who had the fastest [gun] draw.

Today, “The OODA [observe, orient, decide, act] loop is a 'sense and respond' cycle driven by actionable data and information for superior information management, battlespace awareness, and operational decision-making...when organizational components use rich and timely information, dramatically improved battlespace operations effectiveness can be realized…the single unifying approach that delivers the needed information and insight is enterprise architecture."

What is netcentricity?

Netcentricity or “network-centric operations (NCO) enables military forces to anticipate and adapt rapidly to changes in the environment such as enemy warfare tactics. NCO touches all aspects of department operations and, by integrating organizational networks and information, enables enhanced warfare operations effectiveness. NCO is enabled through dramatic changes in mindsets, processes, IT and access to information and networks.”

“An actionable EA is critical to the DoD realizing netcentric capabilities.”

“Unfortunately DoD is struggling to implement actionable EA. The General Accountability Office (GAO)…in 2006 found that the EA programs of the departments of the Air Force, Navy, and Army were among the four most immature EA programs within the government.

What does DoD need to advance their EA?

GAO found that “strong executive leadership could resolve all the challenges organizations experienced in developing and using actionable EA capabilities.”

Transformational leaders in DoD will provide the “vision, integrity, communication, inspiration, and empowerment.” And they “empower organizational members with human, material, and financial resources to accomplish the vision.”

EA cannot be achieved without management commitment and adequate resources!

What about the DoD leaders who say that EA cannot be implemented “because the organization is too complex”?

This thinking is sort of ironic, because EA is what captures information, analyzes and catalogues it, and serves it up to the end-users to enable better decision-making. EA is what simplifies information and makes it transparent enabling strategic transformation and the realization of netcentric capabilities.

EA is exactly what DoD needs for evaluating itself, planning its future state, and transitioning itself to achieve its goals of battlespace superiority through information superiority.

"Implementing an actionable EA capability can take up to five years and requires...[DoD leaders need to] focus on long-term performance improvements," through enterprise architecture implementation.

DoD Enterprise Architecture

Green IT and Enterprise Architecture

Green computing is the study and practice of using computing resources efficiently [from an environmental and energy perspective]. Typically, technological systems or computing products that incorporate green computing principles take into account the so-called triple bottom line of economic viability, social responsibility, and environmental impact. This differs somewhat from traditional or standard business practices that focus mainly on the economic viability of a computing solution. These focuses are similar to those of green chemistry; reduction of the use of hazardous materials such as lead at the manufacturing stage, maximized energy efficiency during the product's term of use, and recyclability or biodegradability of both a defunct product and of any factory waste. A typical green computing solution attempts to address some or all of these factors by implementing environmentally friendly products in an efficient system. (Wikipedia)

ComputerWorld, 4 February 2008, reports on “Tips for a Leaner, Greener Desktop: Energy efficiency isn’t just for the data center.”

“Although data centers may use more power per square foot, as a percentage of total power consumption, office equipment is the big kahuna...if you look at overall power consumption, you’re seeing almost double for computers and monitors than for data centers.”

“There were an estimated 900 million desktops in use worldwide in 2006…if all of that equipment met the 2007 Energy Star [a voluntary labeling program] 4.0 specification , power consumption would be 27% lower than it would be under 2006 guidelines.”

Here are a number of ways to architect green:

• Power management software—software like NightWatchman or LANDesk puts desktop computers and monitors “into power saving mode after a period of inactivity, overriding any personal setting….another product SMSWakeUp can ‘wake up’ those machines to deliver patches and updates after-hours and then shut them down again when the process is complete.”
• LCD monitors—“dump those CRTS replacing older computers and peripherals with Energy Star-rated equipment can save energy and space, and the decreased power consumption can significantly reduce the need for cooling in office areas. Start with CRT displays. ‘The biggest offenders are the monitors.’”
• Thin clients—“managed thin clients use 30% less energy than nonmanaged PCs...thin clients use less power and space, since they have no disk drives or fans, and the Windows session and applications run on the server.”
• Printing effectively—“Hewlett Packard Co, claims that the energy efficiency of its printers improve 7% to 15% with each new generation. Therefore, replacing older units with new, Energy Star-labeled models can cut costs by as much as 25%...printers are also getting smarter about when to go into low-power mode.” Another method to save energy and paper is to configure printers for duplex mode.

Green IT is good for enterprises and good for the planet. Enterprise architects can help make a difference with green IT solutions for their organizations.

Green IT and Enterprise Architecture

“Fair Trade or Free Trade” and Enterprise Architecture

What is the way ahead for free trade—further globalization and lost jobs for U.S. workers or isolationism and protectionism?

Fortune Magazine, 4 February 2008 reports that “economic anxiety has inspired a backlash against free trade…in the great game of global trade, Americans are increasingly feeling like the losers.”

How did we get to this advanced state of global trade?

“Americans led the works in building a roadmap for global commerce during the 1990’s” with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) “linking the U.S., Canada, and Mexico to create the world’s largest trade bloc.”

Why are Americans reeling from free trade?

“68% of those surveyed say America’s trading partners are benefiting the most from free trade, not the U.S. The sense of victimhood is changing America’s attitude about doing business with the world. We are a nation crawling into a fetal position, cramped by fear. That America has lost control of its destiny in a fiercely competitive global economy. The fear is mostly about jobs lost overseas and wages capped by foreign competition. But it is also fueled by lead-painted toys from China and border-hopping workers from Mexico, by the housing and credit crisis at home, and by the residue of vulnerability left by 9/11 and the wars that followed.”

“We are turning inward. Especially now, as the U.S. economy sputters…median household income in 2006, at $48,201 was barely ahead of where it was eight years earlier. So the prospect of a recession has made the anxious middle class even more so.”

“Most analysts agree that the underlying reason for public anxiety over globalization is the visibility of factory closings and the stagnation of income.

What is the result of the backlash against free trade?

“Today, nearly two-thirds of Americans are willing to pay higher prices to keep down foreign competition.”

With the upcoming presidential election, “the Democratic mantra is now, ‘fair trade, not free trade.’”

“Most Democratic leaders insist they don’t want to, nor believe they can, halt the global flow of commerce. Where they hope to connect with voters is by promising to strengthen the safety net.” This includes special training programs, tax incentives for companies to relocate to where workers have lost jobs, and expanding unemployment benefits.

I agree that we cannot retrench into isolationism, although a little protectionism sounds about right and fair. We need to architect our nation’s role in global trade, so that we are not running huge trade deficits, losing valuable jobs to overseas workers, and buying shoddy products from overseas.

Enterprise architecture is about identifying the baseline and setting a target and transition plan. Well the current baseline, as outlined, is ruinous for the U.S. economy. The target is clearly a more strategic trade policy that protects our vital economic industries, interests, and workers. And the transition plan is to establish the laws and policies to change our wayward direction and quickly.

Finally, businesses must look beyond the quarterly financial statements and daily stock prices of their companies and instead establish longer-term targets that focus on retaining strategic assets and know-how at home here in the U.S., rather than trade it away for a quick buck on the quarterly income statement.

“Fair Trade or Free Trade” and Enterprise Architecture

Bathroom Etiquette and Enterprise Architecture

Every facet of our lives can be enhanced with automation and technology.

The Wall Street Journal, 15 February 2008 reports “Restroom Décor: Germy Doorknobs Inspire Inventors.”

Many people are wary of germs and their disease spewing effects, and no place more so than in public bathrooms (germs “can survive on surfaces for hours or days”).

“A few years ago, after using a filthy gas-station bathroom strewn with soggy toilet paper, Mathew Fulkerson dried his hands under a wall-mounted blower. Then he realized he was trapped: How to leave without touching the door handle?”

The user requirement is clear here; the technology solutions creative (although some are simply using the “pinky pull”, foot pull, or grasping the handle with a paper towel or toilet paper):

• L-shaped handles—the SantiGrasp “can be pulled with the forearm or wrist” for $124.
• Sensors—the Sanidoor opens with the wave of a hand at a cost of $1000 installed.
• Sprays—the HYSO (hygienic Solutions) is a “canister installed above the door handle that sprays it with disinfectant every few minutes…the solution dries instantly.”
• Ultraviolet lights—“Sanihandles, a door connected to a pair of ultraviolet lamps that kills germs.”
• Doors that open out—these can be pushed with the shoulder or butt; “last year Massachusetts state Rep. James Vallee introduced a bill on behalf of a constituent that would require all public-bathroom doors to open outward.”

Is there really a need for these elaborate bathroom solutions?

“In an August 2007 study, study sponsored by the Soap and Detergent Association and the American Society for Microbiology, 34% of males observed in public bathrooms across the country didn’t wash their hands; 12% of females didn’t wash up.”

Are hygienic EA solutions user-centric?

They sure are. “Hygiene is a big seller. There are now antimicrobial bedsheets and bacteria-killing carpets. Last year, American Standard introduced a toilet with an antimicrobial coating that suppose to last indefinitely. At Busch’s a supermarket chain in Michigan [and at many others like Trader Joe's], stores have disinfecting wipes near the shopping carts that people push around.”

William Schaffner, vice president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases says that “It’s good to be clean, but one can become obsessive” He says that he doesn’t avoid touching doorknobs, but I for one don't believe him.

Bathroom Etiquette and Enterprise Architecture