Boo!
Did you survive the EAC? I am almost caught up on my sleep - just a two hour time change plus flight plus daylight savings time and I've turned into Rip Van Winkle. I'm sure I'll be caught up by tomorrow, but still have lots of miscellaneous thoughts swirling around in this head.
About 18 months ago, I gave a presentation at a Canadian Information Processing Conference, titled "Enterprise Architecture - What Have You Done for me Lately?" It was all about Enterprise Architecture Maturity, and convincing folks that EA was far more that hanging up the Framework and letting the holes and gaps emit light.
This past week, I heard so many points over again that I'd made myself and I wondered how this was possible. I guess it's just that this stuff makes sense to those who live and breathe it and there are just so many ways to say it. This week I heard all about the "value in the arrows", or perhaps that's how I perceived it as it was a scribble I'd noted in the presentater's note copy that I returned with.
My speech on EA maturity was about adding the linkages as that was where the value was. I guess this is essentially the same. It's about creating the relationships to add Architecture value. Listing all of the components, technology and hardware only has so much value. It's when you start to measure it and create the numerous amounts of relationships that you see value.
Something else, strange but true, but I noticed that three of the six panelists on the "Ask the Experts" session on the last day were Architect's who were former Data Architects, or had written columns in data magazines I'd followed in the 90's. Well - that's where my roots are and I wondered if all Information Architect's had evolved into EA's. I mean - we were the only ones religious about models in the 80's and 90's, so it probably makes sense now, doesn't it? Boxes and arrows, lines and boxes - whatever it takes to provide value - it's the way we think and there is no changing that.
My last "Strange but true" thought for this Hallowe'en night - thought it was odd how this year's new comment addition to John Zachman's otherwise similar message was that he'd had a complaint about his slides by the conference coordinator. Apparently he'd pointed out to her that he had to continue to return with the same old slides because he had the same old thing to say, and that no one listened to him anyways.
Now - how can one person run around for thirty years trying to get everyone to listen and to follow. Mr. Zachman obviously is tenacious, as he has never given up because he believed. And by the numbers and passion I saw around this subject at this conference, I believe that he will soon be able to retire a very satisfied person.
Well - enough blogging for now. Time to hide the leftover candy and put away the pumpkin.
Boo!
Monday, October 31, 2005
Thursday, October 27, 2005
The Games Continue
Here I am again, bleary eyes but wanting to share all from this year's Fall EAC. I have so much to share, and tonight will just have to be a summary. I catch the red eye in 6 hours, and suitcases still have to be filled - you know the drill.
This year was a little different. More keynotes, but fewer messages. The last one was fabulous, so all is not lost. John Zachman has finally admitted there is no silver bullet and still maintains that one day we will all wish we'd filled his magic framework. I'm not arguing but there were more that agreed with me this year that feel practicality is a virtue.
The conference offered two panel sessions this year, and not as a keynote. Great touch - heard some great things except for a 30 minute drone about certifying EA's. There is much passion about this, but hard to get excited after listening to it around the CIPS ISP. Sort of boring and so far from reality. Perhaps we should work on a common vocabulary as I hear more acronyms that you can imagine for what goes on in the Business Architecture. Reminds me of the early nineties when modeling tools first entered the scene and with a flick of a button you could create a new flavour of the day - all of which equated to a logical or process flow diagram.
There was an increase in both the sessions and numbers of folks who attended the "Build" as well as "Run" Sessions. Good for you! This just means that there are the masses attending the Plan, meaning we still don't have anything done yet.
The most common question I heard all week was "how do we know when we've modelle enough?". Various answers - deserves a blog onto it's own - but all it means is that we're progressing.
Well - have to type more tomorrow - 4 bells come early and I will take a break from this little stanza.
Happy Architecting and Happy Friday!
Sharon
This year was a little different. More keynotes, but fewer messages. The last one was fabulous, so all is not lost. John Zachman has finally admitted there is no silver bullet and still maintains that one day we will all wish we'd filled his magic framework. I'm not arguing but there were more that agreed with me this year that feel practicality is a virtue.
The conference offered two panel sessions this year, and not as a keynote. Great touch - heard some great things except for a 30 minute drone about certifying EA's. There is much passion about this, but hard to get excited after listening to it around the CIPS ISP. Sort of boring and so far from reality. Perhaps we should work on a common vocabulary as I hear more acronyms that you can imagine for what goes on in the Business Architecture. Reminds me of the early nineties when modeling tools first entered the scene and with a flick of a button you could create a new flavour of the day - all of which equated to a logical or process flow diagram.
There was an increase in both the sessions and numbers of folks who attended the "Build" as well as "Run" Sessions. Good for you! This just means that there are the masses attending the Plan, meaning we still don't have anything done yet.
The most common question I heard all week was "how do we know when we've modelle enough?". Various answers - deserves a blog onto it's own - but all it means is that we're progressing.
Well - have to type more tomorrow - 4 bells come early and I will take a break from this little stanza.
Happy Architecting and Happy Friday!
Sharon
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Let the Games Begin
This week will be special - I get to spend a week with other architects at the DCI Enterprise Architecture Conference. Ok - I'm weird - I love to talk about this stuff, but this is like sending a Gambling Addict to a Casino - oh wait -that's where I am!
Never mind - I tried those slot machines and any way you slice it - you will lose. Bet the farm on EA and you will win. It's exciting - I get to talk to some of the smartest people around about the coolest projects, and learn at the same time. Today was just the "opener" - a new CD to peruse, and some sessions to pick from, as well as a vendor presentation.
Now - I might be biased, but no matter how many vendor presentations you attend, you have to agree - there are some gems of info amongst them. Today I listed to Telelogics's presentation on what they have to offer the Architecture Tools space. Always interesting, as the EA's that I know are incredibly demanding and always want one more thing that no tool does. This was an interesting approach - buy the pieces you need to fill your gaps, intelligently - like an EA would do it themselves.
Now - don't get me wrong - I'm not condoning their tools - if you know me - I don't do that. But I like to see the good or best of breed where credit is due, and it looks like they've approached it in another manner. I'll be interested in visiting the vendor fairs tomorrow to see if I can see at a glance where the rubber meets the road.
If not, I'll definitely tell you to save your money. If we're lucky - it'll make the hopeful list and give us Architects a chance to automate some of our work.
Until tomorrow
Sharon
Never mind - I tried those slot machines and any way you slice it - you will lose. Bet the farm on EA and you will win. It's exciting - I get to talk to some of the smartest people around about the coolest projects, and learn at the same time. Today was just the "opener" - a new CD to peruse, and some sessions to pick from, as well as a vendor presentation.
Now - I might be biased, but no matter how many vendor presentations you attend, you have to agree - there are some gems of info amongst them. Today I listed to Telelogics's presentation on what they have to offer the Architecture Tools space. Always interesting, as the EA's that I know are incredibly demanding and always want one more thing that no tool does. This was an interesting approach - buy the pieces you need to fill your gaps, intelligently - like an EA would do it themselves.
Now - don't get me wrong - I'm not condoning their tools - if you know me - I don't do that. But I like to see the good or best of breed where credit is due, and it looks like they've approached it in another manner. I'll be interested in visiting the vendor fairs tomorrow to see if I can see at a glance where the rubber meets the road.
If not, I'll definitely tell you to save your money. If we're lucky - it'll make the hopeful list and give us Architects a chance to automate some of our work.
Until tomorrow
Sharon
Sunday, October 16, 2005
The Main Issue with Enterprise Architecture
I spend time weekly trying to think of "shareable" things I've done I can put up on the www.architectbootcamp.com to spread the wealth in creating more and better I.T. Architects.
I sat down the other day with a napkin and a pen, trying to list all of the issues I've heard clients mention or express concern about and thought these would be ideal subjects for blogs or newsletters.
Issue Number 1 - Getting Enterprise Architecture Funded.
If you have Mr. Sarbanes, or Mr. Oxley knocking on the door - you have already danced this dance. Executives fully understand the value of architecture, and you've likely got a good head start on a program and maybe even a plan.
If you were to say to a CEO "If you don't fund this project, it tells me you are not really serious about this business strategy" what do you think you'd get back in response?
If every time you were handed a new business initiative to "implement" - I mean - make all I.T. modifications or additions to support it, wouldn't it be great if the CEO also had budgeted a step for "update Enterprise Architecture and align I.T. with this strategy". Ok - so many of you are now leaving saying - yeah, right.
But what if you could prove to the executive, or demonstrate to them that each time they come to you asking for a strategy to be "IT-ized", the planning and development of it could be on a gradually reducing time line if you had architecture in place? Now we're talking. It's so hard, and you continually have to prove value. These are the reasons that EA is hard to justify - it takes doing it and proving it to show value, and you can't really do it or prove it until you've done it.
Not quite entirely true - you do components or pieces of it all of the time, usually by means of projects. What if you were to document the wins from those projects, and tie them to a framework, or lite view of framework to show you've been working on this all along. You might have a conversation to get this rolling about the possible benefits. An extra win might be in order if you happen to mention some of those times that the Executive was happen with I.T. results and demonstrate the Architecture components or efforts.
Happy Architecting,
Sharon
I sat down the other day with a napkin and a pen, trying to list all of the issues I've heard clients mention or express concern about and thought these would be ideal subjects for blogs or newsletters.
Issue Number 1 - Getting Enterprise Architecture Funded.
If you have Mr. Sarbanes, or Mr. Oxley knocking on the door - you have already danced this dance. Executives fully understand the value of architecture, and you've likely got a good head start on a program and maybe even a plan.
If you were to say to a CEO "If you don't fund this project, it tells me you are not really serious about this business strategy" what do you think you'd get back in response?
If every time you were handed a new business initiative to "implement" - I mean - make all I.T. modifications or additions to support it, wouldn't it be great if the CEO also had budgeted a step for "update Enterprise Architecture and align I.T. with this strategy". Ok - so many of you are now leaving saying - yeah, right.
But what if you could prove to the executive, or demonstrate to them that each time they come to you asking for a strategy to be "IT-ized", the planning and development of it could be on a gradually reducing time line if you had architecture in place? Now we're talking. It's so hard, and you continually have to prove value. These are the reasons that EA is hard to justify - it takes doing it and proving it to show value, and you can't really do it or prove it until you've done it.
Not quite entirely true - you do components or pieces of it all of the time, usually by means of projects. What if you were to document the wins from those projects, and tie them to a framework, or lite view of framework to show you've been working on this all along. You might have a conversation to get this rolling about the possible benefits. An extra win might be in order if you happen to mention some of those times that the Executive was happen with I.T. results and demonstrate the Architecture components or efforts.
Happy Architecting,
Sharon
Thursday, October 06, 2005
Just How Many Ways are there to do things?
I'm sure as many of you do, you reach home after a weary four days of work and are frustrated because your work seems to be one big giant conflict. You spend an hour and a half of a one hour meeting (notice that we only went over by 50%?) going back and forth and back and forth. You might get a turn with the magic white board markers, confident that once you play picasso, everyone will get it and the argument will be over.
Well - was I in a doozy today - I just sat and played the referee, as it was the role I was paid to play - I would ask questions like "What if you were to ..." and see what they'd say. At the end of the day, I took on another role - it was to say - something like "let's say there are two options - which would you prefer?"
Now we're getting somewhere - people are always better at pointing out fault with something concrete, rather than trying to come up with pieces of something or arguing about minute points.
If you get to play architect, this might be one tactful approach. Architecture is more about politics than it seems to be about technology. You can't just show up as a great IT polician and expect to be a good architect, but if you are a good architect, being tactful and a great politician sure helps.
So back to the dilemma at hand. Do you ever notice that at the end of one of these types of meetings you are down to two options? It's not that there are just two choices, but there are two that the group hasn't discarded and are willing to back. Pick one, see if it looks like swiss cheese, and then jump ship if it seems that it won't float your boat!
Well - was I in a doozy today - I just sat and played the referee, as it was the role I was paid to play - I would ask questions like "What if you were to ..." and see what they'd say. At the end of the day, I took on another role - it was to say - something like "let's say there are two options - which would you prefer?"
Now we're getting somewhere - people are always better at pointing out fault with something concrete, rather than trying to come up with pieces of something or arguing about minute points.
If you get to play architect, this might be one tactful approach. Architecture is more about politics than it seems to be about technology. You can't just show up as a great IT polician and expect to be a good architect, but if you are a good architect, being tactful and a great politician sure helps.
So back to the dilemma at hand. Do you ever notice that at the end of one of these types of meetings you are down to two options? It's not that there are just two choices, but there are two that the group hasn't discarded and are willing to back. Pick one, see if it looks like swiss cheese, and then jump ship if it seems that it won't float your boat!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
