Jack van Hoof contacted me about his IT Services Stack collaboration experiment.  Jack, as many know, is an enterprise integration architect and author of the popular eda-soa blog.  In his email, Jack asked if I would let my readers know of his experiment and offer my feedback.  Since the work will remain in the public domain, I'm happy to do both.

The Initiative

The best way to describe the work, is to excerpt from Jack's post and show his picture in progress.

"It is not always easy for an enterprise IT architect to keep scope and hold the complete picture. As we have several architects with different competences I felt the urge to develop an IT Services Stack. The IT Services Stack is a picture of a layered view on all aspects of IT from a component perspective."

"I would like to make this premature IT Services Stack more consistent and supply an extended view on every component mentioned in the picture. The model should be defined one level deeper, with the following attributes:

• Function of the component
• Relationship with other components
• Sub-level components and models
• Related open standards
• Innovative products in the market"

Jack then asks for community help, that's us.  So, if you are inclined, jump over to Jack's blog and offer your comments.  Or, as I'm about to do, post your comments and link to Jack.

My Three Cents

I suggest the addition of a new (leftmost) column, IT Business Management.  This column would contain components related to the 'business of IT'.  Top of mind components are:

• Business & IT Collaboration: Strategy, Architecture, Planning
• IT Offerings - the products and services IT provides to the business.  The supplier might be a third party.
• Demand and Supply Management
• Portfolio Management - Budget, Project and Asset
• Talent Development

The Hardware section caught my eye, only because I wonder how much hardware will continue to be under direct management of IT.  Beyond interaction devices (laptops, keyboards, mice, pdas) and networking equipment, does hardware ownership and management by IT organizations become obsolete?  Do we care about the hardware?  Or, just the technical infrastructure services at the next layer up?

In respect to the SOA box, the SOA Consortium's community of practice is working on a planning framework.  I sense some sharing in our future.

[Disclosure: The SOA Consortium is a client of my company, Elemental Links]

Posted by brendamichelson in bda community projects • enterprise architecture • general IT | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week, at BPM Think Tank I shared some of the SOA Consortium (and my) views on the complementary relationship of BPM and SOA. I purposely kept the conversation away from technology and standards. Instead, I focused on the changing role of IT (value generation), the problems BPM and SOA solve (instantiating business scenarios which are comprised of processes, activities, services and events), the changing role of enterprise architecture (business architecture as first class citizen), the importance of business and IT collaboration on enterprise strategy and enterprise architecture, and the need for IT professionals, particularly architects, to gain business smarts.

On Monday, I read an article in the online WSJ, What's Next for IT, that echoed many of these themes, and provided some additional insights into the question Phil Gilbert posed "How are organizations injecting business smarts into IT professionals?"

The article is an excerpt of an interview between WSJ editor Francesca Donner and three CIO's -- Meg McCarthy of Aetna Inc., Frank Modruson of Accenture Ltd. and Steve Squeri of American Express Co.

While the entire article is worth the read, I wanted to excerpt some of the excerpt, particulary on the topics I mentioned above. My categorization has caused some selections to be ordered differently than the article.

On the changing role of IT: "Strategic" and "At the Table"

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Analysts have written that IT departments are becoming more strategy- and business-oriented. Do you agree?

MS. MCCARTHY: I totally agree. At Aetna, the IT organization is critical to enabling the implementation of our business strategy. I report to the chairman of our company and I am a member of the executive committee. In that capacity, I participate in all of the key business conversations/decisions that impact the company strategy and the technology strategy.

MR. SQUERI: I believe that over the next 10 years, the CIO will get more involved in the overall business strategy of the company and see their role expand in importance. The CIO will be increasingly called upon not only to translate business strategies into capabilities but to become even more forward-looking to determine what capabilities the business will need in the future.

The days of tech leaders as relationship managers and "order takers" will go by the wayside and they will be called upon to create and drive technology strategies that drive business capabilities.

On bridging the Business-IT divide... "Business-IT Integration" (my term)

MR. SQUERI: I agree that technology organizations are getting closer to the business. It's a must.

This doesn't happen overnight, though. We need to help the business better understand technology. We need to help our technology employees better understand the business strategies.

One way we are doing this is by moving people across the organization, from the business to tech and vice versa. Alignment with our senior leaders helps build the connection at all levels within the organization -- we're all at the table together.

MS. MCCARTHY: Steve's note is very consistent with some of the strategies we are employing [at Aetna] to bring greater alignment with our business partners.

Transitioning people from the business into IT and rotating IT people to the business brings a greater understanding to the broader organization.

MR. SQUERI: For businesses that leverage information or use technology as a competitive advantage, it is important that business leaders know how to leverage the technology groups to enable their strategies. This means that just as technology groups are learning to translate business strategies into technology capabilities, business leaders will have to think about their strategies in terms of long-term capabilities.

The only way that can really take place is by deepening the working relationship and ensuring that IT has a seat at the table.

MS. MCCARTHY: Our current CEO and chairman has a technology background which has been invaluable to our business at Aetna. He encourages all our non-IT leaders to have a good working understanding of technology and to understand the systems that enable their business areas. He also has the business leaders report on all the "systems" projects/programs for their business areas -- a recognition that this work is not just systems work but business and systems work.

I would encourage all non-IT managers to get an orientation to their systems organization. I would also encourage non-IT leaders to spend time with their IT partners, particularly the architecture team during their strategic planning process. Have the architecture team look out three years and identify technologies that could be applied to the business to improve productivity or increase revenue. Working together on these things can generate creativity on both sides.

On SOA, Service Definition and Business Process, "Bi-directional Business-IT Understanding"

MS. MCCARTHY: ...The other important aspect associated with Steve's comment and his business background is the focus that most of us have on building a services-oriented architecture.

The analogy that I'll use here is Legos. In a services architecture, we build discrete services that are individually tested and certified, versus a more traditional programming method. These services can be used and reused very efficiently, i.e., the Lego concept of taking Legos apart and reusing them to build something new. The promise of this approach is significantly reduced costs and speed to market. The ability of the IT organization to do this work efficiently is a function of how well we work with our business partners to define our business processes at the right level...

... The big challenges for most companies will be the continued work on building an adaptable architecture that provides for seamless interoperability with other companies, i.e., ease of communications and transaction processing with business partners and customers.

The CIO in this work will be an important strategic partner who can educate and vision with their business partners. [As CIOs] we need to understand the business, the technologies that are evolving and work closely with our business partners to identify opportunities for the company and our customers to exploit these technologies to achieve market leadership and competitive advantage.

On Next Generation Technology Leaders:

MR. SQUERI: I believe that finding the right talent is a key priority and challenge we're facing.

We all talked about the need to align technology and business strategies. Part of getting there is bringing in and developing people with technical, business and management skills. Our technology leaders need all of these skills to be successful and make our businesses successful.

Posted by brendamichelson in BPM • Business-IT Integration • SOA • business • enterprise architecture • general IT • leadership | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

JT posted a challenge on his blog, asking what folks would do if given (an extra) $9 million to invest in your IT shop.  What would you target?  People, Process, Technology?  Jump over there and let him know.

Posted by brendamichelson in general IT | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This morning, while I was searching through a box of old papers, I ran across a list of “IT Fundamental Truths” I wrote for a direct report five or six years ago.  At the time, this (immensely talented) person, who was new to IT, was frustrated by all the grey areas she kept running into.

While not every item on the following list is a winner, the essence holds up over time.  I’m curious what others think.  What would you add to the list?  Remove? 

Although I’m tempted to edit for (lack of) writing style, here is the list, exactly as first  "published”:

IT Fundamental Truths

1.  IT work is all about Compromise, some of the factors:

•        Add Value to the Business

•        Respond to ever changing business, economic and technology environments

•        We are often bounded by our legacy (assets, skills, fixed costs)

    There is enormous value in the skill of compromise, balancing challenges to create opportunity

2.  IT success relies on collaboration, alliance building, and salesmanship.  IT professionals must develop professional as well as technical skills.

3.  Negotiation is critical – for financial contracts and internal customer relationship/service level agreements, meeting truth #1.

4.   Never prematurely discount the work of those that came before you.  (See #1, 2, 15)

5.  “Big Bang” is most successful when you are starting from nothing.

6.  Anything that works in production is legacy.

7.  Continuous learners are most successful.

8.  Systems thinking ability is critical, as are the abilities to think conceptually and deal with ambiguity.

9.  Current State is a representation of assets at a point in time.

10.  Desired State is a representation of ideas at a point in time.  Desired state should plan for adaptability.  (See #16)

11.  You don’t have to know everything in advance.  You do have to know where to find the information you need.  Just in time learning.

12.  Always ask questions, brace yourself for any answer or non-answer.

13.  Best doesn’t always win at the end of the day.

14.  Think big, think broad, act pragmatically, deliver incrementally.  (See #1, 5, 6, 9, 10, 16)

15.  In requirements gathering “never” means “not yet”, “always” means “most often”.

16.  There will ALWAYS be something more important/pressing tomorrow than the most important/pressing item you are working on today.

17.  Everyday the domain you are trying to solve and the tools and techniques you are trying to solve the domain with, changes.

Posted by brendamichelson in general IT | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)