IT & Enterprise Architecture Conference 2015 - Day 1

By -
Today I attended the first day of the IT & Enterprise Architecture Conference 2015 at the Crowne Plaza in Auckland. This was my first time at the event and it was a good opportunity to network with the wider IT & Enterprise Architecture community. Below is a summary of my key notes.

Setting the scene: Enterprise Architecture 2015-2025
Craig Pitout, Senior Manager IT Advisory, EY (@CraigPitout)
  • Cloud, Mobility, Big Data and Social Media are key forces of Digital Disruption
  • Themes affecting enterprise agility
    • Customer centric
    • Product centric
    • Internal efficiency
    • Regulatory requirements
  • Force for uniqueness vs Force for commonality
  • Quantifying the impact
    • Innovation impact vs Value potential
      • Disruptive - disrupt the core
      • Adjacent - change and expand
      • Sustaining - incremental improvements
  • EY Business Reference Model - Agile (http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Services/Advisory/EY-translate-strategy-into-execution)

  • Agile behaviours
    • Responsiveness to change
    • Value-driven
    • Practical experimentation
    • Empowered, self-managing teams
    • Customer communication and collaboration
    • Continuous improvement
    • Respect for people
  • W123 - World-Class EA: The Agile Enterprise (http://www2.opengroup.org/ogsys/catalog/W123)
  • The six qualities of business architecture
    • Stakeholder experience
    • Risk
    • Alignment
    • Efficiency
    • Agility
    • Business Achievability
  • W146 - World-Class EA: Business Reference Model (http://www2.opengroup.org/ogsys/catalog/W146)
  • Moving forward
    • Become a digital practice
    • Build a business architecture capability
    • Establish agility goals
  • In addition to To Do list build a To Don’t list

Facilitating system transformation across the Public Sector
Regine Deleu, All-of-Government Enterprise Architect, The Department of Internal Affairs (@rdeleu)

  • Five Business Areas
    • New Zealand Society
    • Individuals and Communities
    • Businesses
    • Civic Infrastrcture
    • Government 
  • Data and Information
    • Motivators
      • Plans
      • Controls
      • Contracts
    • Entities
      • Parties
      • Places
      • Items
    • Activities
      • Cases
      • Events
      • Services
  • Nine Application and ICT Services Domains
    • Corporate Application
    • Common Line of Business Applications
    • Specialist Line of Business Applications
    • End User Computing
    • Identity and Access Management Services
    • Security Services
    • Data and Information Management Services
    • ICT Components, Services and Tools
    • Interfaces and Integration
  • Four Infrastructure Domains
    • Platform
    • Network
    • End User Equipment
    • Facility
  • Structure and Artefacts

  • Accelerate Delivery Methodology (ADM)


CIO perspective: Leveraging the value of EA
Mike Clarke, CIO, SKYCITY Entertainment Group
  • Proactively engage with business leaders on new ideas and enhancements
  • Conversations distill into four pillars
    • Digital Transformation
    • Business Alignment & Direction
    • IT Structure and Cost
    • Security
  • Business strategy has an IT delivery mechanism (c.f. IT strategy and delivery aligned to business strategy)
  • "Cloud computing is not a technical construct, it is a commercial construct"
  • Delivering value
    • Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?
    • Pragmatic
      • Sufficient documentation, sufficient governance, sufficient testing
    • Meets business need / solves the business problem
    • Accelerates time to business value
    • Makes the solution easier to support
    • Makes the solution easier to expand
  • Data is a key enabler to make decisions and drive change
  • Attitude, Skill & Knowledge (ASK) is key
  • Pragmatic approach
    • Avoid an academic approach
    • Purpose before action
    • When / where required
    • Focus on business value - investment needs to match the value
    • Focus on improving IT delivery
  • Right people in the right roles
  • Debunking the SaaS myth - i.e. this is not an excuse for not having governance
  • Relationships are key
  • Be as transparent as possible
  • Recruit IT people with a business focus

Value creation. Winning the challenge in small-medium organisations
Angus Wall, Enterprise Architect, Unison Networks
  • Storytelling is super important
  • Where do you invest money? EA is between strategy and system implementation
  • Get involved in the business planning. Move away from strategy being done to us and being part of the process (partnership model).
  • Business Disruption —> Target Business Outcome and Measure —> Architecture Strategy
    • Align architecture strategy to business outcomes
  • Assessing Business Impact
    • Network & Operations
    • Contracting
    • Procurement & Logistics
    • Commercial
    • Finance
    • HR
  • Roadmap done for each domain, then aggregated
  • Business Capability Model (kept at a high level)
    • Manage Risk
    • Sell Unison Products
    • Operate Business
    • Marketing & Communications
    • Operate Network
    • Procurement & Logistics
    • Build & Maintain Network
  • Make sure collateral is published and business focussed

Panel Discussion: EA for management utilisation. Are we on the same page?
Angus Wall, Enterprise Architect, Unison Networks
Michael Tapp, Principal Architect, Cyma (@MichaelTapp2)
Keith Delle Donne, Associate Director, PWC
Martyn Bowis, Enterprise Architect and TOGAF Trainer, Architecting the Enterprise
  • Communication and Relationships is key, understand their motivations
  • Get out of your business unit and engage wider across the organisation
  • Work with the business to assist them with their strategy
  • Be involved in the construction of the Business Plan
  • Have a Business Capability Model and use this as a key discussion vehicle
  • Super-impose a story over a picture the business is familiar with
  • Minimum viable architecture
  • You don’t want headless chicken agile, have guided agile
  • Use industry models (helps with using the same language)
  • You can teach skills, you can’t really teach attitude
  • EA needs to cover with both strategic and tactical initiatives
  • Principles guide decision making
  • Share your vision
  • Set expectations early on (particularly re bad news)
  • Come with solutions, not problems

Masterclass: Bridging the communication gap
Rachael Cotton-Bronte, Director, FLINT-box (@Rachael_CBronte)
  • Communication is the art of being understood
  • "The problem with communication... is the illusion that it has been accomplished” George Bernhard Shaw
  • We live in a time of unprecedented change
  • Diversity is the norm
  • Communication networks are increasingly complex
  • From command & control to power & enablement
  • Communication is essential to organisational success
  • Communication is the key to building trust, promoting understanding, empowering and motivating others
  • Words are like smashed eggs, once they go they go
  • Plan your Message
    • What are the key messages?
    • Why is the message important?
    • What are the possible objections?
    • How will I address any objections?
  • Avoid jargon
  • Don’t make assumptions about levels of knowledge
  • Communicate same message through multiple channels
    • different people prefer to absorb information in different ways
    • Paper, Audio, Video, Phone, Whiteboard
  • Keep content below 111 words
  • "Nothing I say this day is going to teach me anything. So if I’m going to learn I must do it by listening” Larry King
  • Components of communication
    • Physiology 55%
    • Voice tones 38%
    • Words 7%
  • It’s what you don’t say that counts
  • Listen actively
    • Body Language
    • Explore
      • Question Open
    • Reflection
      • Clarify summarisation
  • Understand your audience
    • Think, See, Feel, Do
  • Putting it together
    • 1. Key message
    • 2. Telling the story
    • 3. Layering information
    • 4. Test & Evaluate
  • Talk about the elephants in the room (e.g. risks). Manage expectations.
  • What do different people want?
    • CIO
      • Stability
      • Cost of IT
    • CMO
      • Customer experience
    • CEO
      • ROI
      • Stakeholder complexity
    • CFO
      • Where is most of the money going?
      • Risk
  • How do you measure success? What are your business metrics?
  • Project Managers at e-bay - 50% are INTJ
  • People characteristics
    • Conscientious
    • Dominance
    • Steady
    • Influence
  • 10:20:30 rule for pitching from Guy Kawasaki
    • 10 Slides
    • 20 minutes
    • 30pt font is smallest that should be used

Would you hire yourself? The must-have skillset for proficient Architects
Paulo Rocha, Enterprise Architect, Watercare Services Limited
  • EAs usually come from a variety of different paths; often from IT though and this impacts the perception of EA.
  • Penn State University now has a degree for Enterprise Architecture (http://www.worldcampus.psu.edu/degrees-and-certificates/enterprise-architecture-masters/overview), nothing yet in NZ
  • “World Class Enterprise Architecture” framework from the open group is about the “What” http://www.opengroup.org/india2011/presentations/Global%20Trends%20-%20Multinational%20Arch%20Deployments.pdf
  • EA competency model has 7 core areas. Different roles (e.g. Designer vs Business Architect) require different aspects of this:
    • Analytical Thinking
      • Strategic Thinking
      • Problem Solving
      • Systems Thinking
      • Creative Thinking
      • Critical Thinking
    • Architecture
      • Design
      • Information Analysis
      • Modelling
      • Process Improvement
      • Roadmap Development
      • Scenario Building
      • Standards Development
      • Systems Development
      • System Integration
    • Interpersonal skills
      • Conflict Resolution
      • Emotional Intelligence
      • Influence
      • Integrity
      • Negotiation
      • Political Savvy
      • Relationship Bulding
    • Communication
      • Elicitation
      • Facilitation
      • Oral Presentations
      • Written Communication
    • Finance
      • Cost Benefit Analysis
      • Budgeting
    • Management
      • Asset Portfolio Management
      • Coaching and Mentoring
      • Decision Making
      • Industry Regulation & Compliance
      • Information Management
      • Lifestyle Management
      • Rick Management
      • Project Management
      • Performance Management
    • Leadership
      • Cyber & Information Security
      • Emerging Technology Monitoring
      • Enterprise Change Management
      • Information Assurance
      • Inspirational Direction
      • Policy and Governance
      • Project Portfolio Management
      • Strategic Planning
      • System Quality Assurance
      • Technology Governance
  • Need to also consider experience in addition to skills i.e. leverage lessons learnt through experience

Quick fire session: Where should an EA sit in the corporate organisation?
Paulo Rocha, Enterprise Architect, Watercare Services Limited
Michael Tapp, Principal Architect, Cyma (@MichaelTapp2)
Abhishek Anupuri, Senior Analyst, PWC
Martyn Bowis, Enterprise Architect and TOGAF Trainer, Architecting the Enterprise
  • It is more important about where you can impact change as opposed to where you are in an organisational hierarchy
  • Leadership is about influence rather than a particular title
  • Outcome is more important than output and process
  • With too much process you kill the art

Summary of my key takeaways

  • Continue to embrace agile behaviours (Responsiveness to change; Value-driven; Practical experimentation; Empowered, self-managing teams; Customer communication and collaboration; Continuous improvement; Respect for people)
  • The six qualities of business architecture would be useful for rapidly assessing the impact of an initiative (Stakeholder experience; Risk; Alignment; Efficiency; Agility; Business Achievability)
  • GEA-NZ has some good information publicly available that is worth checking out for evolving an EA
  • Sufficient documentation, sufficient governance, sufficient testing
  • When recruiting in IT, recruit people with a business focus
  • Get involved in the business planning. Move away from strategy being done to you and be part of the process (partnership model).
  • Align architecture strategy to business outcomes
  • Use Business Capability Model to show at a high level where work is occurring
  • Make sure collateral is published and business focussed
  • Communicate same message through multiple channels
  • Physiology is 55% of communication, voice tones 38%, words 7%
  • The EA competency model could be useful for recruitment and working out areas to grow in

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Solution: Getting macOS Messages to work with Google Chat / Talk / Hangouts in High Sierra

By -
Image
The Messages application wasn't working for me on macOS and I was wanting it to work with my Google Chat / Talk / Hangouts service. It appears that with macOS High Sierra a workaround is required. After struggling to get it going I finally got it going after some searching on the Internet and trying a couple of supposed fixes. What ended up working for me were the instructions on  https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/gtalk-messages-solution-found-high-sierra.2073393/ with a couple of tweaks. The tweaks were required to support 2FA which is enabled on my account. The instructions, repeated here so that I can find them again if required and to assist others having the same problem, are as follows: Go to System Preferences / Internet Accounts and delete your google account. Open Terminal and run the following commands (Warning: This will delete your history!): find ~/Library/Preferences -name "*iChat*" -delete rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Messages rm -rf...
Read more

Using Raspberry Pi as a Time Capsule to backup a Mac

By -
Image
Time Machine is the built-in backup feature of OS X. It keeps a copy of all your files, and remembers how your system looked on any given day so you can revisit your Mac as it appeared in the past. Apple sells a device called a Time Capsule, but rather than buy one of these I opted for a diy approach using my  Raspberry Pi  and so far it seems to be working well. My setup consists of: Raspberry Pi Model B running Raspbian connected via network cable to a router MacBook Pro running OS X Yosemite v10.10.1 connected via Wifi to a router External 2TB drive (with separate power) attached via USB to the Raspberry Pi It was relatively easy to setup following the instructions at  http://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=47029  . I am reiterating the instructions here just in case the page disappears (with a couple of additions I needed): 1. Start with a clean installation of Raspbian, configured for your network 2. Power down your Pi, con...
Read more

Sagemcom RM50 Internet Radio Review

By -
Image
I have been trialling the Sagemcom RM50 Internet Radio since Friday and had mixed success. Functionality overview The RM50 enables you to listen to more than 13,000 Internet radio stations around the world, conventional FM stations and audio within your home network via Wifi (in theory).  The “Smart Random” function gives the listener the possibility of random access to other radio stations of the same genre as those most frequently listened to.  There’s also an alarm clock. Installation Getting basic Internet connectivity The theory is that you turn it on, enter your Wifi information and you’re away.  Well that may work for many people, however I found it not to be as simple, possibly due to: having a hidden SSID, and having mixed case in the name of my SSID. I tried entering in the Wifi SSID and password manually twice with no success (although did note that I could not get lowercase when entering the SSID, it was however there for the password)...
Read more