Welcome Gar Mac Criosta to the inTHiNKers!

It’s a delight to have Gar Mac Criosta join the band of inTHiNKers bringing a great set of experiences on IT Architecture.

Gar has worked in Ireland, UK and Australia for policing, financial services, insurance,  public sector bodies and systems integrators including An Garda Síochána, Cap Gemini, An Post, Anglo Irish Bank, Compaq, GE and others.

Gar became one of the first IASA Certified IT Architects (CITA-P) certifying in May 2010. In addition, Gar is current president of IASA Ireland the professional association for IT Architects.  Gar is a member of the IASA Europe leadership team and a member of the IASA Board of Education Certification Committee which is currently working to deliver IASA Certification programs globally.

Gar is actively involved in the technology community and has a real ‘grá’ for technology. Gar is currently pondering touch based & device based applications will change our work world.

For more on Gar and the rest of the inTHiNKers click here!

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Welcome to Jon Collins as a new inTHiNKer!

It’s with great delight to announce that Jon Collins has agreed to become the latest inTHiNKer to join the gang!

Jon Collins

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Jon is a seasoned consultant, writer, speaker and commentator, having worked in and around information technology for 23 years. He started his career as a programmer, moving into systems administration and IT management before working as a consultant in software design and a network management for clients in many different sectors. For the past 11 years Jon has been working as an IT industry analyst for firms including Bloor Research, IDC and Freeform Dynamics, working in areas such as IT security, information management and cloud computing. Jon was named “European Analyst of the Year” in 2009 by the Institute of Industry Analyst Relations. Today, Jon continues to investigate the social and business impacts of digital technologies as part of his more general research into where IT is heading..

For more on Jon and the rest of the inTHiNKers then look here.

Arvindra Sehmi becomes the latest inTHiNKer!

It is a genuine honour to be able to announce that Arvindra Sehmi is the latest to join a great line up of inTHiNKers! Arvindra is actively engaged with a number of inTHiNKers in developing a Capability Value Mapping practice and methodology leveraging his experiences in business intelligence with Onalytica and with the Business Model Canvas and Service Oriented Modelling while at Microsoft.

For more on Vin and the rest of the inTHiNKers click here!

inTHiNK! it’s official!

After 5 great years of fun at Microsoft UK it’s time for me to say so long as I move on to new things although I fully expect to remain part of the Microsoft ecosystem and still haunt the corridors of the UK Campus from time to time!

So what does a Microsoft Architect do after Microsoft? Well more architecture it seems from the business through to its people and the systems the use. There are actually three main strands to my post-Microsoft strategy that I’ll summarise below:

As you may know I’ve had a long history with IASA, especially here in the UK where I founded and have chaired the UK chapter for around 6 years now. During this time we’ve been developing a credible and sustainable education and certification program for IT architects and now, along with my colleagues at IASA, I want to bring this to Europe. We’re holding our next UK certification boards this November but the plans for IASA Europe are much bigger than just this.

inTHiNK! is the name of my new professional services practice www.inthink.co.uk. inTHiNK! will offer services from business & technology strategy, architecture practice and guidance through to cloud readiness and enablement. This will scale out through an extensive associate network of solid top-level IT professionals. Contact info@inthink.co.uk if you want to follow up.

As a brand new bizspark partner I will be seeking to exploit the value of the Azure platform delivering a new breed of SaaS enablers and business offerings to the market!

 

Here’s my new contact details if you wish to stay in touch

Matt Deacon
CEO, inTHiNK! Ltd
www.inthink.co.uk
mattdeacon.wordpress.com
www.twitter.com/mattdeacon

SOA: A square peg in a round hole?

It is really interesting when you look back on your blogs over the years and reflect on how your views have changed, and whether anything still remains true given what you know now. Over the past few months I’ve been researching the state of SOA today; well over a decade since .NET Web Services arrived on the scene and the term SOA first came to popular attention.

One blog I’ve referred to time and time again in talking about SOA is the one I wrote on SOA Anti-patterns back in 2005. I use these anti-patterns regularly when talking to people and had come to think that their value had never been more significant than they are today given the emergence of the so-called “cloud”. However, I had noticed that they resonated less well with those where SOA was being “successful”. It therefore came as quite a shock when I actually re-read the blog only to find that the core tenet on which these anti-patterns were based was actually proving to be itself one of the core anti-patterns of SOA and why in so many cases SOA has proved unsuccessful.

The anti-pattern was actually described in the opening section where I suggest that the decentralised nature of SOA “left unchecked” could lead to the occurrence of a number of the anti-patterns that I went on on to describe. Unwittingly, I had hit upon one of the core anti-patterns for SOA; the square-peg anti-pattern, it was just that at the time I didn’t realise it.

The square-peg anti-pattern

As I noted back in 2005, SOA is a “decentralised” pattern for integrating distributed systems, but what I didn’t realise at the time and where the true problem turns out to be, is that we insist on trying to fit SOA (the peg) into a “centralised” model of IT (the round hole). This is like holding the same poles of two magnets end to end, they repulse each other, we are simply trying to put two incompatible models of operation together as one.

From a centralised perspective of IT these anti-patterns make sense, but turn the problem on the head and they become less significant and maybe cease to exist. The reality of the problem turns out, not to be one of fitting a square peg into a round hole, but that there are simply no square holes!

For IT and let’s face it, for the really important part; the business, to really take advantage of SOA it needs to give up being the monopoly, it needs to decentralise and devolve control to the services themselves. The result is smaller IT, encapsulated within the service, focused almost entirely on delivering business value for that service, rather than having to pay a high tax to conform to the demands of a centralised IT function.

The three Cs!

So if this is the major problem, then why do it? Why not drop SOA and retain the centralised model for IT? Of course this is an option, but let’s look at it through the lens of the three Cs that Hammer and Champy raised in re-engineering the corporation:

• Customers take charge
• Competition intensifies
• Change becomes constant

IT is subject to the same pressures and has to deliver the service that is required by the business. Your customer demands the ability to be more in control, dynamic, they have choice and increasingly have the potential to ‘shop elsewhere’. The competition from others who can provide the service, faster, cheaper and to order is increasing. The rate of change required by your customer grows daily and the need for IT to move from reactive to proactive and part of driving business.

Specialised Units of Business Capability

In looking at the trends within the business itself, one can see it is differentiating into often finer units of specialism. the benefit being, to take advantage of market leading innovation quicker, cheaper and at lower risk. IT needs to power these new capabilities, but can’t do so through a rigid model of centralised command and control. These new capabilities need to move fast, grow fast and evolve quickly in response to change. The IT needs to be as close to that business innovation as possible and be part of the solution rather than a problem that slows down their time to react.

The rise of the Central IS function?

So what now for IT? Is it the end of IT department? Well may be it is, as we know it today. Decentralisation is inevitable for Business as it is for IT, as the technology layers commoditise there is less need for many of the old functions of IT, but given all these moving parts, these increasing units of specialised business capabilities, the increasing number of sourcing choices for services of all shapes and sizes, it is clear that there is a need for:

• co-ordination
• governance
• compliance
• innovation management

These, then become the watch words for the future of the centralised IT function, but it is perhaps the name that needs a change, it is less about the technology but still about the information and management and certainly needs to nurture innovation and of course it’s all about the service.

Welcome to the:

Corporate Information and Innovation Management Service.

The Pig, The Banker and the Cloud

A story of cloud awareness

This is the story of the Banker and the Pig. It is not based on any specific single reality but on the collection of many factors. It’s based on the presentation I prepared called Unbundling the bank.

”Oh no!”, says the (fictional) Banker (not related to any actual banker I have met!) on seeing the initial slides from the Unbundling the Bank presentation.

“We live in a multi-sourced, software+service (Hybrid Cloud) world!”

”We just didn’t know it!”

”But hold on” 

”Isn’t SOA dead?”

”Didn’t SOA fail to deliver a return on investment (ROI)?”

“And anyway, we’re too silo’d and project and opportunity driven to consider adding cloud to the mix too!” the Banker concludes, almost looking a little relieved.

“Ah yes, but the problem isn’t with SOA it’s with the SOA Junkies!” says the Pig.

“The SOA Junkies?” shrieks the Banker!

“Yes” says the Pig calmly.

“They think too much like Adam Smith with his division of labour and Henry Ford with his assembly line! They’re too Task oriented!”

“They think in terms of the Separation of Concerns, abstractions, and ah … yes Re-Use, the magical holy grail of Re-use!” continues the Pig.

“How many times have we tried to deliver the ‘Single view of the Customer?’” asks the Pig rhetorically!

“These approaches just breed more complexity and like the forth bridge, never end, adding little if any business value as a consequence. All they do is pile on the technical debt from which IT slowly suffocates” remarks the Pig.

“The problem is that the approach is based on technology principles instead of the principles of business!”

“We need to look above the ‘HOW’; above the layers of people, process and especially the technology.”

“We need to focus on instead, on the ‘WHAT’ instead! We need to map the enterprise that describe its Business Capabilities. These encapsulate the people, process and technology, and unlike these things, capabilities are stable, unchanging, self-contained, measurable and above all value-oriented in relation to the business.”

“Oh!”, says the Banker!

What is an Enterprise?

“So let’s step back for a moment” says the Pig “and ask ourselves, what is the Enterprise?”

“Obviously, there are customers, one hopes! And then there are the Business partners, but what is actually inside that box we call the enterprise?”

The Banker is puzzled.

“Well I’ll tell you”, says the Pig, “It’s interesting, but from a capability perspective enterprises look remarkably similar to each other!”

“Ugh?” snorts the Banker.

“Looking at an enterprise’s capabilities at the top most level and we can see a regular pattern of capabilities that occur in all enterprises.”

“Firstly, there is a capability to plan new products and services.”

“Next, there is the capability to develop these new products or services”

“Third, there is create demand for these new products and services”

“And finally there is the need to Fulfil the delivery of these products and services. Simple, but amazing in the same way.” says the Pig with an air of triumph.

“All there is to an enterprise is simply Plan, Develop, Demand and Fulfil! Oh and add to this Collaborate too and that’s it; the 5 core capabilities that every enterprise or business has!”

“But hold on this can’t be all there is to it, surely!” questions a rather bemused looking Banker.

“Well of course not!” chuckles the Pig, “Each of these capabilities contains 1 to many sub-capabilities and these then contain more capabilities within them! So far we’ve taken capabilities down 5 levels and it still amazes me that this model holds true across the vast majority of enterprises we’ve seen!”

“Of course, there is variance, but there is about a 70% recurrence of these capabilities, even down to level 5, across enterprises, and across verticals!”

Silence.

“Ah how I love patterns” sighs the Pig looking upward as if to look for some hidden force.

The New Model Enterprise

“Ok, ok, so this is all very good” says the Banker, a little impatiently. “I can see that this is all very nice and pretty, but there’s devil in the details of those little capabilities!”

“There’s still the problem with the HOW!”

“Ah yes”, says the pig, nodding his head knowingly.

“Because these capabilities are stable, well defined and measurable, you can ask questions of them, value-oriented questions like, ‘what’s your value to the business?’ and ‘How healthy are you?’”.

“From the answers you get back you can produce a heat map of the enterprise that will give you a view of the health of your enterprise and more over where to focus your efforts in drilling down into the capabilities below, to find out what really is at fault and where to prioritise your efforts!”

“You can do this as a light-touch mapping across the enterprise and only drill down on the areas that flag up through the heat maps. Making it and efficient process”

“Ahhh” says the Banker, relaxing his facial expression slightly for the first time.

“But here’s the thing …” whispers the pig, leaning forward as if to ensure that this is for the Bankers ears only.

“Capabilities allow you to decompose the enterprise into discrete self contained units of specialisation, in so doing you can differentiate between the ones you care about; that creat value, and the ones you don’t.”

“You can then think about unbundling yourself from the cost of managing and maintaining these yourself.”

You can plan to move these away from a ‘bespoke’ internalised model to that of a more ‘standardised’ model.”

“Think of these capabilities as being like mini-enterprises all neat and self-governing and that the HOW might not need to be your problem at all” the Pig Winked.

“Oooh” says the Banker, his eyes widening, but this time less in shock and more in anticipation.

“Exactly”, says the Pig. “Now you’re looking at your enterprise differently aren’t you.”

“A suite of mini-enterprises doing stuff themselves, but collaborating to deliver a bigger result than they can do themselves. Some may even deliver their capability to another enterprise in time. This happens already if you consider the SaaS applications you are using today!”

“Furthermore, you can create new dynamic specialised capabilities and build them in the model of being a mini enterprise, able to persist on their own, without the layers of management that the models of the industrial era would and do enforce.”

“One day, like others before them, these once innovations, now commodity capabilities could be set free to find other consumers or markets and maintain their own innovation edge.”

“Now you have unlocked a new kind of strategy strategy; that of the New Model Enterprise (NME) based on Business Service Centric Principles!”

“And you can start to take advantage of the multi-sourced Software + Service (Hybrid Cloud) that you know we already live in.”

“Oh my!” gasps the Banker!

“Don’t believe me?” asks the Pig?

“Hmmm?” questions the Banker.

“Just go and ask the other banks …” said the Pig.

And with a nonchalant flick his tail, the Pig hoped off the Bankers head and returned to his glorious mud bath.

After all it really was the most splendid weather for the time of year!

The End.

 

Supporting Information

It’s interesting to note from Joe Mckendrick’s, SOA’s Dead, long Live Services blog that Gartner suggest SaaS doesn’t equal as much as 1% of enterprise IT Budget spend. But as Joe comments, the market seems healthy enough and it’s worth looking at some of Ray Wang’s numbers who reports that “SaaS vendors kept steady growth in the double digits”.

Unbundling the Bank @ CloudCamp

The other night I tried my hand at a 5 minute cloudcamp presentation which was mad and to be honest didn’t go according to plan! But hey I’ve put all that down to life-long-learning now and in probably talking to the wrong audience!

Below is the deck I presented and for some most baffling reason, that I can’t explain, the deck centres on a conversation between a very scared banker and a pig on his head!

 

I came across it while hunting for images of banks and it made me really laugh at the time, but unfortunately I think it bombed a little on the day – no one (especially the OSS crowd) likes a guy from Microsoft trying to be funny – I had that feeling of the stand-up comedian confronted with silence once he’s delivered his best line! Urgh, the memory makes my skin crawl!

That said, I like the story and while the slides are great (of course;)!) I’ve had a go re-telling the story in a little more detail which I hope you’ll find fun and maybe even useful! You never know! This will follow as a separate post but in preparation here’s some background followed by the deck itself.

Some background

The title for the session came to me as you’ll know if you’re a regular to my blog, from the post I did the previous week that referenced an original post I did back in 2007 after seeing a session at QCon from Chris Swan and Craig Heimark. It came back to me a week or so ago when I got to talk to a group of around 30 Enterprise Architects for a large UK Bank. For too many the thought of using cloud was almost abhorrent and you could almost feel them each mouthing the words that “our bank will never use the cloud!”.

However, I had an ace up my sleeve being able to show, even back in 2008 through the work I did with Freeform Dynamics called IT on the front foot that Financial Services were among the leading adopters of Software as a Service (SaaS) at the time (remember the phrase cloud had not come to the fore at this time).

 

But what was perhaps more interesting was that contrary to popular belief, SaaS adoption is far more significant where IT is seen as a strategic advantage to the business. Most, especially many of the SaaS vendors wrongly argue that it’s an opportunity for business to bypass IT and focus their efforts on that of converting the business executives, avoiding what in reality could be a quicker route through IT itself. It is clear that with the early adopters, success has very much depended on IT being involved and potentially driving the agenda. To support this, it is increasingly the case as you listen to early Cloud adopters from IT who talk of the need to convince the business of the benefits of cloud versus the risks.

The final graph from the report I used shows that in the majority of cases SaaS adoption only takes place where there is a commitment to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)! This makes sense given the obvious concerns over storing data external to the organisation. An Enterprise that has a strategic position on Integration is clearly able to take advantage of the resultant hybrid model that must naturally follow.

 

The Slide Deck

View more presentations from Matt Deacon.

 

Next post will tell the story of The Pig, the Banker and the Cloud.