Serge Thorn's IT Blog

What does developing an IT Strategy mean?

2011-10-28T15:30:00.000+02:00

I have observed many situations where a c-level person was supposed to document an IT Strategy in a short period of time in order to prepare the following year's annual budget. Very often lacking much supporting documented business information the result is a weak strategy, sometimes ignored by the user's community, the key stakeholders.

A weak IT strategy can be costly and wasteful, especially for resource-constrained organizations that operate with minimal budget, tools, knowledge and people. It also implies that organizations cannot respond to changing business requirements rapidly enough. The absence of strategic anticipation causes organizations to be inefficiently reactive, forcing them to work in a constant state of catch-up.

An IT Strategy should answer the following questions:

Are we doing the right things with technology to address the organization’s most important business priorities and continuously deliver value to the clients?
Are we making the right technology investments?
Do we measure what is the real value to the organization derived from that technology?
Is our current Information Technology agile enough; flexible to continuously support a successful organization?
Is our Information Technology environment properly managed, maintained, secured, able to support the clients, and is it cost effective?
Can our strategy support current and future business needs?

Quite often the first thing we should consider when writing such a document is the targeted audience and its content. Different people with varying roles and responsibilities may read an IT Strategy within a company, so the document may need to serve several different purposes. It is not easy to pitch a strategy to different levels in the hierarchy within an organization, and at the appropriate level of detail. Sometimes it is too detailed and does not always match the stakeholder’s needs.

An IT Strategy is an iterative process to align IT capabilities with the business strategy and requirements:

It is a documented and approved process (part of the organization’s governance framework)
It is iterative (it needs to be frequently be revisited). Traditionally, IT strategies are updated and communicated on an annual basis, usually to meet budget cycles. This should be considered the minimum review period. If an emerging technology surfaces that has the potential to enhance the business, it should be investigated and communicated to the business as soon as possible. A one-year cycle may be too late.
It is a strong alignment of business and IT capabilities rather than designing IT solutions to support business requirements
- Assuming that both business and IT capabilities drive each other
- Assuming that business drives IT and not the other way around
The IT Strategy sets future direction for IT function in the organization
- Ensuring that the IT budget is spent on value creation activities for the business
- Creating shareholder value
- Helping to maximize the return on IT investments
The IT Strategy may include sub-elements such as:
- Infrastructure strategy
- Application strategy
- Integration strategy
- Service strategy
- Sourcing strategy
- Innovation strategy

This pyramid diagram can be used to illustrate the IT strategy and vision, and how the technology and business strategies are totally aligned. At the top of the pyramid is the enterprise overarching vision. Aligned below that is how IT supports the vision by becoming a premier IT organization in creating competitive advantage for the clients. The IT vision is in turn supported by three pillars: integration, improvement, and innovation.

To deliver this , the business strategy should clearly be articulated and documented taking into account some IT aspects. There are different ways of gathering these business inputs.
The first approach is a very classical one where you develop a questionnaire in business terms which asks each business unit to identify their future requirements for infrastructure growth, taking into account capacity and availability requirements. This extracts the data you need for business driven strategy.

This questionnaire may include some of the following examples of questions:

1. What are your top 5 business “pain” points? These are things that you wish you had a solution for
2. What are your top 5 business objectives? These can be short term or long term, can be driven by revenue, cost, time, time to market, competitive advantage, risk or various other reasons
3. How do you plan to achieve these objectives?
4. What will we gain by leveraging IT Capabilities across the business?
5. What is in the way of achieving your business imperatives?
6. Can IT help achieve your business imperatives?
7. How much do you spend on IT capabilities?
8. What is your technology ROI?
9. Does your company have a plan for technology?
10. Does your business plan include a technology plan?
11. Where is IT being used across your business unit?

The second approach would be the use of Enterprise Architecture that I will explain later on.

With this input you may now start to consider the structure of your document. It may look similar to this example below: An executive summary

An introduction
- The purpose
- The background
- The Business drivers
- The Organizational drivers
- The IT drivers
The Business and IT aspects
- The Business Goals and Objectives
- The IT approaches and principles
The IT components
- Business application systems
- IT infrastructure
- Security and IT Service continuity
Structure, organization and management
- IT Governance
- Skills, knowledge and education
- IT Financial management
- KPIS, measurement and metrics, balance scorecards
Technologies opportunities
Key issues

And this is where Enterprise Architecture may have to play an important and even crucial role. Some companies I have encountered have an Enterprise Architecture team, and in parallel, somebody called an IT Strategist. Frequently the connection is non-existing or quite weak. Other organizations may also have a Strategic Planning unit, again without any connection with the Enterprise Architecture team.

An Enterprise Architecture must play the important role of assessing; existing IT assets, architecture standards and the desired business strategy to create a unified enterprise-wide environment - where the core hardware and software systems are standardised and integrated across the entire organisation’s business processes, to greatly enhance competitive advantage and innovation. The IT Strategy details the technologies, application and the data foundation needed to deliver the goals of the corporate strategy, while Enterprise Architecture is the bridge between strategy and execution; providing the organising logic to ensure the integration and standardisation of key processes that drive greater agility, higher profitability, faster time to market, lower IT costs, improved access to shared customer data and lower risk of mission-critical systems failures.

As a real example, TOGAF 9 is perfect way to produce that IT Strategy document during the Phase F: Migration Planning.

Below you will find the relationship between some phases of the ADM and the structure of the above document. It needs to be said that we should probably use a Strategic architecture level to deliver a first version of the document, which then could be reviewed with Segment or Capability architectures.

Content		Examples	Enterprise Architecture and TOGAF
An executive summary
An introduction (This document must be business oriented)
Content		Examples	Enterprise Architecture and TOGAF
	The purpose	Key elements of the scope, audience, time horizon	The Preliminary phase is about defining ‘‘where, what, why, who, and how” Enterprise Architecture will be done and will provide all information. It also creates the conditions and context for an Architecture Capability
	The background	Business problems, constraints (financial, resources, IT, legal, etc.)	This is covered by the Phase A: Architecture Vision. An Architecture Vision sets stage for each iteration of ADM cycle. -Provides high-level, aspirational view of target the sponsor uses to describe how business goals are met and stakeholder concerns are addressed -Provides an executive summary version of full Architecture -Drives consensus on desired outcome The Business Scenarios is used to discover and document business requirements, identify constraints, etc.
	The Business drivers	Market conditions, competition, consumer trends, new customers, products sales, costs savings, incremental services revenues, drivers related to the IT function	In the Phase A: Architecture Vision, we: Identify business goals and strategic drivers -Ensure that descriptions used are current -Clarify any areas of ambiguity Define constraints -Enterprise-wide constraints -Architecture project-specific constraints
	The Organizational drivers	Profitability, financial performance, change in strategic objectives, end of the product development life cycle, mergers and acquisitions, staffs, risks
	The IT drivers	New or obsolete technologies, updates	Considering that IT is part of the Business, these drivers should also be considered in that phase
The Business and IT aspects
	The Business Goals and Objectives	Market growth, entering new markets, addressing manufacturing capacities	In the Phase A: Architecture Vision, we: Identify business goals and strategic drivers -Ensure that descriptions used are current -Clarify any areas of ambiguity -Define constraints -Enterprise-wide constraints -Architecture project-specific constraints
	The IT approaches and principles	IT standards, development, implementation, delivery, testing, consolidation, maturity, best practices	Standards should be documented in the SIB (Standard Information Base) When we define the Architecture Governance Framework during the Preliminary Phase, we identy the various touch points with existing other frameworks in the organization IT principles should have already have been defined by the IT department
The IT components
	Business application systems	Baseline (main applications: ERP, CRM, customers facing systems). Future plans, concerns, time period, priorities)	This will be addressed by Phase C: Information Systems based on the Statement of Architecture Work, output from the Phase A
	IT infrastructure	Baseline (servers, network , middleware, technical services)	This will be addressed by Phase D: Technology Architecture based on the Statement of Architecture Work, output from the Phase A
	Security and IT Service continuity	Issues, challenges, opportunities related to security, security principles, controls	Security concerns are addressed during all phases of the ADM
Structure, organization and management
	IT Governance	Best practices, frameworks, management and monitoring, resource management, portfolio management, vendors management, IT service management, project management, etc.	IT Governance will be considered when the Architecture Governance Framework is defined. There will obviously be touch points between the ADM and some other best practices used by the organization. IT Governance is defined outside of the Enterprise Architecture programme
	Skills, knowledge and education	Skills, knowledge and education	Enterprise Architecture skills will have to be addressed by the Architecture Capability Framework. Other skills may also be identified independently of the Enterprise Architecture programme
	IT Financial management	IT budget, costs structures, measurement and metrics, targets, areas needing investments, etc.	This is addressed is outside of the Enterprise Architecture programme
	KPIS, measurement and metrics, balance scorecards	IT performance measurements on SMART objectives ((Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, & Time bound)	Every governance frameworks may have its own KPIs. Enterprise Architecture KPIs may be added to that list.
Technologies opportunities		Emerging technologies, business related benefits	This can be done in parallel of the Enterprise Architecture programme
Key issues and initiatives		Summary or link to the IT Project portfolio	This can be done in parallel of the Enterprise Architecture programme

Color legend
	Direct relationship with Enterprise Architecture
	Indirect relationship with Enterprise Architecture
	Produced somewhere else

The next step would be the review of the IT Strategy document by the main stakeholders who would accept or reject technology opportunities. This could also be used as an important source of information for the Strategic Planning exercise (please refer to another post for additional information: “How Strategic Planning relates to Enterprise Architecture? “).

Once the IT Strategy has been reviewed, amended and authorised (which should in reality already be approved, as it is the result of various ADM cycles and the output of Phase F: Migration planning), the multi-disciplinary programme team for the implementation during Phase G: Implementation Governance, will deliver the solutions to the business.

As already mentioned previously, the outline strategies will be refined and expanded with a low level of detail when addressing Segment and Capability architectures. This is the part that meets the first challenge described above, where we need different levels of detail for different stakeholders. The documents should be hierarchical, with the ability to drill down to lower levels as more detail is required.

One of the main reasons for developing an Enterprise Architecture with TOGAF 9 is to support the business by providing the fundamental technology and process structure for an IT Strategy. Enterprise Architecture is the superset that represents both Business and IT Strategy; this is reflected in Enterprise Architecture’s basic structure of strategy, business architecture and technology/information architecture. One can certainly do an IT Strategy without Enterprise Architecture, but Enterprise Architecture cannot be done without an IT Strategy; the same would apply to business strategy/business architecture.

Cloud Governance, Risk and Compliance Summit

2011-10-13T18:03:00.000+02:00

Asmore enterprises engage in public, private and hybrid cloud computing services,they face new sets of security and compliance challenges. As a result of therapid transition and growing capabilities of the cloud, enterprises must evolvetheir security framework to include powerful yet flexible governance, risk andcompliance policies.

Jointhis online summit to hear from top security experts, including Serge Thorn (Chief Information Officer,Architecting the Enterprise), AndyBurton (Chairman, Cloud Industry Forum) and Vernon Poole (Head Consultant, Sapphire) as they share theirinsight on building and managing an effective GRC program to improveoperational efficiency and cut costs.

WHEN:Thursday, October 13, 2011 (All webcasts will be immediately recorded andviewable on demand).
WHERE:Sign up to attend the live interactive webcasts, or view them afterward ondemand here:

PRESENTATIONS INCLUDE:

Cloud Computing requiresEnterprise Architecture and Appropriate Governance

Serge Thorn, ChiefInformation Officer, Architecting the Enterprise

http://www.brighttalk.com/community/governance-risk-compliance/webcast/188/35029

You can view the full lineup and sign up to attend any orall presentations at http://www.brighttalk.com/r/kXP. This summit is part ofthe ongoing series of thought leadership events presented on BrightTALK(TM). Ihope you will be able to listen to it.

What is Business Technology Management and how does it relate to Enterprise Architecture?

2011-09-30T10:28:00.000+02:00

Business Technology Management (BTM) is not a methodology but I would say a concept, or eventually the aggregation of several guidelines and techniques. It is also described as a management science which aims to unify business and technology business strategies with the aim of extracting the full potential value of business technology solutions. In a nutshell, it allows you to unify business and technology decision making. Sounds familiar?
Pragmatically it corresponds to a group of various services intended to help businesses communities. BTM can include different methods such as IT planning, Project and Portfolio management (e.g. PMI, Prince 2), Balance Scorecards, Business support, Database services, disaster recovery, network management, security, document service, and frameworks. BTM delivers a set of guiding principles known as capabilities and defines the expected characteristics of an organization according to five levels of a maturity mode like CMMi. While these methods/methodologies have recognized strengths, they represent a piecemeal approach. There is a need to integrate these capabilities to achieve that strategic business technology alignment because most of these methods do not really focus on the goals and objectives of an enterprise. Balance Scorecard is a performance measurement methodology, Six Sigma or Lean are quality improvement methodologies mostly used in manufacturing, and so on...
BTM may sound like an evolved IT governance concept, where business and IT are in tune in an effort to support and realise the enterprise strategy. But does it really differ from an Enterprise Architecture which sometimes may also be considered as being the glue between various methods/methodologies?
Some questions may quickly arise...Is BTM just “better IT Governance” or simply a different way of naming an Enterprise Architecture? And does TOGAF® support BTM? BTM like Enterprise Architecture aligns activities which remain pure business and some pure technology, but most activities intertwine business and technology such that they become indistinguishable. It also guides and supports enterprises to these various states.
The precepts of Business Technology Management have been developed and refined by BTM experts working with such think tanks as the BTM Institute and the International Institute of Business Technologies (IIBT).

Business Technology Management addresses four critical dimensions of enterprise-wide strategy
1. Process
This first dimension refers to the institution of a set of robust, flexible and repeatable processes, broadly defined as:
General quality of Business Practice: Doing the right things
Efficiency: Doing things efficiently, quickly with little redundancy
Effectiveness: Doing things well
The TOGAF® 9 ADM is an example of such processes with its associated governance framework.
2. Organisation
Management processes are more likely to succeed when it refers to the establishment of appropriate organisational structures, establishing a structure in which every member understands the scope and responsibilities of his or her role, and decision rights. Something perfectly addressed during the Phases Preliminary and A of TOGAF®.
Organizational structures may include
· Participative bodies involving senior level business and technology participants on a part-time but routine basis (e.g. Business Technology Investment Board). TOGAF® suggests the creation of an architecture board who participate with the key business stakeholders.
· Centralized bodies requiring specialized dedicated technology staff (e.g. PMO).
· Need-based bodies involving rotational assignments dealing with particular efforts (e.g. PMO, Project Management teams).
Both last bodies would be identified during Phase F: Migration Planning and Phase G: Implementation Governance
3. Information
Valid, effective, timely provision of information is a prerequisite in effective decision making. Information must be delivered in a way that is comprehensible to non specialists as well. Data and metrics must be available. This would be addressed by the Communication Plan defined in the TOGAF® Architecture Vision’s phase taking into account the stakeholders needs, the communication mechanisms and timetable. Measurements and metrics may be included for strategic and operational objectives.
4. Technology
Effective technology can help connect the other three dimensions. The idea is that technology plays a vital role in all processes and can enable timely information sharing, improve co-ordination between members of an organisation and makes processes easier to execute. This covers automation of tasks, reporting, analytics and integration between management systems. In Enterprise Architecture, this would be covered by the interoperability requirements identified by the business and the identification of appropriate solutions in the TOGAF® Phases E and F, such as BPM suites and BI products.

Business Technology Management (BTM) Capabilities
A BTM capability is defined as a competency achieved by combining each of the above dimensions and creating repeatable management processes that are executed with the appropriate organizational structures, using an effective information architecture.
Business Technology Management defines 17 of these specific capabilities, each grouped into one of four functional areas.
Governance and Organisation: These capabilities are focused on the enterprise’s CIO and business executives concerned with enterprise wide governance of business technology. It ensures that business technology decisions are effectively identified and executed, meet the needs of the business, manages the risk and give proper consideration to regulatory, legal and industry requirements. TOGAF® addresses all of this in the Preliminary Phase and the Architecture Vision, where an enterprise architecture governance framework is created.
Managing Technology Investments : This sits with PMO and business executives who are concerned with the selection and execution of the right business technologies initiatives and fulfil their objectives. The enterprise understands its current IT capabilities, what is currently available and what it is working on for the future. This is equally addressed during the Phase F: Migration Planning.
Strategy & Planning: These capabilities ensure that the CIO and business executives make the most appropriate moves to synchronise technology and business, both reducing complexity and planning for future developments. Enterprise Architecture and TOGAF 9 undoubtedly support these capabilities; you may refer to the previous article “How Strategic Planning relates to Enterprise Architecture”.
Strategic Enterprise Architecture: This capability must be developed to support this functional area, ensure that appropriate information and documentation exists that can describe current and future business technology environment within the enterprise. As we observed, TOGAF® as an Enterprise Architecture framework includes most of the capabilities mentioned above!
The BTM Maturity Model
A maturity model describes how well an enterprise performs a particular set of activities. These capabilities are useless without a method by which to measure their effectiveness. The BTM Maturity model is aligned with the de-facto standard from CMMi and use the five levels of maturity of all the four dimensions. Here again the Architecture Capability Maturity Model from TOGAF® 9 may be used to evaluate these capacities. We would identify the area most in need for improvement.
Level 1: enterprises execute some strategic business technology management processes in ad-hoc way. These enterprises typically manage processes in a simple task-based manner.
Level 2: enterprises attempt to assemble information for major decisions, and refer to IT on decisions for technology implications.

Level 3: enterprises are ‘functional’ in BTM.

Level 4: enterprises have achieved full BTM implementation. Their capabilities ensure that there is strong alignment between business and technology decision making.

Level 5: enterprises have achieved the ‘Holy Grail’ of BTM. They are good enough to know when to change the rules to maintain strategic advantages over competitors.
To implement its business strategy, the enterprise requires particular operational capabilities as described above and clearly it appears that Business Technology Management can be supported by Enterprise Architecture. TOGAF® 9 is in reality addressing all of these 17 BTM capabilities grouped in functional areas, identified by the four dimensions and work as a management framework to clarify required enterprise business needs. Companies having implemented BTM should consider using TOGAF® 9 as the way of rightfully pursuing alignment of technology with the business and support a Business-Agile enterprise.

Are Business Process Management and Business Architecture a perfect match?

2011-09-01T07:53:00.000+02:00

Whenever I suggest collaboration between these two worlds, I always observe some sort of astonishment from my interlocutors. Many Enterprise Architects or Business Architects do not realise there may be synergies. Business Process Management (BPM) team have not understood what Enterprise Architecture is all about and the other way around.... There is no a single definition of Business Process Management, often it means different things to different people. To keep it very generic, BPM relates to any activities an organization does to support its process efforts.

There are many activities which can be included in such efforts:
· The use of industry Business Reference Model (or Business Process Reference Model), a reference for the operational activities of an organization, a framework facilitating a functional Lines of Business, such as

o The Federal Enterprise Architecture Business Reference Model of the US Federal Government
o The DoD Business Reference Model
o The Open Group Exploration and Mining Business Reference Model (https://www.opengroup.org/emmmv/uploads/40/22706/Getting_started_with_the_EM_Business_Model_v_01.00.pdf)
o Frameworx (eTOM) for Telco companies
o The Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR®) model
o The SAP R/3 Reference Model
o The Oracle Business Models : Oracle Industry Reference Model for Banking, (IRM), Oracle Retail Reference Model
o And others...

· The use of organization specific Business Reference models
· The use of Business process improvement methodologies

o Lean, a quantitative data driven methodology based on statistics, process understanding and process control
o Six Sigma, a methodology that mainly focuses on eliminating bad products or services to clients by using statistical evaluation

· Business Process Reengineering, which in reality is a facet of BPM
· The understanding of Business Change Management, the process that empowers staff to accept changes that will improve performance and productivity
· The understanding of Business Transformation, the continuous process, essential to any organization in implementing its business strategy and achieving its vision
· The use of Business Rules Management which enables organizations to manage business rules for decision automation
· The understanding of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services to reduce costs and increase efficiency
· The support of Business Process modeling and design, which is illustrated description of business processes, usually created with flow diagrams. The model contains the relationship between activities, processes, sub-processes and information, as well as roles, the organization and resources. This can done with many notations such as flow chart, functional flow block diagram, control flow diagram, Gantt chart, PERT diagram, IDEF, and nowadays with the standard de facto notations such as UML and BPMN
· The support of BPM tools and suites implementation. With the right, process models can be simulated, to drive workflow or BPMS systems, and can be used as the basis for an automated process monitoring system (BAM)
· The support of Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), the ability to have end-to-end visibility and control over all parts of a process or transaction that spans multiple applications and people in one or even more companies.

To combine Business Process Management and Enterprise Architecture for better business outcomes is definitely the way forward, where BPM provides the business context, understanding, and- metrics, and Enterprise Architecture provides the discipline to translate business vision and strategy into architectural changes. Both are needed for sustainable continuous improvement. When referring to Enterprise Architecture, we would mainly refer to Business Architecture. Business Architecture involves more than just the structure of business processes. It also entails the organization of departments, roles, documents, assets, and all other process-related information.

Business Architects may be defining and implementing the Business Process framework and, in parallel, influencing the strategic direction for Business Process Management and improvement methodologies (e.g. Lean, Six Sigma). The business process owners and Business Analysts are working within their guidelines at multiple levels throughout the organizations’ business process. They have roles and responsibilities to manage, monitor and control their processes.
An important tool in developing Business Architecture is a Business Reference Model. These types of models are enormously beneficial. They can be developed in the organization to build and extend the information architecture. The shared vocabulary (verbal and visual) that emerges from these efforts promotes clear and effective communication.

To illustrate the touch points between Enterprise Architecture and Business Process Management, I have illustrated in the table below the synergies between the two approaches using TOGAF® 9.

In this table, we observe that, there is a perfect match between Business Process Management and the use of an Enterprise Architecture framework such as TOGAF. BPM is often project based and the Business Architect (or Enterprise Architect) may be responsible for identifying cross-project and cross-process capabilities. It can be considered as being the backbone of an Enterprise Architecture program. We can also add to this, that Service Oriented Architecture is the core operational or transactional capability while BPM does the coordination and integration into business processes.

When using BPM tools and suites, you should also consider the following functionalities: workflow, enterprise application integration, content management and business activity monitoring. These four components are traditionally provided by vendors as separate applications which are merged through BPM into a single application with high levels of integration. The implementation of a BPM solution should theoretically eliminate the maintenance and support cost of these four applications resulting in reducing the total cost of ownership.

Business Architecture provides the governance, alignment and transformational context for BPM across business units and silos. Enterprise Architects, Business Architects, Business Analysts should work together with BPM teams, when approaching the topic of Business Process Management. BPM efforts need structures and appropriate methodologies. It needs a structure to guide efforts at different levels of abstraction (separating “the what“ (the hierarchical structure of business functions) from “the how” (how the desired results are achieved), a documented approach and structure to navigate among the business processes of the organization, i.e. a Business Architecture. They also need a methodology such as an Enterprise Architecture framework to retain and leverage what they have learned about managing and conducting BPM projects.

How Strategic Planning relates to Enterprise Architecture?

2011-06-29T11:08:00.004+02:00

TOGAF often refers to Strategic Planning without specifying the details of what it consists of. This document explains why there is a perfect fit between the two.

Strategic Planning means different things to different people. The one constant is its reference to Business Planning which usually occurs annually in most companies. One of the activities of this exercise is the consideration of the portfolio of projects for the following financial year, also referred to as Project Portfolio Management (PPM). This activity may also be triggered when a company modifies its strategy or the priority of its current developments.

Drivers for Strategic Planning may be

· New products or services

· A need for greater Business flexibility and agility

· Merger & Acquisition

· Company’s reorganization

· Consolidation of manufacturing plants, lines of business, partners, information systems

· Cost reduction

· Risk mitigation

· Business Process Management initiatives

· Business Process Outsourcing

· Facilities outsourcing or in sourcing

· Off shoring

Strategic Planning as a process may include activities such as:

1. The definition of the mission and objectives of the enterprise

Most companies have a mission statement depicting the business vision, the purpose and value of the company and the visionary goals to address future opportunities. With that business vision, the board of the company defines the strategic (e.g. reputation, market share) and financial objectives (e.g. earnings growth, sales targets).

2. Environmental analysis

The environmental analysis may include the following activities:

· Internal analysis of the enterprise

· Analysis of the enterprise's industry

· A PEST Analysis (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological factors). It is very important that an organization considers its environment before beginning the marketing process. In fact, environmental analysis should be continuous and feed all aspects of planning, identify the strengths and weaknesses, the opportunities and threats (SWOT).

3. Strategy definition

Based on the previous activities, the enterprise matches strengths to opportunities and addressing its weaknesses and external threats and elaborate a strategic plan. This plan may then be refined at different levels in the enterprise. Below is a diagram explaining the various levels of plans.

To build that strategy, an Enterprise Strategy Model may be used to represent the Enterprise situation accurately and realistically for both past and future views. This can be based on Business Motivation Modeling (BMM) which allows developing, communicating and managing a Strategic Plan. Another possibility is the use of Business Model Canvas which allows the company to develop and sketch out new or existing business models. (Refer to the work from Alexander Osterwalder http://alexosterwalder.com/).

The model’s analyses should consider important strategic variables such as customers demand expectations, pricing and elasticity, competitor behavior, emissions regulations, future input, and labor costs.

These variables are then mapped to the main important business processes (capacity, business capabilities, constraints), and economic performance to determine the best decision for each scenario. The strategic model can be based on business processes such as customer, operation or background processes. Scenarios can then are segmented and analyzed by customer, product portfolio, network redesign, long term recruiting and capacity, mergers and acquisitions to describe Segment Business Plans.

4. Strategy Implementation

The selected strategy is implemented by means of programs, projects, budgets, processes and procedures. The way in which the strategy is implemented can have a significant impact on whether it will be successful, and this is where Enterprise Architecture may have a significant role to play. Often, the people formulating the strategy are different from those implementing it. The way the strategy is communicated is a key element of the success and should be clearly explained to the different layers of management including the Enterprise Architecture team.

To support that strategy, different levels or architecture can be considered such as strategic, segment or capability architectures.

Figure 20-1: Summary Classification Model for Architecture Landscapes

This diagram below illustrates different examples of new business capabilities linked to a Strategic Architecture.

It also illustrates how Strategic Architecture supports the enterprise’s vision and the strategic plan communicated to an Enterprise Architecture team.

Going to the next level allows better detail the various deliverables and the associated new business capabilities. The segment architecture maps perfectly to the Segment Business Plan.

5. Evaluation and monitoring

The implementation of the strategy must be monitored and adjustments made as required.

Evaluation and monitoring consists of the following steps:

1. Definition of KPIs, measurement and metrics

2. Definition of target values for these KPIs

3. Perform measurements

4. Compare measured results to the pre-defined standard

5. Make necessary changes

Strategic Planning and Enterprise Architecture should ensure that information systems do not operate in a vacuum. At its core, TOGAF 9 uses/supports a strong set of guidelines that were promoted in the previous version, and have surrounded them with guidance on how to adopt and apply TOGAF to the enterprise for Strategic Planning initiatives. The ADM diagram below clearly indicates the integration between the two processes.

The company’s mission and vision must be communicated to the Enterprise Architecture team which then maps Business Capabilities to the different Business Plans levels.

Many Enterprise Architecture projects are focused at low levels but should be aligned with Strategic Corporate Planning. Enterprise Architecture is a critical discipline, one Strategic Planning mechanism to structure an enterprise. TOGAF 9 is without doubt an effective framework for working with stakeholders through Strategic Planning and architecture work, especially for organizations who are actively transforming themselves.

Managing Requirements from a Business Analyst or an Enterprise Architect perspective using BABOK 2.0 and/or TOGAF 9

2011-05-16T10:12:00.020+02:00

Many Business Analysts are using the IIBA’s BABOK 2.0 (Business Analyst Body of Knowledge ) which contains information about a Requirements Management process, from identifying organizational situations that give cause to a project, through to starting the requirements gathering process, to delivering a solution to the business or a client. TOGAF 9 from an Enterprise Architecture viewpoint also provides some techniques to gather requirements to equally deliver business solutions. This paper illustrates the two processes, defines the mapping between the two approaches and identifies gaps in each.

BABOK 2.0 Knowledge Area (KA) 4 covers Requirements Management and Communication which “describes the activities and considerations for managing and expressing Requirements to a broad and diverse audience” (The other KAs: Plan Requirements, Management Process, and Requirement Analysis will not be included here).

The tasks from this KA “are performed to identify business needs (the why of the project; whereas requirements are the how), the state the scope of their business solutions, ensure that all stakeholders have a shared understanding of the nature of these solutions and that those stakeholders with approval authority are in agreement as to the requirements that the business solution shall meets.”

It manages a baseline, tracks different versions of Requirements documents, and trace requirements from origin to implementation.

This area includes five steps described below.

1. Manage Solution Scope and Requirements

In this step, we “obtain and maintain consensus among stakeholders regarding the overall solution scope and the requirements that will be implemented”. Requirements may be baseline following an approval and a signoff. That means that all future changes are recorded and tracked, and the current state may be compared to the baselined state. Subsequent changes to the requirements must follow a Change Management process and will require additional approval. As changes are approved, a Requirements Management Plan may require that the baselined version of the requirements be maintained in addition to the changed Requirement. Additional information is often maintained such as a description of the change, the person who made the change, and the reason for the change. As requirements are refined or changed as the result of new information, changes will be tracked as well.

A signoff formalises an acceptance by all stakeholders that the content and presentation of documented requirements is accurate and complete. This can be done in a face to face meeting.

2. Manage Requirements Traceability

Traceability consists of understanding the relationship between Business Objectives, the requirements, the stakeholders, other deliverables and components to support the business analysis among other activities. It also allows documenting “the lineage of each requirement, its backward and forward traceability, and its relationship to other requirements”. The reasons for creating relationships are “Impact Analysis”, and “Requirements coverage and allocation”. A coverage matrix may be used to manage tracing.

3. Maintain Requirements for re-use

Requirements re-use is another important aspect in the process and there is a need to manage knowledge of requirements following their implementation, identify the requirements that are candidates for long-term usage by the organisation. “These may include requirements that an organisation must meet on an ongoing basis, as well requirements that are implemented part of a solution” (e.g. regulatory, contractual obligations, quality standards, service level requirements, etc.). Each will have to be clearly named, defined, and available to all analysts.

4. Prepare Requirements Package

This step consists in selecting and structuring a set of requirements “in an appropriate fashion to ensure that the requirements are effectively communicated to, understood and usable” by the various stakeholders. This Requirements Package could have different forms such as a documentation (can be managed in a Requirements Repository), presentations, templates, etc.

5. Communicate Requirements

This step relates to the communication of requirements to the various stakeholders for a common understanding. It may happen that new requirements have to be considered.

The BABOK bundles Requirements Communication together with Requirements Management.

Requirements Analysis is another KA which describes “how we progressively elaborate the solution definition in order to enable the project team to design and build a solution that will meet the needs of the business and stakeholders. In order to do that, we have to analyze the stated requirements of our stakeholders to ensure that they are correct, assess the current state of the business to identify and recommend improvements, and ultimately verify and validate the results”. BABOK 2.0 Requirements Analysis being not really covered within TOGAF 9, there are no comparisons done at this stage.

Within TOGAF 9, the objective of the Requirements Management activity is to define a process whereby all kinds of requirements, including most notably business drivers, concerns, and new functionality and change requests for Enterprise Architecture are identified, stored, and fed into and out of the relevant Architecture Development Method (ADM) phases. As such it forms part of the activities and steps carried out in each of the ADM Phases. Architecture requirements are subject to constant change, and requirements management happens throughout the entire Enterprise Architecture implementation lifecycle.

It is important to note that the Requirement Management circle denotes, not a static set of requirements, but a dynamic process.

As indicated by the Requirements Management circle at the centre of the ADM graphic, the ADM is continuously driven by the Requirements Management process.

Enterprise Architecture has specific techniques to gather requirements. TOGAF as a framework uses a method based on what we call a “Business Scenario” which is used heavily in the initial phases A & B of the ADM to define the relevant business requirements and build consensus with business management and other stakeholders.

A Business Scenario ensures that there is a complete description of business problem in business and architectural terms. Individual requirements are viewed in relation to one another in the context of the overall problem; the architecture is based on complete set of requirements that add up to a whole problem description; the business value of solving the problem is clear and the relevance of potential solutions is clear.

Below is a mapping between the two approaches.

BABOK 2.0 sets up a framework for the requirements development and management, which seems to appear as a standard used by many organizations around the world. Between TOGAF 9 and BABOK 2.0, there is almost 1:1 correspondence but there may be more details and activities in the first one. TOGAF is a methodology whereas the BABOK is methodology agnostic, so it can be tricky to translate between the two but nothing prevent an Enterprise Architecture team to use this analogous technique.

If an organization follows the TOGAF methodology and Business Analysts use BABOK, the later will provide a lot of useful information, as a reference; BABOK won't give you direction for an Enterprise Architecture.

Sources: Chapter 4 IIBA’s BABOK 2.0, TOGAF 9

Creation of a strategy for the consumption and management of Cloud Services in the TOGAF Preliminary Phase

2011-03-19T09:30:00.002+01:00

In a previous article I described the need to define a strategy as an additional step in the TOGAF 9 Preliminary Phase. This article describes in more details what could be the content of such a document, what are the governance activities related to the Consumption and Management of Cloud Services.

Before deciding to switch over to Cloud Computing, companies should first fully understand the concepts and implications of an internal IT investment or buying this as a service. There are different approaches which may have to be considered from an enterprise level when Cloud computing is considered: Public Cloud vs Private Clouds vs Hybrid Clouds. Despite the fact that many people already know what the differences are, below some summary of the various models

· A public Cloud is one in which the consumer of Cloud services and the provider of cloud services exist in separate enterprises. The ownership of the assets used to deliver cloud services remains with the provider

· A private Cloud is one in which both the consumer of Cloud services and the provider of those services exist within the same enterprise. The ownership of the Cloud assets resides within the same enterprise providing and consuming cloud services. It is really a description of a highly virtualized, on-premise data center that is behaving as if it were that of a public cloud provider

· A hybrid Cloud combines multiple elements of public and private cloud, including any combination of providers and consumers

Once the major Business stakeholders understand the concepts, some initial decisions may have to be documented and included in that document. The same may also apply to the various Cloud Computing categorisations such as diagrammed below:

The categories the enterprise may be interested in related to existing problems can already be included as a section in that document.

Quality Management

There is need of a system for evaluating performance, whether in the delivery of Cloud services or the quality of products provided to consumers, or customers. This may include:

· A test planning and a test asset management from Business requirements to defects

· A Project governance and release decisions based on some standards such as Prince 2/PMI and ITIL

· A Data quality control (all data uploaded to a Cloud computing service provider must ensure it fits the requirements of the provider). This should be detailed and provided by the provider

· Detailed and documented Business Processes as defined in ISO 9001:

o Systematically defining the activities necessary to obtain a desired result

o Establishing clear responsibility and accountability for managing key activities

o Analyzing and measuring of the capability of key activities

o Identifying the interfaces of key activities within and between the functions of the organization

o Focusing on the factors such as resources, methods, and materials that will improve key activities of the organization

o Evaluating risks, consequences and impacts of activities on customers, suppliers and other interested parties

Security Management

This would address and document specific topics such as:

· Eliminating the need to constantly reconfigure static security infrastructure for a dynamic computing environment

· Define how services are able to securely connect and reliably communicate with internal IT services and other public services

· Penetration security checks

· How a Security Management/System Management/Network Management teams monitor that security and the availability

Semantic Management

The amount of unstructured electronic information in enterprise environments is growing rapidly. Business people have to collaboratively realise the reconciliation of their heterogeneous metadata and consequently the application of the derived business semantic patterns to establish alignment between the underlying data structures. The way this will be handled may also be included.

IT Service Management (ITIL)

IT Service Management or IT Operations teams will have to address many new challenges due to the Cloud. This will need to be addressed for some specific processes such as:

· Incident Management

o The Cloud provider must ensure that all outages or exceptions to normal operations are resolved as quickly as possible while capturing all of the details for the actions that were taken and are communicated to the customer.

· Change Management

o Strict change management practices must be adhered to and all changes implemented during approved maintenance windows must be tracked, monitored, and validated.

· Configuration Management (Service Asset and...)

o Companies who have a CMDB must provide this to the Cloud providers with detailed descriptions of the relationships between configuration items (CI)

o CI relationships empowers change and incident managers need to determine that a modification to one service may impact several other related services and the components of those services

o This provides more visibility into the Cloud environment, allowing consumers and providers to make more informed decisions not only when preparing for a change but also when diagnosing incidents and problems

· Problem Management

o The Cloud provider needs to identify the root cause analysis in case or problems

· Service Level Management

o Service Level Agreements (or Underpinning contracts) must be transparent and accessible to the end users. The business representatives should be negotiating these agreements. They will need to effectively negotiate commercial, technical, and legal terms. It will be important to establish these concrete, measurable Service Level Agreements (SLAs) without these and an effective means for verifying compliance, the damage from poor service levels will only be exacerbated

· Vendors Management

o Relationship between a vendor and their customers changes

o Contractual arrangements

· Capacity Management and Availability Management

o Reporting on performance

Other activities must be documented such as:

Monitoring

· Monitoring will be a very important activity and should be described in the Strategy document. The assets and infrastructure that make up the Cloud service is not within the enterprise. They are owned by the Cloud providers, which will most likely have a focus on maximizing their revenue, not necessarily optimizing the performance and availability of the enterprise’s services. Establishing sound monitoring practices for the cloud services from the outset will bring significant benefits in the long term. Outsourcing delivery of service does not necessarily imply that we can outsource the monitoring of that service. Besides, today very few cloud providers are offering any form of service level monitoring to their customers. Quite often, they are providing the Cloud service but not proving that they are providing that service.

· The resource usage and consumption must be monitored and managed in order to support strategic decision making

· Whenever possible, the Cloud providers should furnish the relevant tools for management and reporting and take away the onerous tasks of patch management, version upgrades, high availability, disaster recovery and the like. This obviously will impact IT Service Continuity for the enterprise.

· Service Measurement, Service Reporting and Service Improvement processes must be considered.

Consumption and costs

· Service usage (when and how) to determine the intrinsic value that the service is providing to the Business, and IT can also use this information to compute the Return On Investment for their Cloud computing initiatives and related services. This would be related to the process IT Financial Management.

Risk Management

The TOGAF 9 risk management method should be considered to address the various risks associated such as:

· Ownership, Cost, Scope, Provider relationship, Complexity, Contractual, Client acceptance, etc

· Other risks should also be considered such as : Usability, Security (obviously...) and Interoperability

Asset Management and License Management

When various cloud approaches are considered (services on-premise via the Cloud), hardware and software license management to be defined to ensure companies can meet their governance and contractual requirements

Transactions

Ensuring the safety of confidential data is a mission critical aspect of the business. Cloud computing gives them concerns over the lack of control that they will have over company data, and does not enable them to monitor the processes used to organize the information.

Being able to manage the transactions in the Cloud is vital and Business transaction safety should be considered (recording, tracking, alerts, electronic signatures, etc...).

There may be other aspects which should be integrated in this Strategy document that may vary according to the level of maturity of the enterprise or existing best practices in use.

When considering Cloud computing, the Preliminary phase will include in the definition of the Architecture Governance Framework most of the touch points with other processes as described above. At completion, touch-points and impacts should be clearly understood and agreed by all relevant stakeholders.

Speaking at 2 conferences in February

2011-01-20T04:50:00.001+01:00

I will be delivering a speech at the next Open Group Conference in San Diego on the subject of Architecting the Cloud, February 9, 2011.

Taking place at 9:45am, “Cloud Computing requires Enterprise Architecture and TOGAF™ 9 Can Show the Way “

Abstract: Most companies doing Enterprise Architecture are wondering how to approach Cloud Computing and how does it fits in TOGAF 9. This presentation is a suggested approach which has been used by some companies.

Key takeaways:

When does it make sense to use Cloud Computing in a company which does Enterprise Architecture
What suggested additional activities may be included in the TOGAF 9 ADM

For further information on the event, please visit:

http://www.opengroup.org/sandiego2011/

I’m also excited to be on the program at the upcoming Enterprise Architecture Management Forum in Frankfurt, Germany, February 22-23, 2011.

I will be presenting at the conference on the subject of EA Governance. This event is one of the leading conferences for Information Technology in Germany, with speakers and participants representing companies such as Volkswagen, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Post, Heidelberger Druck and others.

Taking place at 2:30pm on February 22, “Enterprise Architecture Governance – Why? A need for transparency and better control” addresses:

Governance and why we need it
The importance of processes, roles, responsibilities, and skills
Definition of the components and related activities
Case Study for a successful Enterprise Architecture governance using TOGAF

The conference also features several additional topics high on the importance list of technology professionals:

Business IT Alignment
Innovation Management
EA and Cloud Computing
EA Governance
Agility
Project Portfolio Management
Best Practices, Tools and Anti Patterns

For further information on the event, please visit: http://www.iir.de/eam.

Cloud Computing requires Enterprise Architecture and TOGAF 9 can show the way

2010-11-09T10:03:00.003+01:00

Enterprise Architecture is necessary regardless of changes to underlying technologies. If managed properly, Enterprise Architecture will iterate and adjust to the winds of change. Client/server, SOA, RFID, Cloud, and other technology developments should be considered as styles, but Enterprise Architecture is at the heart of change. Cloud computing should have little impact on Enterprise Architecture.

It is the role of the Enterprise Architecture team to:

· Investigate if any style is simply hype or whether it holds real business value

· Understand the benefits and risks of a specific style

· Communicate these to Business and IT

· Develop an adequate governance framework

· Align the “style” with business requirements

· Give guidance for sustainable innovation

If Cloud computing does not take Enterprise Architecture into consideration, it will result in “spaghetti clouds” (aligned with “spaghetti architectures”).

Cloud computing is often characterised by: virtualised computing resources, seemingly limitless capacity and scalability, dynamic provisioning, multi-tenancy, self-service and pay-for-use pricing. Enterprise Architecture can help to make the shift to cloud computing smooth.

For organisations focusing more on Technology Architecture, Cloud computing could be a “big hit”. But for businesses that want to successful adopt cloud computing in a way that aligns to their business strategy, Enterprise Architecture is imperative (refer to above diagram).

Cloud computing may be a fit when the core of internal Enterprise Architecture is mature. This means:

· As recommended in TOGAF. well defined and layered:

o Business Architecture

o Application Architecture

o Data Architecture

o Technology Architecture

· Well defined interoperability (ADM Guidelines and Techniques)

· Low level of security agreed (during the Architecture Vision)

· Web as a target

· Costs issues

· New products and services

Cloud computing may not be a fit when the core of internal Enterprise Architecture is immature. This means:

· Business, Application and Data architectures are tightly coupled

· Low level of interoperability defined

· High level of security required

· When applications have IPAs (Information Provider Applications) with only proprietary interfaces

· When solutions are legacy

Where there is could be a good fit, a TOGAF iteration should then be “Cloud Architecture aware”. The Enterprise Architecture team drives the programme and works collaboratively with both the business and the IT department.

In the Preliminary Phase we should consider the addition of a step related to the creation of a strategy for the consumption and management of cloud services (public/private clouds, semantic management, security, transactions). The governance framework also needs to include the processes, roles and responsibilities related to cloud services and operations. At this stage, we need to identify who in the business owns the cloud from both a user and service provider management perspective. New principles may be created referring to the Cloud when the organisation has a fairly mature Enterprise Architecture (maturity model) in order to fully take advantage of the Cloud.

During Phase A, you may use a Business Scenario where you would identify in a workshop what are the business problems, business Requirements and identify a potential business solution. Stakeholders in this workshop may come from Business and IT Operations, Procurement, PMO, Data Center, Development, COO/CIO/CTO. Interoperability will be an important element of the phase. The Enterprise Architecture team will collaborate with the business to understand and scope the needs; align them with the Strategic Enterprise Architecture (bringing to bear the existing technological capabilities that can satisfy those needs thereby promoting sharing, reusing or building new ones if needed). Given the relatively low barrier to entry, in the scenarios where the Business is not sure of the viability of their proposal, they could go straight to the Cloud instead of "experimenting" before solidifying their requirements. The result of this is that the business may embark on a path of no return. To avoid this, make sure that the Business Scenario is complete, only refer to business solutions without referring to any architecture style (as this will be discussed during Phase E) and signed off.

Start the architecture considering Phase B, C and D.

At that stage, it is be recommended that you consider a Cloud Reference Model. This is a description of the appropriate Cloud industry standards, the dimensions of the Cloud problem space, and the decisions and choices that apply to a Cloud computing for an organisation. A Cloud reference model, reference architecture and reference implementation approach is an accepted approach for planning and implementing Cloud computing. Different Cloud Reference Models can be considered such as those published by

· The Open Cloud Consortium

· The Cloud Security Alliance

· The Cloud Computing Reference Model (CC-RM) and Reference Architecture framework from AgilePath

· The Accenture Cloud Reference Model for Application Architecture with its 7-layers. Like the OSI Model for networks, this Cloud Model is layered to separate concerns and abstract details

There is also an on-going initiative by the Open Group to deliver a Cloud Reference Model.

The Security activities from TOGAF will have to be applied to all phases taking into account the company’s Security strategy. The TRM should be extended with cloud services.

In phase C: Data Architecture, Data integration, in particular may be an issue for cloud computing as it pushes information back into siloes, that IT may not have direct access to. It is also recommended to determine Data and privacy classification and to prioritise the risk criteria of what goes in the cloud and what stays on-premise.

During phase E and F there is a need to understand the Cloud resources which may exist or not. A new step will also be dedicated to identify candidates’ services in the Cloud.

Instead of now having to provide standardized ROI or cost-benefit analysis justifying the products that need to be bought or charge-backs that need to be agreed upon upfront for shared assets, the Business can provide operational expenditure outlines and may go out to the Cloud to source their requirements. No surprises with CapEx, decreased new product introduction training line item expenditures (many products are “standards “which means, lots of documentation and books available, e-learning, etc.), different charge-back agreements between Finance and Business Units (the organisation may have accesses to the service independently from his internal structure), in short, no need to conform to existing enterprise-wide Reference Architectures to meet individual project needs. In relation to this, the recent Open Group white paper “Building Return on Investment from Cloud Computing” is a valuable source of information.

During Phase G, activities may also include the relocation of:

· Business processes (Process-as-a-Service)

· Applications (Application-as-a-Service)

· Data (Information-as-a-Service and Database-as-a-Service)

· Technical services (Storage-as-a-Service and Infrastructure-as-a-Service).

· Security and operations implementation will have to be taken into consideration during the relocation. Security can also be considered as Security-as-a-Service.

The following diagram summarises the additional activities or concerns which should be considered in the ADM:

Below is a diagram which maps the various Cloud services to the TOGAF Metamodel.

The development and deployment teams would now be sourcing from and conforming to the Cloud API and services, without the Enterprise Architecture team becoming policeman, enforcing the reference architectures or corporate standards at various checkpoints (compliance and dispensation activities will remain for internal new systems). With overarching cross-project oversight not relevant anymore, each project would tend to work in its own Cloud development sandbox, party engendered by the partitioning paradigm of the Cloud itself.

Barring some exceptions, traditionally the Enterprise Architecture team has not been relevant to the Operation side of the organisation, but with the Cloud, even that seems to be disappearing. The Cloud providers will furnish the relevant tools for management and reporting and take away the onerous tasks of patch management, version upgrades, high availability, disaster recovery and the like.

New technologies styles are exciting, but using technology styles just for the sake of technology does not bring a real value. Technology use should be driven not by its "coolness factor", but rather by business requirements and an underlying Enterprise Architecture such as TOGAF. Moving some applications to the Cloud can make some infrastructures go away, but badly designed solutions won’t be improved by relocating to the Cloud.

What is Enterprise Analysis: does it differ from Enterprise Architecture?

2010-04-29T09:50:00.001+02:00

Enterprise Analysis is a knowledge area which describes the Business analysis activities that take place for an enterprise to identify business opportunities, build a Business Architecture, determine the optimum project investment path for that enterprise and finally, implement new business and technical solutions. The question you may ask: Does this really differs from Enterprise Architecture, and if so, how?

At first sight, business opportunities are not always considered as being part of an Enterprise Architecture initiative, more as an activity which should be considered as an input. But let’s look at this in more detail.

Let’s look at this in more detail by way of mapping activities between BABOK v2* and the TOGAF 9 Framework*. The BABOK is the collection of knowledge within the profession of business analysis and reflects generally accepted practices. It describes business analysis areas of knowledge, their associated activities and tasks and the skills necessary to be effective in the execution:

BABOK v2 Knowledge Area Activity in Enterprise Analysis	Definition	Enterprise Architecture (e.g TOGAF 9)	Differences, observations
Requirements Elicitation	This describes the interview and research process-how to best extract needs from stakeholders (and even how to recognize needs they don't know they have).Elements such as metrics (tracking the amount of time spent eliciting requirements) and elicitation techniques (prototyping and brainstorming are just a couple) among the topics covered	Phase A: Architecture Vision is the initial phase of an architecture development cycle. It includes information about scope, the key steps, methods, information requirements and obtaining approval for the architecture development cycle to proceed	Business scenarios are a useful technique to articulate an Architecture Vision. A Business Scenario describes, a business process, an application or set of applications enabled by the proposed solution , the business and technology environment, the people and computing components (called “actors”) who execute it, the desired outcome of proper execution To build such a Business Scenario, workshops with business users (stakeholders) would be organized
Business Requirements Analysis	This describes how to write/state requirements that will meet business needs. Key objectives include methods for prioritizing and organizing requirements, as well as the most beneficial techniques for requirements presentation (including state diagrams, prototyping, data flow diagrams, and process modeling, and more). Business Requirements for future project investments are identified and documented. They are defined at a high level, and include goals, objectives, and needs are identified	Business Requirements are collected from business people during the Architecture Vision’s phase using the technique called Business Scenario (as mentioned above). That document identifies what will be the business solutions in generic terms	The Enterprise Architects will define the Architecture Vision phase based on the goals, and objectives of the enterprise gathered from the business. There are two steps: 1. Business people will have defined the goals and the objectives of the enterprise independently from the Enterprise Architecture team 2. The Enterprise Architecture team which include business people gather the requirements based on the previous activity
Enterprise Analysis	Begins after a Business executive team develops strategic plans and goals This outlines the crucial (and sometimes political) process of keeping everyone in the loop and on the same page regarding project's direction and progress. This activity delves into such details as the requirements review and approval processes (including record-keeping).	Most of these activities are taken into account in doing Enterprise Architecture or done directly by the Business executive team before starting an new Enterprise Architecture project
	Strategic plan development		Done outside of the Enterprise Architecture process by business people but is a key source of information
	Strategic goal development		This is done outside of the Enterprise Architecture initiative by business people but is a key source of information
	Business Architecture development		Done during Phase B:Business Architecture, looking at the baseline and target architecture, delivering a gap analysis, a plan and a roadmap
	Feasibility Studies		Done during Phase A: Architecture Vision (with a Business Scenario)
	Business Case Development		Done during Phase A: Architecture Vision (with a Business Scenario)
	New Project Proposal		This is done in two steps: during the Phase A where we identify a Business solution and during Phase F: Migration Planning
	Selecting and Prioritizing New Projects		This is done in two steps: during the Phase A where we identify a Business solution and during Phase F: Migration Planning
	Business Opportunities		This is done during the Phase A: Architecture Vision and the Phase E: Opportunities and Solutions
	Launching New Projects		This is done during Phase F: Migration Planning
	Managing Projects for Value		This is done during Phase F: Migration Planning
	Tracking Project Benefits		Once the project is in production, it is no longer part of the Enterprise Initiative
Solution Assessment and Validation	Details how to choose the best solutions for specific business needs (as well as assessing how well the chosen solution worked after its implementation).This should also cover risks, dependencies, and limitations that must be identified before proposing any solution	Solutions are identified during Phase E.: Opportunities and Solutions. This phase is directly concerned with implementation, identifying major work packages to be undertaken and creating a migration strategy. Risk management, dependencies are taken into consideration.
Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring	Explains how to decide what you need to do to complete an "analyst effort" (in other words, how to plan a project). This helps intelligently decide which stakeholders, tools, tasks and techniques we will need to get the job done	Covered mostly in the Architecture Vision phase, then in the Business Architecture Phase	Stakeholder management techniques are used within TOGAF, tools and techniques are identified in the Business Architecture phase (modeling, reference models, viewpoints)
Requirements Management and Communication	Describes how to identify business needs (the why of the project; whereas requirements are the how) and state the scope of their solutions. This is a crucial piece of the analyst's work. SMART criteria of measurement, SWOT analysis and other measurement factors that make identifying this root cause data objective and tangible are used	Business Requirements are collected with the business people during the Architecture Vision’s phase using the technique called Business Scenario (as mentioned above).	SMART techniques are equally used. Communication plans are defined.

This diagram below is a draft map BABOK® and TOGAF 9; more work is required!

Observations

There are obviously overlaps between Enterprise Analysis and Enterprise Architecture, but activities are not always done in the same sequence.

Enterprise Analysis is more a business initiative than an Enterprise Architecture which includes both business and IT people
Enterprise Analysis provides the context in which an Enterprise Architecture should be conducted
Enterprise Analysis is about defining the strategic goals and the strategic planning taking into account the environment and market trends, identify business issues, focus on remaining competitive, profitable, efficient. Enterprise Architecture is reusing all this information.
Enterprise Analysis is only covering the initial activities of Enterprise Architecture but does not address other Enterprise Architecture activities such as: - Application Architecture, Data Architecture, Technology Architecture (and Solution Architecture).
Enterprise Analysis does not include all aspects related to governance such as the IT Governance and the Enterprise Architecture Governance Framework. Touch points with other frameworks are not addressed.
Enterprise Analysis may not completely address the need of working with other parts of the enterprise such as IT, PMO, development teams, IT partners.
Enterprise Architecture suggest a Preliminary phase which is about defining ‘‘where, what, why, who, and how” Enterprise Architecture will be done, establishing the business context, customizing the framework, defining the architecture principles, establishing the Architecture Governance structure.

Enterprise Analysis complements Enterprise Architecture but also overlaps in some areas. Organization looking into Enterprise Architecture and specifically TOGAF 9 may consider adopting a Business Analysis framework such as BABOK and integrate them in the Preliminary Phase. If both approaches exist in a company, this would be a great opportunity for optimizing the alignment between Business and IT, and to run an Enterprise Architecture program from a complete business perspective.

About Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® (BABOK®)

The Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® (BABOK®) is the collection of knowledge within the profession of Business Analysis and reflects current generally accepted practices. As with other professions, the body of knowledge is defined and enhanced by the Business Analysis professionals who apply it in their daily work role. The BABOK® Guide describes Business Analysis areas of knowledge, their associated activities and the tasks and skills necessary to be effective in their execution. The BABOK® Guide is a reference for professional knowledge for Business Analysis and provides the basis for the Certified Business Analysis Professional™ (CBAP®) Certification.

BABOK® Guide 2.0 represents the development of a common framework to understand and define the practice of business analysis.

http://www.theiiba.org/am/

Are you a Business Architect or a Business Analyst?

2009-12-09T17:02:00.011+01:00

Enterprise Architecture domains include Business Architecture which is the first architecture domain within TOGAF 9. An Enterprise Architecture program that includes this domain, maps critical business processes to their application, information, and infrastructure components to provide a comprehensive view of the business and IT landscape that enables informed decision-making.

Business Architects are supposed to manage Business Architecture, but who are they, what are their skills? How are they different to a Business Analyst or even a Project Manager?

Business Analysts are on the way to becoming Business Architects. Sometimes called IT Business Analysts, they are not strictly business or IT specialists. They write business cases (with very few technical terms), identify business requirements and often are part of a Development Team.

Based on many job descriptions and my observation below, is a grid of standard skills and responsibilities related to the function of a Business Analyst. In the second column, are the responsibilities also applicable to a Business Architect and in the last column comments on how TOGAF 9 recommend the activities to be addressed.

Expected skills and activities	Business Analyst	Business Architect	Comments related to TOGAF 9
Is an intermediary between IT and the business users, follows the implementation strategy with respect to getting stakeholder buy-in and support.	x	x	Both roles require to be positioned between IT and business.
In particular business processes of a line of business.	x		The Business Architect considers the organization’s strategy and less focused in a specific line of business.
Acts as catalyst to implement strategic and tactical change for the business.	x	x	The Business Architect will focus more on strategic changes.
Works with end-user groups to assist with aligning IT to the department's business goals. Conduct feasibility studies to define the purpose, functions, and overall structure of business processes	x	x	The Business Architect in TOGAF 9 will use Business Scenario techniques.
May be involved in Business Process Management (BPM).	x	x
Performs analysis and documents business processes leading to process change and/or system implementation.	x	x	The Business Architect will model and process the business processes.
Operating as a more-or-less independent group that is focused on delivering BPM services	x		The Business Architect will be working at a strategic level and will be less focused on the delivery of BPM services.
Does not have an IT background, but had, instead, a background in quality control.		x	The Business Architect must have a perfect knowledge of the business.
Translates user requirements into software requirements that IT can then use to develop software	x		A Business Architect would not develop and review design specifications for software application. This would be the role of the Application Architect during Phase C.
Analyze and resolve software errors in a timely and accurate fashion	x		A Business Architect is not in charge of managing incidents linked to applications. IT operations may escalate this to the Development Team, or the vendor. Once a first level of diagnostic done, it will be transferred to one of the architects depending on the domain (technology, application).
Helps to develop and maintain software to support the business processes. Assist in developing system/application architecture.	x		The Business Architect does not contribute to software development. This is done by the Solution Architect.
Leads and validates enterprise system designs across multiple business applications.	x		The Business Architect does not lead Application Architecture. This will be done by the Application Architect and potentially the Solution Architect.
Creates and executes test plans to ensure that the functional and business requirements are met by the proposed solution	x		The Business Architect does not contribute to test plans. This is done probably by the Solution Architect.
Documents and defines processes, eliminating activities that don't add value and straightening out the flow of the activities.	x	x	In the TOGAF 9 Phase B we would do this by documenting the baseline and target architecture and do a gap analysis, identifying the various business architecture building blocks to be eliminated.
Determining how business policies are implemented in business rules.	x	x	Business rules have to be identified and implemented when business processes documented in both baseline and target architecture. Can be done at both strategic and tactical level.
Analyses customer needs and the processes customers go through to interact with an organization are key skills that any business process practitioner needs to be effective.	x	x	Business scenarios would be used to identify business requirements.
Creates, manages and maintains an optimum business architecture that includes informational, organizational, process, performance and systems architecture.		x	The Business Analyst focus more on projects delivery. The Business Architect is mostly focused on the delivery of the Business Architecture.
Defines, socializes and implements Business Architecture. Reviews roadmap projects for impact and compliance.		x	Business Architecture roadmaps will be delivered from the gap analysis.
Identifies and facilitates cross divisional continuous business improvement initiatives.		x	The Business Architect works at a strategic level and focus mostly on Strategic Architecture.
Member of the Architecture Board, composed of representative process owners who approve any cross organizational business process changes.	x		Business Architects should be part of the Architecture Board.
Identifies and maintains an up to date picture of opportunities and risks.	x	x	Risks have to be identified during both the Architecture vision phase and the development of the solution.
Experienced in business/process architecture including broad skills in the area of strategy mapping, business analysis skills, conceptual data and process modeling/design, EA frameworks.		x	The Business Architect must have these skills. The Business Analyst may focus on process modeling only.
Strong work experience in Project and Change management.	x	x	Both roles require these skills.
Proven track record for working effectively with technical and business functions.		x	The Business Architect must work with other domain's architects.

My observations are:

Business Analysts are much closer to IT. They often are assigned to a specific Line of Business, which is close to the Development Team, and are implicated in software development. They may be part of the Development Team or the Project Management Office. The Business Architect reports to managers or senior managers who may be business or IT but are independent of any project. They have a global view on most business and will be responsible for modeling the business as a whole, then working top down to "architect" encompassing end to end business processes. Their role is more horizontal and is considered a neutral voice and because of that will make more critical decisions than a Business Analyst.

Business Analysts document requirements as defined by users during workshops. A Business Architect documents and may contribute to define a business strategy using requirements provided by the users if that strategy is not finalized. The Business Architect must have the ability to think in both a strategic and tactical manner whereas a Business Analyst is normally tactical.

The Business Analyst operates within the confines of a predetermined application and technology architecture. A Business Architect is a part of the decision making process to define the IT architecture (Data, Application and Technology). He will have a strong influence directing information technology to meet business needs, and assist in identifying business inefficiencies and opportunities.

Business Architect must be cognizant of enterprise strategies whereas a Business Analyst is normally concerned with specific projects independent of enterprise strategy.

The role of the Solution Architect during the implementation

2009-10-27T16:34:00.004+01:00

In my previous article I describe the role of the Solution Architect within the TOGAF ADM, mostly acting between phases E to G, with a specific focus on E (Opportunities and Solutions) and F (Migration Planning). This article will cover the role in phase G: Implementation governance.

The objective of that phase is to formulate recommendations for each implementation project, and govern and manage an architecture contract covering the overall system implementation and deployment. In companies where the maturity is high, it would be perfectly acceptable to have the Solution Architect acting in the name of the Enterprise Architecture team and coordinate activities during the phase G.

TOGAF defines objectives during that phase and each of them may be detailed as follows.

► To formulate recommendations for each implementation project (Source: TOGAF 9)

The Solution Architect with the Enterprise Architecture team and the Development Team:

Participates in assessment of solutions needs consistent with the global business strategies
Re-analyzes business practices.
Provides business analysis and documents process design of system functions and processes as identified in the phase B.
Recommends application design within the development team. Supervises and ensures quality delivery of the analysis, design, and build of the hardware, network, and common software platform components of software releases with the development team.
Assesses identified technologies from the phase D, and makes sure that solution options are based on the target architecture. Note: He will be directly accountable for the acceptance of technology architecture deliverables by the client.
Participates in the planning, development, maintenance, installation, configuration, documentation, training and implementation of new applications/solutions. He is accountable for the documenting requirements (hardware, network, and configuration) captured during the previous ADM phases. He may also develop the engineering documentation.
Participates in the development of functional specifications for developers related to modifying functionality, report development, outputs and interfaces.
Works with internal customers, external consultants, IT staff and other stakeholders to refine requirements when needed.
Leads and participates in developing and facilitating end user workshops for the solution.
Supports existing applications within the company’s active portfolio and extends their use where appropriate according to the gap analysis.
Coordinates and/or participates in the planning and execution of application testing.

► To govern and manage an Architecture Contract covering the overall implementation and deployment process (Source: TOGAF 9)

He identifies if there are any issues between the architecture and the implementation organization.

► To perform appropriate governance functions while the solution is being implemented and deployed (Source: TOGAF 9)

He will refer to existing governance best practices such as IT Service Management, Project Management, Risk Management, Security Management, and Audit management (for example).

► To ensure conformance with the defined architecture by implementation projects and other projects (Source: TOGAF 9)

He will Review ongoing implementation governance and architecture compliance for each building block.

► To ensure that the program of solutions is deployed successfully, as a planned program of work (Source: TOGAF 9)

He will Review ongoing implementation governance and architecture compliance for each building block.

► To ensure conformance of the deployed solution with the Target Architecture (Source: TOGAF 9)

He will support the architecture design review using a customized checklist as defined in TOGAF.

► To mobilize supporting operations that will underpin the future working lifetime of the deployed solution (Source: TOGAF 9)

The Solution Architect with the Enterprise Architecture team and the IT Operation Team:

Helps to monitor and supports the operations architecture of for hardware, network, and common software platforms (including configuration approach, deployment, approach, and monitoring approach).
Supports all hardware, network, and common software platforms in Development, Production, and Operations environments. Must be aware of the status of the system in all environments, and must communicate and manage environment related risks and activities.
Supports build team by managing configuration of hardware, network, and common software platforms (like Application Servers).
Establishes and maintains relationship with key clients with-in client IT organization.
Develops and implements plan for increasing level of technical architecture skill in program staff.
Ensures consistent implementation of technical components across release activities with the IT Service Management team if it exists (e.g. release manager).
Identifies production infrastructure related issues in the production environment with the help of both the Service Desk and the System Management team if they exist. Creates and implements issue resolution plans that have to be escalated to the Enterprise Architecture team.

This diagram is a high level representation of the Solution Architect’s activities interacting with all parties involved in the architecture development and delivery.

This approach where many activities are led by a designated Solution Architect. The alternative being to share the role between several architects from the Enterprise Architecture team.

Enterprise Architecture, TOGAF and Solution Architects

2009-09-09T08:27:00.022+02:00

Quite often people wonder where a Solution Architect fits within the TOGAF Framework and it is not obvious that there is a single answer. I suggest we look first at a generic profile for a Solution Architect.

Companies such as Oracle, Cisco, SAP and others have roles called Solution Architect but with little apparent agreement to what that role is.

Some commonalities between various skills are:

· Strategic business acumen (understand business requirements and strategy)
· Technical analysis
· Broad and deep technical knowledge
· Technical leadership (the trusted, technical advisor for assigned line of business, providing thought leadership and application of technology to business problems)
· Data Architect
· Shapes the evolution of company’s products
· Maps product requirements and business problems to re-usable end-to-end technology solutions
· Uses methodologies and frameworks (using best practices and common patterns, including database, component layers, user interfaces, web services, and integration patterns)
· Builds and deploys new functionality and extend applications (driving the development of those solutions by guiding and mentoring the development team through the entire development process. Some development will be required for shared services and components or technically challenging areas where the skills of an architect are needed).
· Software architect (must understand and contribute to all levels of design needed for the solution (business, data, application, technology))

· Deep experience developing enterprise solutions using all aspects of the .NET platform, open source or Java (or any other environment), Web Services, multithreaded programming, designing and building frameworks, enterprise patterns, SQL design and development, and database tuning
· Coder (build and code prototypes and frameworks)
· Hands-on experience
· Performance and load testing, development tools
· Works with major lines of business and IT Development teams
· Is a member of the Enterprise Architecture team
· Documents solution designs and how they interact with the larger Enterprise Architecture

Now looking at TOGAF, we need to consider a few definitions such as the Architecture Building Blocks (ABBs) and the Solutions Building Blocks (SBBs).

Building Block – A (potentially re-usable) component of business, IT or architectural capability

Architecture Building Block (ABB)

o A constituent of the architecture model that describes a single aspect of the overall model
o Describe required capability
o Shape the specification of SBBs

Solutions Building Block (SBB)

o Represents components that will be used to implement the required capability
o A candidate physical solution for an Architecture Building Block (ABB); e.g., a Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) package that is a component of the Acquirer view of the architecture

All ABBs will be stored in the Architecture Landscape of the Architecture Repository. These ABBs will have different levels of granularity to suit different architectural objectives.

The Architecture Definition Document which describes an architecture will contain all artifacts describing as views the building blocks.

During the Phase E, Opportunities and Solutions, we identify work packages and group them into projects, consolidate the gap analysis results from phases B to D, identify the building blocks to be developed or acquired reusing the existing ones (stored in the Architecture Repository) as much as we can. From there, we identify the SBBs which could potentially address one or more gaps and their associated ABBs. Existing SBBs have obviously also to be considered taking the interoperability requirements and dependencies into consideration.

The Solution Architect has a key role in this phase as (s)he will probably be the best qualified to identify the appropriate SBBs. He or she participates in the definition of any Transition Architectures, identifies potential solutions, and helps to formulate a high-level implementation and migration strategy.

During the Migration Planning phase they also have an important mission to ensure that SBBs are properly designed or that acquired solutions support business requirements. The Solution Architect may work closely with the vendor if a COTS solution is considered. A solution includes the hardware, software, and supporting people and documentation to solve a problem.

“The gaps in the existing enterprise solutions framework need to be identified and the specific Solution Building Blocks (SBBs) required to fill these gaps will be the identified by the solutions architects. These SBBs may have a one-to-one or many-to-one relationship with the projects. The solutions architects need to define exactly how this will be done. There may be other projects working on these same capabilities and the solutions architects need to ensure that they can leverage best value from these investments.”

Source: TOGAF 9 (15.4.1)

When the Implementation Governance phase is started, the Solution Architect will work in partnership with the procurer/acquirer in addition to the development team and/or the vendor. He will ensure that the development will comply with the target architecture.

When the solution building blocks are developed or integrated with other existing solutions, the Solution Architect will be working with the development team. His role will be to contribute to the design, development, integration and testing of the new components. This may be considered as being the Solution Architecture activity.

A Solution Architecture typically applies to a single project or project release, assisting in the translation of requirements into a solution vision, high level business and/or IT system specifications and a portfolio of implementation tasks.

Solution architecture starts with an understanding of the problem, which should be documented in the business scenario, and this is where so many projects fail. Too many people have the idea that solving a problem is all about coding.

The Solution Architect is a member of the Enterprise Architecture team but becomes at a later stage also a member of the Development team. His role is mixed; he is the bridge between concepts and implementation. However, the Solution Architect does not operate at the Strategic Architecture level (at the level of the Enterprise) but mostly at Segment and Capability Architecture levels.

“The Solution Architect has the responsibility for architectural design and documentation
at a system or subsystem level, such as management or security. A Solution Architect may shield the Enterprise/Segment Architect from the unnecessary details of the systems, products, and/or technologies. The focus of the Solution Architect is on system technology solutions; for example, a component of a solution such as enterprise data warehousing.”

Source TOGAF9 (52.6.3)

There is no mapping for a Solution Architect in the TOGAF Skills Framework, but I would suggest, based on my experience, the following proficiency levels:

TOGAF proficiency levels:

Source TOGAF9 (52.4.4)

This approach is related to the current situation in the market for Solutions Architects, where we see that most of their activities are limited to phases E to G. Another approach would be to consider a Solution Architect being involved in all phases of the TOGAF ADM from phase A and on-wards. A follow-up paper will describe how to address solutions from Phase A , when constraints exist, defining the role and responsibilities of a Solution Architect.

Development of an Enterprise Architecture Communication Plan

2009-07-16T19:26:00.027+02:00

As a strategic activity for IT, communication is important for the effective management of both internal and external relationships. The IT function in many organizations operates with highly diverse stakeholders from different parts of the world. The situation has evolved rapidly over the last years through (standardization, globalization, and optimization…).

Communication significantly impacts how IT is perceived by the organization, and therefore it plays a crucial role in the successful positioning of IT as an internal partner. Moreover, given the competitive market pressure the position of IT within the company is the same that of an external IT provider. Hence the same level of professionalism in terms of quality and efficiency are demanded.

Communication concerns all business and IT employees whether they are managers, staff assigned to communication roles, or IT employees with technical tasks. Internally, multinational companies and global departments demand excellent communication and intercultural skills from employees and managers. This philosophy holds true for the field of IT. Smooth working processes and good performance are dependent on effective communications, especially in periods of change.

Effective communication is part of the overall plan for management of an Enterprise Architecture Program. An Enterprise Architecture communication document has to identify stakeholders of the organization’s Enterprise Architecture Program, the information needs of those stakeholders, and the communication strategy to be followed by the program in meeting those needs.

The goals of the Architecture Board, as established by (usually) the organization’s Management Committee’s mission and charter, requires a successful communication strategy. The Enterprise Architecture and the operations of the program charged with evolving that architecture are important topics that must be communicated by the program if the Enterprise Architecture initiative is to succeed.

The plan consists of sections devoted to an identified stakeholder group (you may reuse the stakeholders management defined in TOGAF). Within each section, the plan would identify:

The members of the stakeholder group
The TOGAF Enterprise Architecture Framework role(s) to which the stakeholder group maps
The information needs of the stakeholder group defined in the Architecture Vision The communication strategy to be followed by the program in meeting the information needs of the stakeholder group

This plan should be a living document, and as such should be updated on a regular basis to reflect new stakeholder groups, new information needs, and new communication strategies. It is important that the Enterprise Architecture Program be held accountable for implementation of this plan, and that the Architecture Board regularly reviews progress with the Program Director.

Stakeholder General Communication

Stakeholders are people who have key roles in, or concerns about, the system. Different stakeholders with different roles in the system will have different concerns. Stakeholders can be individuals, teams, or organizations (or classes thereof).

The list of stakeholders can be also based on the existing Business and IT organization and structure. It also takes into consideration recommendation from HR department addressing the various ways of communicating to various groups of people.

The various stakeholders may include (examples):

- Executive Management Board
- C-levels
- Business Users Advisory Board
- Business Units
- Procurement
- Architecture Board
- IT Units
- Enterprise Architecture team
- Customers
- Developers

The communication plan should take into consideration all groups (use best practices from EA frameworks such as TOGAF), the IT organization and the HR recommendations.

These groups will have to be clearly defined as probably some of the communication tools and techniques will have to be tailored for each community.

General Information Needs

The following information needs to be applied to all stakeholders.

Understand what Enterprise Architecture is (at least at a high level)
Understand the value, benefits, and importance of Enterprise Architecture to the business.
Understand how the Architecture Board and Enterprise Architecture Program are contributing to the pursuit of the organization’s business objectives.

General Communication Tools

To meet these general information needs, the Enterprise Architecture Program should implement the following communications tools.

A set of basic information materials describing the scope of the Enterprise Architecture. This set of materials will describe the value, benefits, and importance of Enterprise Architecture. The materials will be brief and concise, and may consist of: one-page briefing or brochure, key concept map, Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQ) document, position paper, and a presentation.
In all status reporting, Committee and Program achievements will be explicitly linked to the organization’s business objectives.
The basic Enterprise Architecture scope and value materials, as well as some high-level business-oriented status information, will be available (and prominently displayed) on the Enterprise Architecture website. These materials should be suitable for use/delivery by Architecture Board members as well as program staff. (The use of systems such as a CMS (Content Management System)would allow delivering information based on roles.)

Communication Matrix

A matrix should then be built which associates the various communication tools to the various stakeholders (see example below)

This matrix associates the communication tools to the various stakeholders. Each stakeholder, communication tool should then be described in that document and be related to various steps of the Enterprise Architecture governance.

The various views will also have to be defined in annexes.

Communication Planning

A Communication planning will have to be defined (see example below).

Implementation steps

To implement such a communication plan, the following steps will have to be completed:

Validate if all stakeholders have been taken into consideration
Define the content of each communication tool (reports, newsletters, verbal communication, etc.)
Ensure that the appropriated communication tools are associated to the right stakeholders
Implement the Communication Plan with the Business and the IT Department
Once all communication tools are formalized and approved, identify the Business Units and roll out the communication plan to these stakeholders
Once on board, roll out the communication plan to the Executive Management Board and C-levels

Should the IT Strategist role disappear with Enterprise Architecture?

2009-07-15T09:38:00.000+02:00

Many companies in their IT department have two units: IT Strategy & Planning and Enterprise Architecture. As regularly these are two different people managing these units, there is a high risk this ends up in serious conflicts.

The IT Strategist needs to understand the organization’s overall business strategy and is supposed to develop a comprehensive IT Strategic Plan that aligns with the business strategy (linkage, support of goals and objectives, etc.). He will continually assess all areas in the IT department to make sure their efforts and initiatives support this IT strategic plan, highlight gaps and identify alternatives to close gaps. During the development of the IT Strategic Plan (creation and maintenance of a detailed project plan (schedule, WBS, etc.) for the development and execution) , he interacts with various IT and Business Governance committees, and supports the execution and the evaluation of that plan.

How much is this different from one of the role of any Chief Enterprise Architect?

Among various roles the Chief Enterprise Architect ensures that the organization’s strategy is understood and acted on. Ideally, he should contribute to the strategy itself. He also has to understand, advocate and support the organization’s business and IT strategies.

Enterprise Architecture should be used to develop an IT Strategy. The EA team is in charge of implementing an EA program, which involves articulating the desired future state, understanding the current state, identifying the gaps between the two states and developing approaches to close these gaps. The team is leading the creation or evolution of the EA function or program, including the coordination of an appropriately balanced pursuit of enterprise business, information, application, technology and solution architecture viewpoints. Understand new technology future IT directions and how they can Impact the business.

When creating the new architecture (blueprint or high level architecture) which is based on the business goals and directions, they will identify new technology options and key finding from IT assets mapping and technology as-is mapping. The gap analysis will document each element that we mapped in the current state and translate this into roadmaps with dependencies and assignments: group gaps into projects, write one page of project high level analysis, assign resources to projects and creating a road map.

MODAF Acquisition Views will help to define these projects including dependencies.

FEAF in section 4 EA Transition Strategy / TOGAF Phases E (Opportunities and Solutions) and F (Migration Planning) describe similar activities.

Enterprise Architecture is a bridge to make the connection between business side planning and enterprise IT strategy making. When successful it delivers the IT strategy documentation.

The role of the IT Strategist should be split into two sets of activities (Enterprise Architecture and PMO (project management office) and does not make anymore sense when an organization has these two units.

Aligning ITIL V3 Service Design with TOGAF 9

2009-06-12T12:12:00.009+02:00

ITIL V3 is structured in 5 modules, one of them being The Service Design book. This book refers to technology-related activities (requirements engineering; data/information management and application management). It also covers some of the practicalities: functional roles analysis; activity analysis; roles/responsibilities; and even service design and management tools. Service Design processes are important because they provide organizations with information that will affect their decisions on designing solutions for new or changed services-

Service Design has five aspects:

Design of the service solutions
Design of the Service Portfolio (and other supporting systems)
Design of the technology architectures and management systems
Design of the processes
Design of the measurement systems, methods and metrics

Section 3.6.3 on page 35, provides a specific context for the terms “architecture” and “system” which is well aligned with ISO/IEC 42010:2007 definition used by TOGAF 9.

”Architecture” is defined as:

“The fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and to the environment, and the principles guiding its design and evolution.”

”System ” in this definition is used in the most general, not necessarily IT, sense:

“A collection of components organized to accomplish a specific function or set of functions.“

”architectural design” as :

“The development and maintenance of IT policies, strategies, architectures, designs, documents, plans and processes for the deployment and subsequent operation and improvement of appropriate IT services and solutions throughout an organization.”

In ITIL V3, IT policies and strategies are defined by senior management during the Service Strategy phase of the service lifecycle. These policies may be also be reused during the Preliminary Phase of TOGAF 9. The Preliminary Phase allows us to establish the business context, customize TOGAF, define architecture principles, and establish the governance structure. Architectural Principles are general rules and guidelines that support the way in which an organization sets about fulfilling its mission. These principles should be the source for the creation of IT policies.

Service Architects and Designers will need to consider several resources such as (budgets, infrastructures, applications, information, and people) and capabilities (management, organization, processes, knowledge, and people) of the organization defined by TOGAF 9. This will have to be coordinated with the business requirements which may have been collected from a Business Scenario (TOGAF). Using inputs from the business and Service Strategy in ITIL V3, the design needs to take into consideration, people, processes, products, and partners. Also designers will have to take into consideration, the vision, mission, goals, and objectives in order to translate them into critical success factors, key performance indicators, metrics and measurements.

Documents in ITIL V3 may be considered as being artifacts in TOGAF 9. Artifacts consist of plans, contracts (Architecture contracts or other forms of contracts), job descriptions, organizational structures, process workflows, procedures, instructions, configuration, diagrams, catalogs, lists, and databases among many other document types.

One of the major difficulties for the designer will be to sort through this documentation and remove that which is obsolete, duplicated, incomplete, or erroneous. TOGAF with its Architecture repository may also help to store documents related to IT Service Management. You may also think of combining a CMDB with an Architecture Repository…but that would be another topic to discuss.

Although plans should be considered as documents, it is important to identify and sift through the myriads of plans that are in use in the organization. Plans may be produced by different lines of business including IT, issued by business planning committees, PMO, etc. Some of the difficulties will include gathering them (business plans, IT plans, operational plans, contingency plans, financial plans.etc.) , making sense of them and more importantly, making sure they are aligned. For these reasons, the TOGAF Migration Planning phase helps to coordinate different business areas and create a common plan.

The term architecture within ITIL V3 may be aligned with the 4 architecture domains from TOGAF:

Business Architecture: for Business, organization and enterprise
Data Architecture: for data and information, databases
Application Architecture: for applications
Technology Architecture: for hardware (desktops, mobile devices, servers, and mainframes), network, telephony and software

Some aspects may not be covered by architecture domains such the Environment (heat, ventilation, AC, etc.), or the physical workspace including safety (this would be covered by Security Architecture considered during the ADM phases).

Services would be a combination of the four domains.

The Service Design activities and processes covers:

Service Level Management
Availability Management
IT Service Continuity Management
Supplier Management
Information Security Management
Capacity Management
Service Catalogue Management

These processes can be designed when building the Technology Architecture with the Technical Reference Model (TRM).

Page 37 of the Service Design book refers to many documented practices available for designing, deploying, and operating service architecture. It lists Enterprise Architecture frameworks, one of them being TOGAF!

TOGAF 9 Migration Planning and Project Portfolio Management

2009-05-21T05:06:00.006+02:00

Phase F in TOGAF helps to describe how to create a viable implementation and migration plan in co-operation with the portfolio and project managers. Very often companies already have in place a Project Portfolio Management framework and there may be a need to integrate your enterprise architecture with that.

As an example, PMI has introduced a standard for Portfolio Management, and portfolio managers have a resource to help them develop professionally and achieve success for themselves and their enterprise. Within an organization, a portfolio represents a collection of active programs, projects and other work undertaken at a specific point in time to help the organization achieve strategic objectives. In essence, a portfolio reflects the priorities, investments and resource allocations.

Project Portfolio Management (PPM) may be part of an enterprise governance framework. It is a management process designed to help the organization-:

-To ensure that the organization is doing the "right things", optimally allocating scarce resources toward the enterprise’s objectives
-To acquire and view information about all projects
-To sort and prioritize each project according to certain criteria, such as strategic value, resource impact, cost, and so on.

PPM has several activities which are similar to the objectives of managing a financial portfolio:

-The identification of all the individual demands in the portfolio
-The development of a "big picture" view and a deeper understanding of the collection as a whole
-The sensible sorting, adding, and removing of items from the collection based on their costs, benefits, and alignment with long-term strategies or goals.

In a nutshell, Portfolio Management can help zero in on the projects that are most worth their effort; project management can help execute those projects most efficiently.

These activities can be perfectly integrated with Phase F of TOGAF. Once the work packages, projects and building blocks inventory is created, the enterprise architecture team with the portfolio managers (and other important stakeholders) will examine each project and prioritize it according to established criteria. They will probably assign a business value; conduct a cost business analysis for each project (done in collaboration with business people); identify the risks to the projects.

The overall list of projects is then considered to develop a well-balanced list of supported projects and provide an input for a detailed implementation and migration plan. It will also help to confirm the Transition Architecture defined in the phase E. The use of an Architecture definition increments table is highly recommended to list these projects.

Some projects will be given high priority and extensive support, some will be given moderate priority, and still others will be placed on hold or dropped entirely from the list. This will also help to finalize the Architecture roadmap. Finally, resources will need to be identified and made available.

Other Governance domains may also be to be integrated in the PPM process and Phase F, such as Risk Management (e.g. RiskIT), Project Management (e.g. PMI, PRINCE 2), etc.

Companies who are mature in Portfolio Management activities may integrate their existing work practices easily with TOGAF. This would enforce the relationship between the Enterprise Architecture team and the PMO (or the PPM team).

(You can also refer to another post: Why do we not find yet links between Enterprise Architecture and Project Portfolio Management? )

Keep an eye on OneCMDB and the CMDB Federation

2009-04-21T14:03:00.003+02:00

OneCMDB Version 2.0 is a real interesting concept and product as this may be one of the first IT Service Management solution developed in an Open Source mode. It will not replace your Service Desk solution but may help companies with limited budget or companies which have a wide diversity of existing catalogs of assets. It is only covering Configuration Management as a process and in some way IT Assets management. For those who are using Nagios, there exist some connectors.

This has been initially developed by Lokomo Systems using Java but I’m not sure how does that fit with the CMDB Federation Group (I wrote a post on the subject in 2007) if it still exists….(I haven’t seen any indication of activity since January 2008 and maybe this is a dead project…).

In any case, keep an eye on both…

Deliverables, Artifacts And Catalogs-Matrices: Some examples

2009-04-21T10:51:00.010+02:00

Quite often as an Enterprise Architects we are asked to show what the deliverables of an Enterprise Architecture program are.

TOGAF provides a methodology for analyzing your specific situation and turning that analysis into deliverables and actionable artifacts. Artifacts may have different shapes as defined in TOGAF 9. They may be: Catalogs, matrices or diagrams. EA artifacts may also help to define a standard set of document types such as education, strategy, decision, policy, standard, guideline, etc. It is also recommended that you set up a simple online discussion thread or wiki for each artifact to solicit feedback from artifact consumers.

Enterprise Architects should ensure that their efforts to create architecture documentation produce meaningful results by creating artifacts that connect with the consumer, drive decisions, and will allow the development of reusable building blocks.

If we consider the various architecture domains, they may have different forms.

As examples-

in Business Architecture, they could be the views of the Business stakeholders. The matrices between business strategy and the main business functions. The diagrams showing the relationship between processes and information. The Value Chains. Business and Operating models of the Enterprise. Customizing the configuration of the Business Functions according to model --- and more.

The artifacts for Data or Information architecture may refer to an information map or diagram . It could also show the mapping between data items and the Business Information map.

Artifacts for Application Architecture, could show the key interconnections between applications, middleware connection matrices. There may also exists views for Portal Architecture, Enterprise Content Management , Identity management, Business Intelligence, ERPs and CRMs.

Last but not least, Technology Architecture artifacts may propose servers and storage technology diagrams, office views (file, printing, data base servers, etc...), LAN/WAN/Voice Network architecture diagrams, applications and interconnections mapping to technology servers and networks, infrastructure security diagrams. In addition to that, there may be a certain numbers of artifacts related to the company’s organization, organization chart, lines of business mapping to business functions, organization roles in organization units and job descriptions.

Many graphical tools may aid to develop diagrams or document matrices but may also be quite costly. The use of spreadsheet may be a first step in building artifacts such as matrices. The following examples illustrate how they may simply be build with Excel.

List of Metadata

Data-Business process matrix

Application Inventory List

These are very basic example of what artifacts may look like. They may rapidly be created and are definitely a way to explain to the EA stakeholders how the first deliverables of our baseline architecture looks like.

TOGAF 9 Workshop at the Integration Consortium

2009-04-02T08:09:00.003+02:00

The Integration Consortium asked me to run a TOGAF 9 Workshop at their Global Integration Summit on the 2nd of June in Las Vegas.

Details

TOGAF 9 introduces a very appealing concept of Capability-based planning for Business People

2009-03-25T12:46:00.005+01:00

TOGAF 9 promotes a very interesting concept related to Capability-based planning which is an approach more focused on business issues and outcomes. TOGAF 9 defines a capability as “An ability that an organization, person, or system possesses. Capabilities are typically expressed in general and high-level terms and typically require a combination of organization, people, processes, and technology to achieve. For example, marketing, customer contact, or outbound telemarketing. “

Capabilities are in fact the building blocks of business. A business capability typically defines what a business unit‘s purpose is (goals and objectives), its core competencies, and is therefore directly bound to business objectives and strategy. Capabilities provide a black-box view of those things the business can do, i.e. working on business artifacts (e.g. Business Processes, Catalogs).

The business processes and resources involved in providing the capabilities are not exposed (business service orientation). Capabilities aren‘t isolated but form hierarchical value-networks with relationships that materialize the business processes. At a lower level, capabilities are modeled using traditional activity diagrams used for the design and implementation of IT solutions.

The key elements of capabilities-based planning are a conceptual framework, an analytical framework and a building block approach to applying the frameworks.

· A conceptual framework allows for business planning under uncertainty by emphasizing flexibility, robustness and adaptive capability
· The analytical framework provides a way to assess business capability options at the operational level and choose among capability alternatives
· A building block approach allows us to define, develop and test individual capabilities within their own business domains

Capabilities them can be developed and evaluated within smaller architecture domains from phase B to phase D, and then later combined to describe joint forces capabilities in Transition Architectures identified in phases E-F.

Capability Based Planning also revolves around the establishment of the capacity and ability to execute a designated set of generic tasks, bringing enormous help when entering the Opportunities & Solutions and Migration Planning phases. It is an effective way of selling the value of Enterprise Architecture to the business, without being too much theoretical…

You may also find this post as a PDF document on the Integration Consortium website.

TOGAF 9, a new era in Enterprise Architecture

2009-02-23T20:48:00.002+01:00

For those who are interested in TOGAF 9, I have written an article for the Integration Consortium.

http://www.integrationconsortium.org/?page=TOGAF9

Comparing various Enterprise Architecture Frameworks

2008-12-19T06:34:00.002+01:00

There are plenty of comparisons between architecture frameworks and the one I like is written by Roger Sessions from Objectwatch, Inc.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb466232.aspx

However when you need to explain this to your IT Management or to any decision maker, it becomes a real challenge.

Below is a section of an internal employer email recently sent to explain the role of Enterprise Architecture and how it helps to develop business solutions for people using technology. It uses the analogy of undertaking a trip to explain how the architecture can help on that journey.

...It takes quite some time in convincing people that the decision is not TOGAF or DODAF or FEAF etc. but using just enough of each architecture framework to produce a functionally elegant, minimally complex and maximized compliant solution.

It describes the differences between the frameworks somewhat more simplistically: Zachman is like the map at a low resolution.

TOGAF is like the directions on the map that will lead us to some destination (it may be a good or bad destination).

FEAF contains specific information such as the reference models which act like the road rules and speed limits and communication protocols of our mobile phones, etc. (these are the sensible and logical constraints).

MODAF / DODAF and other defense architecture frameworks describe how our vehicle, which we are using to undertake our journey, is constructed, supported, used, etc (say a bike or a car).

Always refer back to Zachman when you are lost. (Overcome with complexity).

Refer to TOGAF at specific milestones in the journey. (Preparing for reviews, checking completeness of the architecture, etc.).

FEAF reference models for what technologies, constraints, resources, etc that can be used in the architecture.

DODAF when redesigning or designing or specifying explicitly a ‘widget’ in the architecture. (Widget may be a solution agnostic architectural building block or a solution dependent solution building block)...

Which Enterprise Architecture Framework are you using?

2008-12-19T06:20:00.001+01:00

Linkedin introduced recently a new feature: Polls.

I wanted to test that feature and created a poll with the main EA frameworks. Unfortunately, this is limited to 5 and I have not been able to include something like "others" or "proprietary".

Furthermore it is not possible to select several.

If interested, you can access this with

http://polls.linkedin.com/p/13540/ikhnz

Interesting results!

IT Governance, finally a worldwide recognition: ISO 38500

2008-04-29T16:14:00.000+02:00

Finally IT Governance will be recognised as a standard. We already had a series of ISO standards for various IT Governance domains such as IT Service Management ISO 20000, Security Management ISO 27001, and Quality ISO 9000, but recently the international organization recognized that a new standard would be well accepted. It will be named ISO 38500 which will cover Corporate Governance of information technology. This standard was originally defined as an Australian standard AS8015, which by the way was the only alternative available.

AS8015 is (was?) intended to provide guiding principles to any organisation, from the smallest to the largest, including private and public (listed and unlisted) companies, not-for-profit organisations, associations, clubs and government agencies. This standard has an application to just about any organisation, either because you are a supplier of ICT related goods and services or more simply because you implement and use ICT in your business.

AS8015 provides six guiding principles for good corporate governance and the effective, efficient and acceptable use of ICT. The six principles (and examples of each) are:

1 Establish clearly understood responsibilities for ICT (eg, ensure individuals understand and accept their responsibilities)
2 Plan ICT to best support the organisation (eg, ensure ICT plans fit current and future needs and the organisation’s corporate plans)
3 Acquire ICT validly (eg, ICT acquisitions should be made for approved reasons and in the approved way; on the basis of ongoing analysis)
4 Ensure ICT performs well, whenever required (eg, ensure ICT is fit for its purpose and is responsive to changing requirements)
5 Ensure ICT conforms with formal rules (eg, ensure compliance with external regulations and internal policies and practices)
6 Ensure ICT use respects human factors (eg, ensure ICT meets the evolving needs of the ‘people in the process’)

The following ISO website used to be where the draft was located (different number) but if you want more information you may refer to

http://www.ramin.com.au/itgovernance/as8015.html

The 26th of May, the standard will be launched in the Netherlands. As any ISO standards, this will impact how IT Departments are organized!

IT Architecture is not Enterprise Architecture

2008-04-21T18:39:00.000+02:00

For many years I have observed lots of confusion with some basic definitions such as IT and Enterprise Architecture among other terms. I will not try to define the meaning of Enterprise Architecture by myself (despite I have my own view on this) as this is something being right now redefined by the Open Group (which by the way used to call their events “IT Architecture Practitioner Conference” and changed only recently to “Enterprise Architecture Practitioner Conference”).

Looking at job definitions related to Architecture positions, I have also identified a clear misunderstanding of “who is supposed to be doing what…”. In addition to that, I’m frequently asked “what’s the difference between an Enterprise Architect and an IT Architect”.

First, let’s assume that everyone agrees on the fact that Enterprise Architecture includes

-Business Architecture
-Information Architecture
-Application Architecture
-Technology Architecture

Whatever the framework is.

One of the main differences between Enterprise Architecture and IT Architecture is the Business Architecture. The diagram below explains at a high level the purpose of each layer.

Among other activities, an Enterprise Architect will drive, supervise and review technology diagnosis and assessment activities. He will be an active member for the IT Strategy development, identify opportunities for technology-related improvement based on benchmark data and doing high-level cost benefit analysis-(Contribution to the overall alignment of IT delivery to the needs of the business). He will develop the enterprise architecture artifacts including current state architecture, target state architecture, architectural roadmaps, referential architecture patterns and technology standard. Also I recommend he acts as a solution architect during the pre-project and development phases of an IT program or oversight of future state designs including technology, solution, information and business architecture. Other activities are related to the access to the future state architecture for adherence to target state direction, or validate deviation justification and recovery plans.He may develop and implement training and documentation for enterprise architecture processes, procedures and framework, work with a team, coordinate, review and integrate the deliverables of information and technology architects into cohesive solutions architecture, taking into account the user requirements, technical requirements, etc.

An IT Architect could be an experienced software engineer with experience in cross-platform, cross-regional application architectures. He would be exposed to modern software engineering methodologies, such as object oriented analysis and design, web architectures, design patterns, iterative-incremental software development, test-first. He should also be familiar with the following methods and platforms: UML, J2EE, .NET, relational databases. And finally experienced in documenting and communicating software architecture, including communication to key senior stakeholders in business

There are various definitions of these roles. Most of them are clearly defined in some frameworks, but there are still lots of confusion in the market and among recruiters.

Business Architecture may help to get ISO 9001:2000 certification

2008-03-28T09:48:00.000+01:00

The ISO standard is related to the definition and requirements of a quality management system. It helps an organization to operate with increased effectiveness, consistency and customer satisfaction and have the capability to continually improve the management system.

ISO 9001:2000 is based on eight Quality Management Principles which are comprehensive and fundamental rules of belief, for leading and operating an organization, aimed at continually improving performance over the long term, by focusing on customers, while addressing the needs of all stakeholders.

Principle 4 is referring to a “Process Approach”. The standard promotes the adoption of a process approach when developing, implementing and improving the effectiveness of the quality management system. A desired result is achieved more efficiently when activities and related resources are managed as a process.

Product realization is a system of processes by which inputs, such as raw materials or components from suppliers, are transformed through the activities of the organization, such as value added production or assembly operations, into outputs, such as products or components, which meet the needs and requirements of a customer.

Any activity or operation that receives inputs and converts them into outputs can be considered as a process. Almost all activities and operations involved in making a product or providing a service are processes.

When an Enterprise Architecture Committee receives suggestions for strategic changes, they should immediately translate those changes into changes in specific business processes. If the architecture is well-defined, changes in processes will immediately suggest changes in specific applications and databases. There are many definitions of a Business Architecture but they all refer to the definition of processes.

The business architecture is a formal documentation of the lines of business, their support functions and their relationship to each other. After the architecture has been documented, it is systematically analyzed to examine the functions (services) required by business and to align the enterprise technology with those functions.

Companies which have already documented their business architecture (baseline/as-is) may consider to have achieved a great step getting the ISO 9001:2000 certification.

Business Architecture and Capability Modeling

2008-03-13T16:41:00.000+01:00

Capability modeling is an emerging technique for analyzing a business and modeling it in terms of its competencies. Capabilities are the building blocks of business. A business capability tipically defines what a business unit‘s purpose is, its core competencies, and is therefore directly bound to business objectives and strategy.

Capabilities provide a black-box view of those things the business can do, i.e. working on business artifacts. The business processes and resources involved in providing the capability are not exposed (business service orientation). Capabilities aren‘t isolated but form hierarchical value-networks with relationships that materialize the business processes. At a lower level, capabilities are modeled using traditional activities diagrams used for the implementation of IT solutions.

The key benefit that capability modeling provides over business process modeling is that it focuses on those elements of the business that are the most stable, and therefore facilitates the alignment with key IT initiatives, especially SOA adoption programs, which can leverage stable business concepts rather than process activities that are continuously evolving.

Outputs of capability modeling activities are direct inputs into the activities of service identification, definition and interface design (SOA).

Modeling effort should be done incrementally, with focus on key business initiatives first.

Capabilities modeling has proven to be particularly efficient in allowing to solve business issues not addressable in other ways. It also eases the deployment of business activity monitoring, providing the insight the business needs to adapt to environmental changes or identify new opportunities.

Modeling of Business Operations (Operational modeling), using UML diagrams:

Based on Business Artifacts (artifact-centered operational modeling), which requires:

Key Business Artifacts identification
Artifacts life-cycle definitions
Business tasks identification (BPMN modeling)
Repository building for artifacts
Flow components

Differences between IT Governance and Enterprise Architecture Governance

2008-03-05T14:13:00.001+01:00

IT Governance is the responsibility of the board of directors and executive management of an IT department. It is an integral part of the enterprise governance and consists of the leadership and organizational structures and processes that ensure that the organization's IT sustains and extends the organization's strategies and objectives.

IT Governance ensures that

IT delivery expectations are fulfilled
IT resources deployment is continuously planned, targeted and optimized
IT performance is measurable
and that the risks are minimized

We may consider defining an IT Governance team which would care of various domains such as Project Portfolio Management, Security Management, Project Management, COBIT, SOX, Risk Management ,Service Management, ISO 9000, etc..

Enterprise Architecture Governance encompasses leadership, implementation and controlling of Business Architectures, IT Architectures (Information, Application, Technology architectures) and Solution Architectures including organizational structures (organizational units as well as processes and roles) to ensure that architecture sustains and extends the business strategy and objectives. When we implement an EA Governance, we may consider defining an Architecture Review Board which decides which IS is best suited for the needs of the enterprise, it decides when a change in the architecture is needed, and prioritizes initiatives. More detailed explanation on this other post.

To summarize Enterprise Architecture is one of the IT Governance pillars and Enterprise Architecture with its associated Governance is s subdomain.

ITIL V3 Demand Management and...Demand Management

2008-02-26T12:42:00.002+01:00

In one of my previous post I was referring to the definition of Demand Management and how this related to Requirements management and Project Portfolio Management.

With ITIL V3, Demand Management is part of Service Strategy and does not mean the same!!! This will for sure create some confusion for some people.

ITIL Demand Management’s objectives are to optimize the use of capacity by moving workload to less utilized times, servers, or places…. (Nothing to do with users having business requirements!).

This new process refers to:

Activity-based Demand Management. Analyzing and tracking the activity patterns of the business process makes it possible to predict demand for service assets that support those services.
At a strategic level, Demand Management can involve analysis of Pattern of Business Activity (PBA) and user profiles. Each profile can be associated to one or more PBA.
At a tactical level it can involve use of differential charging to encourage Customers to use IT Services at less busy times.
Service packages. They represent the value that the customer wants and for which they are willing to pay.

The key elements of the ITIL V3 Demand Management refers to:

o Core/supporting services

o Developing differentiated offerings

o Service Level Packages

o Advantage of core service packages

o Segmentation

Even these concepts may appear no to be crystal clear…

Service Management and Enterprise Architecture

2008-02-01T11:05:00.000+01:00

An article I wrote for OpenSource magazine published yesterday, you may comment here!

http://opensource.sys-con.com/read/493465.htm

ITIL V3, Enterprise Architecture and Project Portfolio Management, where do I start?

2007-12-20T15:35:00.000+01:00

Recently I have attended the ITIL V2 to V3 bridge course and took the examination. It is clear that one day is not enough and a day and a half would have been convenient. IIL V3 is supposed to be an evolution and not a revolution… Pretty sure that a day and a half would have frightened some IT decision makers… and the decision was from trainers to only offer that single day.

As I was prepared for the course (I did some reading before), this was not a real issue...

This being said, after a few days I was wondering how companies would present ITIL V3 to the IT Management team, to a CIO, and obviously the business! The introduction of the Service life cycle is a new concept which requires the buy-in and the sponsorship maybe beyond the IT department! Service Strategy has to be sold, and demonstrates a real value, but this not the point.

Let’s imagine you are in a mature IT department where IT Governance is your daily culture. You may have different IT Governance pillars and among them:

IT Service Management

Project Portfolio Management

Enterprise Architecture

Usually, different teams take care of these initiatives and unfortunately they do not always work together.

The Project Portfolio Management team (PPM) collect business demands and requirements, classify, categorize them, and on an annual basis, do some sort of planning after a budgetary exercise with the business. The PPM team may collaborate with the Enterprise Architecture team to better understand the impact of new demands on the company’s architectures. They may also interact with the IT Service Management for Capacity Management and Service Level Management to better assess these demands.

The Enterprise Architecture (EA) team who already has documented a baseline architecture, define a target architecture (or transition architecture) based on the business drivers, business strategy and with a gap analysis, identify new opportunities, new projects. These new initiatives may afterwards be included in the list of projects and be processed by the PPM team.

With V3, the situation becomes more complex as we have a new way of starting projects! The view is based on the creation of new services which are then included in the Service pipeline and Service Portfolio. In the past, with V2, operational people only had a reactive position. With V3, Service Strategy considers the business view and proposes ITSM as a way to launch new projects!

Isn’t this confusing? Do you think that companies which already have implemented PPM and eventually EA would change the way they classify and launch new projects? Would you go to your CIO and tell him….”...now with V3… we should start with a Service Strategy and consider PPM and EA, either in parallel or afterwards”?. No way! Would you go to your business partners and claim that V3 is a new way of creating new projects and services? Maybe not…

Below I have tried in a diagram to describe various scenarios related to how companies may approach the three domains:

The PPM view considers new projects with PPM has the core methodology to address business needs. It refers first to Enterprise Architecture and then IT Service Management.

The EA view consider PPM first and finally ITSM.
The ITSM view (in fact V3) consider first PPM (Service Strategy) and then EA (Service Design)

It is clear that none of these approaches can be considered as better than the other one. All frameworks include bits and pieces of the others. I may imagine that V3 will make the choice event more difficult and mature IT department will have to evaluate where Service Strategy and Design fits in their IT Governance framework…or consider V3 has being the more innovative and change the company’s culture.

Requirements Management and Enterprise Architecture

2007-12-03T12:09:00.000+01:00

I was describing a while ago the relations between Requirements Management and other types of user’s demands.

Let me restate my definition of what that is. Requirements Management is the science and art of gathering and managing user, business, technical, functional requirements, and process requirements within a product development project. The project could be for a new consumer product, a web site, a system or a software application. In all these cases, the five classes of requirements should be represented.

The objective of the Requirements Management activity is to define a process whereby requirements for Enterprise Architecture are identified, stored, and fed into and out of the relevant Enterprise Architecture development phases. As such it forms part of the activities and steps carried out in each of these phases though it is not referred to implicitly in any projects I have managed.

(Requirements Management is also a discipline for both Quality Management (ISO 90001:2000) and Project Management (PMI)).

Target architecture must be based on credible assumptions about future business requirements. Getting these future requirements is not a simple matter of asking business management for them, and analyzing them is not the linear technique used to develop the design for a project. Instead, we have to use a combination of requirements aggregation and scenarios to gather and analyze long-term requirements. This will lead to more credible architectures with appropriate flexibility and evident business value.
For ease of use, it is convenient to think of requirements as belonging to a type.

Business and Functional requirements

They are the fundamental or essential subject matter of the service or product. They describe what the service or product has to do or what processing actions it is to take.

Business Cases or Scenarios should be used as a useful technique to discover and document these requirements.

Project and Portfolio Management (PPM) addresses the decisions regarding what projects to undertake, with what priority, and in what sequence. Before a project has gone through the necessary requirements definition activities, its scope is based on high-level requirements derived from business drivers, plans, and needs. If these requirements are viewed in isolation, then solutions will be defined in isolation, and they will ignore synergies or dependencies between projects and undervalue foundational projects that provide capabilities that can be leveraged across future projects. Business Requirements also have to be a source for Project Management methodologies.

Non-functional requirements

They are the properties that the functions must have, such as performance and usability. These requirements are as important as the functional requirements for the product/service’s success.

Project constraints

These are restrictions on projects due to the budget or the time available to build a product or service.

Design and architecture requirements

They impose restrictions on how the product/service must be designed. For example, it might have to be implemented in the hand-held device being given to major customers, or it might have to use the existing servers and desktop computers, or any other hardware, software, or business practice.

Project drivers

These are the business-related forces. For example, the purpose of the project is a project driver, as are all of the stakeholders-each for different reasons.

Project issues

They define the conditions under which the project will be done. The reason for including them as part of the requirements is to present a coherent picture of all factors that contribute to the success or failure of the project and to illustrate how managers can use requirements as input when managing a project.

Testing requirements

It is recommended to start testing requirements as soon as we start writing them.
We make a requirement testable by adding its fit criterion. This fit criterion measures the requirement, making it possible to determine whether a given solution fits the requirement. If a fit criterion cannot be found for a requirement, then the requirement is either ambiguous or poorly understood. All requirements can be measured, and all should carry a fit criterion.

Requirements Management and Enterprise Architecture cannot be dissociated.

Some vendors have perfectly understood the need of integrating this, such as Telelogic and the need to share a common metadata repository.

With that solution, there are possibilities to go from requirements, to enterprise architecture, to systems implementation and design, with tightly-coupled, bi-directional integration between DOORS (their requirements management tool), and Systems Architect.

IBM has it’s own requirements management solution but has (not yet) an enterprise architecture solution. This may change with the on-going acquisition of Telelogic, but I haven’t been really able to understand IBM’s strategy yet. Is this only a question of absorbing another market or a willingness to offer a full Enterprise Architecture suite in the Rational catalogue? (Requisitepro being obviously an issue….).

The HP approach seems to be the how to integrate the different application coming from the former Mercury and Peregrine world. HP PPM (and HP Quality Center for testing requirements). Their current approach is to use the Demand management module in PPM to manage business requirement at business level and using the module in Quality Center to specify the requirements at technical level to translate them in test case. Nevertheless, HP does not have any Enterprise Architecture solution.

Invitation to join the Enterprise Architecture Network Group on LinkedIn

2007-10-10T15:45:00.000+02:00

I've just started a new LinkedIn Group dedicated to people in the Enterprise Architecture arena. I'm sending this invitation in the hopes that you would be interested to grow the community.

If you work in any of the following domains:

-Enterprise Architecture
-Business Architecture-Business Process Management
-Information/Data Architecture
-Application Architecture
-Technology Architecture
-Methodologies-frameworks :FEAF, DODAF, MODAF, TOGAF, Zachman, Gartner/Forrester (and obviously other frameworks or internal methods)
-IT Strategy
-Corporate and/or IT Governance

If you are:

-CIO/CTO
-An architect in any of the domains above either in the Business or in IT
-Consultants
-Other…

The goal of this group is to help members:

-Reaching other members of the Enterprise Architecture Network interested in any of the listed domains
-Sharing information, problems, solutions, ideas specific to Enterprise Architecture and the domains mentioned.
-Accelerate careers/business through referrals from the Enterprise Architecture Network Group members
-Know more than a name – view rich professional profiles from fellow the Enterprise Architecture Network Group members

This will be a starting point for those who wish to share ideas, network with other professionals, exchange advice. We may consider to use something like the Yahoo groups for interaction or anything else web enabled. Until then, this place should do.

Here’s the link to join:

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/36781/1FD7B029687F

I look forward to meeting you online! Many thanks.

Do not miss Enterprise Architecture Governance!

2007-09-10T17:13:00.000+02:00

Many people are considering Enterprise Architecture as a way to align IT to Business not only through the use of formalized processes. When looking at the various components of enterprise Architecture such as baselines, all kind of principles, modelling, target architectures, views, impact analysis among other of things….governance often appears as something maybe secondary. To be successful, Enterprise Architecture governance should be at the core of any program.

To build baselines, gap analyses, target architectures without a proper EA framework may end in a dead end. All new business initiatives should be validates against the current Enterprise Architecture, all exceptions have to be monitored, documented, and probably escalated. All changes on existing services, applications or infrastructure have also to be compliant with the existing Enterprise Architecture. This could be at any level, Technology Architecture (or infrastructure), Application Architecture etc..

When starting to think about your Enterprise Architecture initiative, there are two very important considerations that needs to be considered:

-How do we implement governance in the Enterprise Architecture and what are the associated processes
-How do we ensure adherence and a real collaboration in the processes

Furthermore, it is important to identify the differences between IT Governance and Enterprise Architecture Governance. Standards such as ITIL, COBIT or CMMi focus on IT Governance but none of them really refer to this EA Governance.

Governance lies at the heart of the Enterprise Architecture processes. It should be a framework that there is a logical consistency underlying the enterprise architecture structure. This structure in its broadest context means that we understand all the relationships between artifacts which are formalised.

Looking at the various EA frameworks it appears that these processes are never really clearly identified and documented.

I have identified 6 of them. Obviously each company will have to design them in a way which fits the company’s structure:

Enterprise Architecture Governance - PPM

This process identifies how any new demand or business initiative is routed to an Enterprise Architecture team for a first level assessment and impact analysis. The process also integrates at a high level Project Management and ensure that deliverables are still aligned with the initial architecture definitions.

Enterprise Architecture Compliance

All changes to business processes, information, technology, application and solutions are subject to architecture compliance. This step ensures that all changes are compliant with the existing Enterprise Architecture. If not compliant, request for exceptions go through review. In the case of an exception, the Architecture review board may issue a waiver to approve the exception. Alternatively, it may deny the exception.

Enterprise Architecture Waiver

In the event that a project sponsor's petition for an exception to the Enterprise Architecture is denied by the Architecture review board, the project sponsor may opt to appeal that decision to the Executive board, which has the authority to overrule the Architecture review board.

Enterprise Architecture - Standard Management

New company’s Standards should be the result of an investigation. Once a study or a proof of concept is finalized and presented, the latest may become a standard.

Other situations may occur when an existing standard is upgraded or there is a need for harmonization and consolidation. In both cases, standards have to be documented according to existing templates, be validated and approved by the Architecture review board, and finally approved by the IT Management team (eventually the CIO).

Enterprise Architecture – Standard Waiver

In case of exception, a waiver exception form has to be completed and be approved by the Architecture review board and the IT Management team.

Enterprise Architecture Requirements

Architecture often deals with drivers and constraints, many of which are beyond the control of the enterprise (changing market conditions, new legislation, etc.).
Architecture requirements are therefore invariably subject to change in practice. This process collects, identifies, stores and feeds requirements.

Enterprise Architecture Annual Revision or Changes

The architecture team is responsible for creating Enterprise Architectzre and revising it as an example, each year as recommended in many frameworks. Industry analysts and subject matter experts should be involved as needed in the process.

The Enterprise Architecture is updated at least on an annual basis to:

1 Incorporate amendments that were previously approved
2 Incorporate new technical standards, patterns and services, information, solutions, and business processes
3 Evolve the future-state road maps to reflect changes in business strategy

The structured architecture creation/revision process is defined by the architecture team in place and approved by the Architecture review board.

At the completion of the annual revision cycle, the updated Enterprise Architecture is submitted to the Architecture review board for approval and adoption.

Enterprise Architecture and ITSM Changes

There is a need to determine if a change (RFC) has to go through architecture compliance. If, in the opinion of the architecture team, the project has a low architectural risk, they may conditionally exempt the project from the architecture compliance process. This should be a step in the Change Management process.

There may exist additional processes…every company can extend its Enterprise Architecture governance the way which is appropriate.

That governance is put in place not just for ensuring compliance but also for ensuring enterprise wide collaboration.

Enterprise Architecture governance must ensure that decision makers across all disciplines in the company apply the same design patterns and are aligned to common design objectives.

Do not invest too much in building your CMDB now!

2007-08-21T15:05:00.000+02:00

Interesting enough a few days ago a new version of the CMDB federation Whitepaper has been posted. The list of participants is impressive as we find every key players in ITSM including Microsoft…CA, IBM, BMC, Fujitsu, HP and Microsoft have worked together to propose a standard for federating data from ITIL compliant CMDB repositories. The intention is to submit their achievement to a standard body sometimes this year. For the time being, this is a draft which is reviewed by the main IT Service Management actors.

In this current version, there are explanations how to push or pull information from/to various CMDBs into a main CMDB. These “other CMDBs” are named: MDR, Management Data Repositories. Exchange mechanisms and technologies used to access these MDRs will be based on the SOA stack (HTTP, SOAP, WSDL, XML).

What does that mean concretely?

· In a few months (years?) vendors could sell Service Management solutions with a different metamodel
· Instead of using autodiscovery tools, vendors could provide these push pull mechanisms for companies which already have in place other platforms such as Asset Management systems, or system management platforms, or other inventory systems
· It becomes maybe un-necessary to build proprietary bridges with systems which contain important information to build a CMDB. This could be postponed.
· Vendors which actually come with tactical scenarios such as HP-Mercury with their UCMDB could change their strategy sooner than expected!
· Companies in a CMDB project may have to “migrate” in the future to another approach, based probably on a hub and spoke architecture
· Taxonomy being a key challenge for such a project may impact existing CMDB implementation

Companies which started to build a CMDB should measure the impact of that initiative in the long term with their vendors as the CMDB landscape could change dramatically in the next months.

Efficient Enterprise Architecture needs waiver requests...

2007-08-08T16:05:00.001+02:00

A waiver request can be a new document type in an Enterprise Architecture program. The purpose of such a document is to request an exception to an approved Enterprise Architecture for information systems and applications. It allows to document the business justification, risk management process, and costs associated with an exception. This document and the associated exception process could apply to any system, application, element, or practice that varies from the approved Enterprise Architecture. These include but are not limited to data, applications, security, integration, collaboration, systems management, network and telecommunications systems, components, practices, and protocols. An Enterprise Architecture Review Board which is the decision authority for all waiver requests and could use its discretion to classify all waiver requests in different categories and will formulate a recommendation for approval or disapproval.

Examples of an important exception request could be:
· The total remediation cost for the exception exceeds fifteen percent of the project value.
· The total remediation cost exceeds USD 0.5 million.
· The exception will introduce a service, product, technology, or practice not currently in use in the company or is categorized as "Emerging" in the architecture.
· The exception violates an Enterprise Architecture principle.
· The exception is a service, product, technology, or practice, which is identified for "Containment" or "Retirement" in the current Enterprise Architecture.
· The exception does not comply with the infromation standards for a system for which it creates, updates, or deletes data.

Whether the waiver request is for a minor or major change, The board domain expert stakeholder or the board team will use the same decision criteria when approving or disapproving a request. Specifically, the individual member or board must determine whether the benefits associated with implementing the exception request outweigh any negative impacts to the IT community. In exercising this discretion, the decision-makers will consider:

· the impact of not granting the exception
· the technical merit of the exception
· the collateral impact to other systems and business processes
· the impact to the Enterprise Architecture
· alternatives to granting the exception
· precedent setting effects

Decision-makers must consider the Enterprise Architecture principles (including Business principles, Information principles, Application principles, Technology principles).

The decision-makers may approve or disapprove all or a portion of a request, based on the complexity of the system for which the exception is requested. The board should develop a consensus in reaching its decision.

The requestor has several important responsibilities in the architecture waiver process. First, the requestor is responsible for documenting the information contained in this form. This information outlines the justification for the exception and is critical to the decision-making process. Second, the requestor is responsible for obtaining the approval of the business owner and the technical owner. Finally, the requestor may have an opportunity to present the exception request to the decision authority on a scheduled basis.

The technical owner must approve all exception requests proposed by the requestor prior to review. The technical owner is the individual responsible for supporting the impacted business process with information systems solutions.

The business owner must approve all exception requests proposed by the requestor prior to review. The business owner is an individual at the director level or above who manages the business process that the system supports or will support.

Mapping of TOGAF 8.1 with COBIT 4.0

2007-07-19T09:59:00.000+02:00

A new white paper has just been releaseed: TOGA and COBIT. This is the mapping of TOGAF 8.1 with COBIT 4.0 By The IT Governance Institute(R) (ITGI(R)).

This document provides a detailed mapping of TOGAF 8.1 with COBIT 4.0 and also contains the classification of the standards discussed in this publication, as presented in the overview document COBIT Mapping:Overview of International IT Guidance, 2nd Edition. This mapping helps enterprise architects and auditors using the COBIT framework to consider the requirements and value-add of The Open Group Architecture Framework(TOGAF) 8.1, and vice versa.

This White Paper is available as two parts in separate documents.

Part I (Doc. No. W072) contains the actual TOGAF 8.1/COBIT 4.0 mapping. The research supporting the mapping is available in Part II (Doc. No.W072A) and consists of the following appendices:

* Appendix 1: Plan and Organize
* Appendix 2: Acquire and Implement
* Appendix 3: Deliver and Support
* Appendix 4: Monitor and Evaluate
* Appendix 5: Harmonization of Terms and Concepts

This is now freely available to members in The Open Group bookstore at:

http://www.opengroup.org/bookstore/catalog/w072.htm

and

http://www.opengroup.org/bookstore/catalog/w072a.htm

and also listed in the Architecture Forum White Papers index at:

https://www.opengroup.org/architecture/wp/

TOGAF and ITIL

2007-06-15T12:33:00.000+02:00

Many people are interested to understand how does Enterprise Architecture fits with IT Service Management. For the Open Group, I have written a document which has just been published today.

This White Paper considers how the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) and The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) can be used together, with a detailed comparison and mapping between the two.

The re-birth of Enterprise Architecture?

2007-06-12T09:58:00.000+02:00

Sadly enough, Enterprise Architecture has always been considered as a side IT Governance component and few big names were proposing services around products. Why? Simply because the IBM and HP like did not have any product offering…IBM always claimed that they were into Enterprise Architecture but they always tried to sell their Rational line of products without really understanding what is EA all about…. Probably when acquiring all Rational products, there would be a chance to do EA, but at what effort, what level of integration and also at what cost? Modelling processes with Websphere Business Modeler is still a techie activity and there were no indication that Business Analyst would be able to use such a tool. Very often business people were rather considering using Mega or Aris from IDS Sheer. HP also on its side was never per formant on IT Governance and acquired Peregrine and Mercury, for Service Management, Project and Portfolio Management. Enterprise Architecture has never been on their agenda, despite the fact they sponsor the Open Group. This may change…

In a recent post I was wondering why these companies did not take into consideration companies such as Telelogic, Casewise, IDS, Mega, Troux and others. My view was that in the next 12 months the market landscape would change and most EA companies would be acquired.

This has just been confirmed by IBM who acquired today Telelogic. Telelogic propose two components: DOORS and the ex-Popkin System Architect. Requirement is at the center of Enterprise Architecture and the Telerate offer was really appealing.

Now with IBM a few questions have to be raised:

What’s going to happen with Requisite Pro and DOORS? These two products have similarities.
What about Websphere Business Modeler and the System Architect process modelling tool? Same issue.
How will Telerate integrate with the Tivoli CCMDB (Enterprise Architecture Artifacts and CIs). An Enterprise Architecture Repository should be maybe an instance of a CMDB.
How will be integrated WSRR with the SOA modelling of Telerate?
How will RUP for SOA /SOMA) fit the various EA framework supported by Telelogic?

Will IBM start to really propose professional services around Enterprise Architecture and support TOGAF as an open Framework among others?

Until now it has not been the strength of these well known companies to provide a consistent roadmap in terms of integration. As another example HP is doing a poor job in terms of integrating Mercury and Peregrine (the roadmap is absolutely unclear in terms of UCMDB.. and there are no indication how redundant service management functions between Mercury and Peregrine will be managed). Different contacts, different interpretation of the account managers…

Will IBM be able to better integrate their suite of modelling and architecting products? Will they be able to provide roadmaps, strategy and clear directions?

With this announcement there is a high chance that competitors such as CA, HP, Microsoft and others will soon start to consider Enterprise Architecture as a new source of income and a way to sell new products. Watch the space for acquisition! That story will be similar to the one related to the auto-discovery tools market and CMDB.

If most of the big names will soon have an EA offer in terms of products and service, this will launch a new wave of EA projects and will help standardization organization to better promote EA initiatives!

ITIL and CMMI synergies

2007-05-23T11:42:00.000+02:00

CMMI has been developed by the Carnegie Mellon University – Software Engineering Institute. It consists of best practices that address the development and maintenance of products and services covering the product life cycle from conception through delivery and maintenance.

A product can be an airplane, a digital camera, a drug or a software package available from a commercial retailer. It can also be a Service such as those defined into IT Service Management. CMMI integrates bodies of knowledge that are essential when developing products, but that have been addressed separately in the past, such as software engineering, systems engineering, and acquisition.

CMMI:
- Emphasizes the development of processes to improve product development and customer services in organizations.
- Provides a framework from which to organize and prioritize process improvement activities (product, business, people, technology)
- Supports the coordination of multi-disciplined activities that may be required to successfully build a product
- Emphasizes the alignment of process improvement efforts objectives with organizational business objectives

A CCMI model is not a process but describes the characteristics of effective processes. CCMI models should be used in conjunction with a company’s IT processes found in Service Management (ITIL), COBIT, Project Management (SDLC/Prince 2), Enterprise Architecture (TOGAF), Quality (ISO 9000), Security Management (ISO 27001). CMMi allows companies to assess their practices and compare them to those of other companies. The CMMi measures process maturity, progresses through five levels: Level 1 (initial), 2 (managed), 3 (defined), 4 (predictable) and 5 (optimizing).

CMMi is an important component of an IT Governance framework and has to be considered as a project.

Implementing CMMI and ITIL improves the Software Development Process and Software Quality and reduces the Cost Of Quality (COQ). In addition is time to market reduced and precision in estimation of effort and cost enhanced.

ITIL can combine with CMMI to cover all of IT, but doesn't address the development of quality management systems. Also it is not geared to software development processes and its use is highly dependent on interpretation. While CMMi is the de facto quality standard for software development processes, ITIL for many is the tool of choice for the operations and infrastructure side of IT, particularly for IT Services.

ITIL and CMMI best apply to different parts of the IT organization:

- Use CMMI in application development
- Use CMMI in ICT Infrastructure projects
- Use ITIL in IT operations and services

CMMi is very detailed. It is geared specifically to software development organizations, and focuses on continuous improvement, not just on maintaining a certification. It also can be used for self-assessment.

However it doesn't address IT operations issues, such as security, change and configuration management, capacity planning, troubleshooting and service desk functions. This is why ITIL is used. CMMi sets goals, but doesn't say how to meet them. (For example, CMMI says to do requirements analysis but doesn't say how to do requirements analysis.) This is why we would use a Project Management methodology.

Important observations

The focus for CMMi is software development, integration, deployment and maintenance, while the focus for ITIL is service management/operations. In reviewing, the touch points between the two , the amount of duplication is small in comparison to the number of interfaces and touch
points. This suggests the need for:

- strongly synchronized work efforts
- clear definition of interfaces, roles, and responsibilities
- participation from both efforts at a level appropriate to the density of the touch points (e.g., joint process action team membership, subject matter expert guidance, and/or process reviewer)
- By identifying the touch points between the groups, and promoting best practices using the CMMI and ITIL in their respective areas, the organization can leverage expertise and experience from within and from without .
- The most significant touch point should be documented in the area of Configuration and Change Management. There is no contradiction between the two models (CMMI and ITIL), so the teams should develop a unified process (‘the what’), with targeted procedures (‘the how’).
- In CMMI, the Process Areas are ordered along a Maturity Model with maturity levels. The ITIL processes are ordered in sets.

Enterprise Architecture and change management

2007-05-10T12:07:00.000+02:00

An Enterprise Architecture should be fully revised on an annual basis to incorporate new or changed standards, evaluate new technologies and realign with changing business priorities. Architecture will never be "complete" in the sense that it should be constantly reviewed and revised, and related efforts realigned. As the business grows and evolves, so should the architecture governing its systems and processes. Just like the business itself, the architecture must remain dynamic and able to change with the demands of the business environment.

An Enterprise Architecture core team (EACT) or one if its domain teams may propose amendments in mid-cycle. Such amendments must be approved by an EA Governance Board, which will issue an EA amendment bulletin. All amendments must be incorporated into the EA through the next revision cycle.

The EACT is responsible for creating EA and revising it each year as recommended in TOGAF. Industry analysts and subject matter experts should be involved as needed in the process.

The EA is updated at least on an annual basis to:

The FEAF defines the external component of the Framework representing an external stimulus, which causes the enterprise architecture to change. The architecture drivers consist of two
sub-components: business and design drivers, but this does not specify precisely the process.

Phase H of TOGAF ADM is referring to a change management process which could be related to the ITIL Change Management process or PRINCE 2. Obviously this would make perfectly sense to “re-use” the ITSM Change Management process for architecture changes.

One of the activities in Change Management is the Change Advisory Board (CAB) Meetings (to be noted that this committee should have also a member from the Enterprise Architecture team). There should be some synergies with the EA Governance Board as well. The approval from the architects should be a pre-requisite before submitting an RFC to the CAB when needed.

However the EA Change Management process could slightly differ as stakeholders could be different. The EAGB, the IT executive management team and the EACT being the main actors in the EA Change management process.

To be noted that shortly a white paper will be published by the Open Group on the integration between TOGAF and ITIL.

Enterprise Architecture Tools: Why are IBM, HP, Microsoft, CA and others absent?

2007-04-26T09:20:00.000+02:00

Enterprise Architecture tools are often used to analyze and optimize the portfolio of business strategies, organizational structures, business processes, tasks and activities, information flows, applications, systems, and technology infrastructure.

Many of these tools have been designed with different architecture goals such as modeling, storing, managing and sharing information.

These tools can be classified in two main categories: EA repositories, EA-modeling suites (Business & IT) including some EA models.

Choosing a category depends mainly on the approach toward:
· EA top-to-bottom approach
· EA bottom-up approach
and the relationships with existing development and modeling tools.

Looking at the various acquisitions from big names these last years and the increasing interest in IT Governance, we observed several vendors trying to extend their tools portfolio going from modeling to service management, from project management to portfolio management.

IBM acquired in 2002 Holosofx, a business process modeling capabilities product to extend Web sphere Business Integration which then was re-branded to Websphere Business Modeler, a component for the modeling of a Business Architecture. CA acquired in 2005 Niku’s Project Portfolio Management (PPM). HP acquired in 2006 Mercury and Peregrine, companies having IT Service Management, Project Portfolio Management (PPM), and SOA Governance solutions.

Project Portfolio Management and Enterprise Architecture

PPM and Enterprise Architecture should be integrated in some way. All investments which support a Business strategy should be organized. A categorization model has to be used, followed by an evaluation and a prioritization. Once approved, the investments or demands become projects. But, how to decide when and how to make changes? How do we understand what can and can not be changed? What are the opportunities?

This is where the impact analysis and the “What if” scenarios enable to analyzethe company’s portfolio and assess the business contribution of each proposal, project, or application to an entire portfolio which needs also to be governed and managed.

An investment, a new demand should also be validated against an Enterprise Architecture. What are the impacts on the Business Architecture, the Business Processes? Does that make sense for a company to add new layers of information to an existing Information Architecture? In the context of a new solution, how does the new application affect the existing Application Architecture? Same thoughts apply on the technology architecture.

Very often Portfolio Management teams do not take into consideration these issues and may only focus on real-time visibility into resources, budgets, costs, programs, projects, and overall IT demand, but without considering impacts on the architecture.

Mature IT Governance would consider a strong interaction between a PPM team and an EA team. Once validated, an investment or a demand should be routed to the Enterprise Architecture team (can vary on the size and the scope), which add value to the first level evaluation. After a second level validation, the EA team using preferably an EA tool where specific architecture views and viewpoints have bee documented, is in a position to deliver recommendations to the PPM team.

We then go back to the company’s PPM process which adapts if necessary the budget, the costs, the resources and the program. There can be situations where the impact analysis detects side effects, or identify alternatives (may be for example the re-use of existing functions), or recommend to abandon the initiative.

Some companies which have implemented an automated process with a PPM solution would be tempted to also integrate the activities related to an Enterprise Architecture impact analysis.

Enterprise Architecture teams often use tools but rarely in an integrated way with the customer or other teams such as a PPM team. The kind of tools like Mega, Casewise, Metis-Troux technologies do not integrate yet with PPM solutions. Eventually we can consider an evolution in that direction from Telelogic which started a while ago to integrate Popkin with DOORS, the latest being maybe more a Demand Management solution than a PPM solution.

So now where are the IBM, HP, CA, and others?

Wouldn’t that make sense to use the Rational RequisitePro with Rational Portfolio Manager integrated with an EA Tool? Wouldn’t that make sense to have HP-Mercury ITG integrated with an EA Tool knowing that Systinet is an SOA governance platform and SOA surely linked to an EA program? Wouldn’t that make sense to have CA-Niku integrated with also an EA tool?

With all the small EA vendors proposing standalone products, there is a high chance that the “big names” will consider new acquisitions and the integration of EA solutions.

The Relationship Between IT Service Management and SOA

2007-04-16T16:34:00.000+02:00

The Open Group Enterprise Architecture Practitioners Conference Paris, France

April 23-25 , 2007

STREAM #15: SOA Frameworks and Standards

Wednesday April 25 11:30 – 12:00

The Relationship Between IT Service Management and SOA

Serge Thorn, Director IT Research & Innovation (Switzerland)

Synopsis:Is IT Service Management an emerging subset of SOA? There is a high level of correlation between success at SOA and commitment to ITIL. ITIL is a standardized approach and series of documents that are used to aid the implementation of a framework for IT Service Management. This customizable framework defines how ITSM is applied within an organization, covering processes such as service desk management, incident management, problem management, configuration management, change management, and release management among others.

Service oriented architecture is an architecture that allows to loosely couple capabilities that can be described as reusable services to support a business process. Processes such as availability management, change management or release management "are just business processes that are particular to IT". We now use this service-oriented architecture to link the business processes associated with IT, with the technology components that make up the IT infrastructure to an integrated platform that includes a configuration management database, an enterprise service bus, and a process orchestration layer. So we can think of IT service management as another use case or usage scenario for SOA. This session will cover XXXXX's roadmap and reflections in these two domains.

13ème Congrès Romand du Management de Projet

2007-04-11T12:40:00.000+02:00

Atelier 11 : La gestion de projet et ITIL : deux mondes opposés, complémentaires ou intégrés ? présenté par itSMF (Serge Thorn)

Jeudi 12 avril – 11h20 à 12h00

Complémentarité des processus de Project management et de Service management :

• Intégration de la gestion de projet dans une logique de "Gestion des changements"
• Intégration du recueil des besoins dans le Service Level Management
• Impact de la gestion de la demande sur le Portfolio management
• Comparatif des processus de prise de décision et de la gestion des risques.

Service Level Management and SOA. more confusion?

2007-04-04T11:32:00.000+02:00

Service Level management in an ITSM context

Everyone into ITSM may use the Service Level Management process to maintain and improve IT Service quality through a constant cycle of agreeing, monitoring and reporting to meet the customer’s business objectives.

Service Level Management is the name given to the processes of planning, coordinating, drafting, agreeing, monitoring and reporting on SLAs, and on the on-going review of service achievements to ensure that the required and cost-justifiable service quality is maintained and gradually improved.

One of the activities related to that process, is the creation of a Service Catalogue which was subject to another post: “Service Catalog, what do you exactly mean?” where I tried to distinguish the different types of catalogues when we refer to either an ITSM or an SOA environment.

Most of the time companies which have implemented a service desk have a SLM module which allows defining different kinds of level agreements:

Service Level Agreement (SLA): Which are written agreement between an IT service provider and the IT customer. SLAs are normally used for internal customers
Operational Level Agreement (OLA): Which are agreement between two internal IT areas/departments e.g. Network Management and Operations
Underpinning contract: Which are contract between an external supplier providing services to an IT department

Many vendors have dedicated modules which manage the SLM lifecycle with requirements collections, monitoring, escalation, and various dashboards. These modules are obviously linked to other ITIL processes and information is kept in the CMDB. Among various solutions we have different SLM modules from HP-Mercury, HP-Peregrine ServiceCenter, CA Unicenter Service Assure, BMC Service Level Management, Assyst for Service Level management, Expertdesk.

These solutions allow managing the end to end SLM process in an efficient manner through an ITSM view and sometimes the content is routed to a Business Service Management solution or specific modules managing SLAs in dedicated dashboards such as Tivoli Service Level Advisor among other system management solutions.

Service Level management in a SOA context

In a previous post I was referring to one of the intersection between ITSM and SOA. “Amberpoint proposes a module to manage web services, their performance and availability. It can monitor failures, send alerts, display useful information related to problematic web services, automate performance and so on.

HP Mercury Systinet 2 has a module title Contract/Consumer Management which promotes trust between consumers and providers by facilitating service-level agreements and other terms and conditions that bind these two key stakeholders.

Progress Actional Looking Glass provides dashboard and reports which define, sort and prioritize by business or IT metrics (customer, transaction or service type). SLAs are also monitored, managed, measured and alerts are generated. We can also easily monitor and report on SLA's for a specific customer or class of customer such as gold, silver, etc.

For some consistency we should differentiates SLAs in an ITSM framework from SLAs in a SOA. For these reasons a good thing would be to create a new acronym: WSLA for Web Service Level Agreement!!

A WSLA could either be attached to a specific service or to a composite service. WSLAs should then be linked to SLAs. An end user does not have to know what the underlying architecture of his applications is. The Service Level Manager (if such a position exists…) has to negotiate with the customer SLAs. If an IT service is based on various technologies including SOA, he should take into considerations OLAs, Underpinning contracts and WSLAs!!!

WSLAs could also be attached to Underpinning Contracts is web services are either 2rd party services or hosted externally.

Most of the SLM activities remain the same however some of them may differ:

The Service Level Requirement activity will have to be taken into consideration the definition of the WSLAs. It will not be necessary to specify to the customer the underlying technology.

The building of the Web Service Catalogue is different from the Service Catalogue and probably the responsibility should be shared between the SLM manager and the SOA experts.

The SLAs creation and review taking into consideration OLAs and UCs should also consider WSLAs. If possible a hierarchy should be built.

Monitoring should be done at two levels:

At the SOA level (eventually in SOA center of excellence or an operation dedicated team

At the ITSM Level (the Service Manager should have a global view on all IT services)

Coming back to Service Level Management and solutions available in the Service Desk arena, companies should be able to only deliver one and only one SLA per service and monitor it. IT and business dashboards should aggregate all underlying categories of SLAs. In other words SOA Governance vendors should be able to provides APIs to upload data related to WSLAs into any IT Service Desk/System Management solution covering the SLM process.

Achieving IT Operational Excelllence

2007-03-28T15:14:00.000+02:00

You may be interested in an article I wrote for a magazine: Pharma Focus Asia Issue 4 2007 titled :

Operational Excellence: IT governance, Enterprise Architecture and service management, which explains what are the components of such a program in my company.

The article will soon be downloadable from http://www.pharmafocusasia.com/magazine/ (issue 4), but I'm copying its content:

IT governance defines a structure of relationships, processes and measures to direct and control IT in order to achieve the enterprise's goals.

IT governance is currently a key topic for many IT functions. Its definition varies very often, but key themes remain essential for all companies: effectiveness, efficiency and reliability. Business value and risk mitigation are also at the centre of this domain. It represents a significant part of enterprise governance, and due to the horizontal nature of IT, wherein almost everyone in the enterpriseuses IT assets to complete their responsibilities, the impact of effective IT governance is most visible.

IT governance defines a structure of relationships, processes and measures to direct and control IT assets (e.g. people, finance, infrastructure) in order to achieve the enterprise's goals by adding value while balancing risk with return. It helps to define roles and responsibilities and specify accountability framework to encourage desirable behaviour in IT and accountability for the use of IT assets. ITgovernance also helps to standardise best practices and define monitoring methods.

For XXXXX International SA, IT governance has always been the responsibility of the IT management team, being an integral part of XXXXX's governance, and consists of the leadership and organisational structures and processes that ensure that the IT function sustains and extends the company’s strategies and objectives to deliver value. IT does this within acceptable risk boundarieswhile taking into account culture, organisational structure and maturity.

For the XXXXX IT function, IT governance ensures that delivery expectations are fulfilled, IT resource deployment is continuously planned, targeted and optimised while IT performance is measurable and that the risks are minimised.Among the various components of an IT governance framework, the following domains were retained as being key themes to reach a high level of quality and excellence through continuous improvement:

• Quality management
• Balance scorecard
• Risk management
• Skills management
• Project and portfolio management
• Service management
• Enterprise Architecture
• Information security management
• Audit management
• IT performance and value management

Quality management was initially the main focus for IT, and since 1999, has been certified worldwide in ISO 9001. For the last two years, quality management has also included risk management(identifying risks from strategy down to operations and providing mitigation) as well as skills management (ensuring that the staff in the IT function have the appropriate skills in line with the strategy).Since 2001, IT measures its business alignment, which is highly integrated within the business strategy, using the IT balance scorecard tool. For more than three years, service management and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) have been the drivers to improve the quality of services for the end users. XXXXX's IT function deployed the ITIL processes covering both service support and service delivery. Thepurpose of this initiative was to:

• Increase customer satisfaction with IT
• Enhance communication with clients
• Achieve higher reliability in missioncritical systems and infrastructure
• Improve the cost-benefit of services
• Create a “common sense” among staff

These processes are mostly supported by tools from HP-Peregrine and IBM Tivoli. Project management has always been a key practice for IT people. Based on a traditional System Development Life Cycle (SDLC), the methodology has been widely used by the IT function for manyyears. All projects have to comply with documentation, templates and checkpoints where project progress is monitored.Committees validate the various steps of the methodology and give their approval to move to the next phase.

Portfolio management is known internally as the “Funnel”. The portfolio governance process starts when a business user requests or suggests a new capability. The request is automatically routed to aninformation manager (internal relationship manager), then to a business analyst or team for an initial business case before being routed to the IT management committee for review and scoring. The ITmanagement team then evaluates the prioritised, ranked projects to determine the proper portfolio mix and whether to accept the recent request. The “Funnel” is:

• A categorisation model
• A common language for business and IT to:

> Support business strategy
> Organise investments
> Evaluate and prioritise IT projects
> Govern and manage applications portfolio
> Decide when and how to make changes
> Understand what can and cannot be changed
> Provide real-time visibility into resources, budgets, costs, programmes, projects, and overall IT demand

• An input to the IT strategic planSolutions from HP-Mercury help XXXXX to support both project and portfolio management. An Enterprise Architecture (EA) consists of the vision, principles, standards and processes thatguide the purchase, design and deployment of technology within an enterprise. EA describes the interrelationships between business processes, information, applications and underlying infrastructurefor that enterprise, and provides best practices for technology purchase, design and deployment. EA structures and processes govern adherence to an organisation’s technology strategy and provide amanaged environment for the use of new technology.

Enterprise Architecture

• Allows alignment with the company’s business model and strategy
• Enables business changes, technologically based business opportunities
• Easier introduction of new technologies
• Allows standardisation
• Drives information/data consolidation
• Reduces enterprise-application integration complexity
• Facilitates outsourcing as appropriate
• Utilises assets more efficiently
• Provides the facility to better assess the impact of changes
• Ultimately, reduces time to market

Architecture governance is essentially a control or series of controls in the development process which is efficient when supported by good documentation (principles, guidelines, standards) and communicated effectively. To build such an Enterprise Architecture, XXXXX considered the use of both the Zachman and the Open Group TOGAF’s frameworks. Such a programme requires solid processes with ownership and accountability.

Enterprise Architecture is a component of IT governance which interacts with most of the other frameworks such as project and portfolio management, quality, maturity and security management. To manage EA, the company decided to use the Metis-Troux technologies solution.

Security management is another component of the IT governance programme, covering both information security and technical security. The BS 7799 certification was obtained in 2005 for GenevaHQ and ISO 27001 obtained on a worldwide basis in 2006. At the beginning of 2006, a new position reporting directly to the CIO was created to further develop IT performance and value management. Keydrivers for this are: optimising IT value, demonstrating IT value as a critical component of business processes, improving the quality of IT value measurement and reporting and becoming a potentialsource of innovation.

Performance management is not a stand-alone initiative; it is a process that needs to be established and fully integrated in strategic alignment with the business, value delivery and company performancemanagement. This performance framework consistently ensures that IT:

1. Is adding business value to the corporation
2. Is meeting the real customers’ real needs
3. Is running well as a business

Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT) provides a set of best practices and tools for auditing IT processes and assessing standards compliance, maturity and associatedrisks. COBIT can be associated to other frameworks, as architecture can be audited with certain KPIs.

In the frame of an IT research and innovation initiative, CMMi has been under evaluation. It is the Capability Maturity Model Integration which has been developed by the Carnegie MellonUniversity – Software Engineering Institute, a suite of products used for process improvement. It consists of best practices that address the development and maintenance of products and services covering the product life cycle from conception through delivery and maintenance.

CCMi models could be used in conjunction with all XXXXXs IT processes found in service management(ITIL), COBIT, project management (SDLC/Prince), Enterprise Architecture (Zachman-TOGAF), quality (ISO 9001), security management (ISO 27001), but the programme has not yet been considered.IT governance at XXXXX encompasses many disciplines within the organisation including IT strategy, risk management, IT service management and compliance management to name a few. Understandably, this presents a significant challenge for companies seeking to identify a starting point for their IT governance initiative. Fortunately, best practice governance guidelines and procedures do exist within the industry. Firms, moving ahead with the adoption of a standard will be well served to utilise a phased implementation project approach and start with elements of the standard that will yield their organisation the most benefits—

• Optimised IT strategy and execution
• Improve resource utilisation
• Improve planning and resourcing
• Risk assessment
• Real-time management reporting

In 2005, a benchmark with KPMG positioned XXXXX’s IT as number one among 119 other companies in the life sciences industry. In 2006, the number one position was maintained while thenumber of organisations increased to 125. This recognition states that the IT functionis using IT best practices to support the business and that XXXXX IT controls can now be classed as “excellent”.This was driven by major improvements in the areas of IT operations (incident, problem, operation, and configuration management), security (ISO27001), control assurance (risk, audit, planning management)and Sarbanes Oxley (SOX).

BAM, CPE, BEM, or Operational BI, what are the differences?

2007-03-15T12:00:00.000+01:00

Business Intelligence (BI) in many companies has been used for several years to monitor, report and analyze, and improve business performance. Until now, most BI applications have focused on managing strategic and tactical business plans, but now Business Activity Monitoring (BAM), Complex Event Processing (CPE), Business Event Management (BEM) and/or operational BI could add a new dimension to this otherwise mature software area.

Business success demands continuous visibility into operations and processes. Operational BI or “awareness” should reduce the time between the occurrence of a business event and initiation of a response, helping a company act on competitive opportunities. Practically all operational areas need increased operational BI - awareness. Order cancellation, a late order delivery, an imbalance between resource capacity and demand, and a stock-out are just a few examples of events that require immediate action.

Increasingly, lines of businesses realize that to become more responsive, they must accelerate the flow of information, analysis and the decision-making. Major benefits of operational BI - awareness, which extend beyond strategic and tactical decision-making to daily management, include:

A real-time visibility into business processes (this would require automated processes through the use of Business Process Management suites (BPMs)
An increased business agility and flexibility
A maximized use of resources (human mostly)
Minimized risk
A collaboration with a broader set of participants

Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) is an event stream capture and has been around for many years. This is a technology and a technique that provide real-time access to key business metrics. The reasons for deploying BAM are to monitor key business objectives, anticipate operational risks, and reduce the time between a material event and taking effective action.

There are many BAM products from platform (e.g. IBM Websphere Business Monitor, Oracle BAM, BEA ProActivity Process Analysis (PA), Aptsoft product.

Business Event Monitoring (BEM) is a way to get machines in real-time to alert people when a business process is going wrong and needs human attention to get back on track. BEM focuses also on the business rules and then alerts humans when something goes wrong. The goal is to speed processes up by minimizing time lost because of an exception. As previously written, BAM monitors business processes in real time in an effort to support operational improvements. Where BAM typically concerns itself with managing a single business process, BEM is generally concerned with monitoring all current processes to provide meaningful alerts and analytics to users. We should think of BEM as real-time data mining. While BEM is not yet part of many vendor offerings, this technology is making an appearance in some products. Vitria Technology's Resolution Accelerator provides BEM capability. Lombardi Software's Undercover Agents provide also BEM functionality.

Operational BI is also about the use of operational intelligence to manage and optimize business processes. When this is deployed, the huge analytical power of BI is unleashed on everyday processes that can generate improvements in real-time. This can exist alongside traditional BI, helping organizations to improve business operations both at strategic and business process levels.

Operational BI is the way BI vendors try to sell “type of BAM” applications, but…

Currently, most of Operational BI products refer only to data sensors.

Are they linked to BPM? It seems not because they still continue to use ETL and data access replication principles. Additionally BI vendors are not the best vendors to follow some of the trends about BEM which is often seen as an extension to BAM.

Some vendors like Systar pretend to be “BAM” but are in the same basket than the BI vendors in that case. And only BPM vendors with BAM features are able top provide such link. In counterpart BAM products often do not store good historical data like for example a BI do. It is then difficult to make comparison between operation data with historical data.

As already described, the ultimate goal of BAM environments is to immediately react from dashboards and the goal of BEM is to link the detection of events (including compound events collected for example by CEP) and then provide different management features like : diagnosis help, root cause analysis, management by exception. All of those require BAM (or operational BI) to work closer with the event generator: BPM in particular or other sensors. If we link those at data level only we miss the point. That means that every time we change a process we would have for example to reconfigure the data access, KPI and so on. Operational BI products are not
bad solutions but good for some customers and not enough for others.

The term BAM may become out of vogue in the future and vendors will turn to marketing their products under the banner of Operational BI. BI and BPM are two separate technology areas, complement each other and will converge over the next three to five years. Currently they are being used today in their respective worlds with very little overlap.

Release Management should be utilized in a SOA environment

2007-02-20T10:31:00.000+01:00

Release Management is one of the Service Support ITIL processes that allows planning and overseeing the successful rollout of software and related hardware. Deploying Release Management will encourage IT Management to designin and implement efficient procedures for the distribution and installation of changes to IT systems, and will ensure that hardware and software being changed is traceable, secure and that only correct, authorized and tested versions are installed. IT Operations groups that are implementing ITIL Release Management in a SOA context should collaborate with Application Development leaders to extend those processes for new kinds of distributed applications and services.

IT Service Management and SOA Governance concepts

Application Development teams building SOA solutions either internally or externally or mixing both approaches must consider the ITIL Release Management process to rollout any software and hardware components.

ITIL is a set of Best Practice recommendations for IT Service Management. ITIL consists of a series of publications giving guidance on the provision of Quality IT Services, and on the Processes and facilities needed to support them. These services which are used by the user/customer can take the form of applications that they use (e.g. email services, components of HR systems, ERP and financial systems) or other services which are utilized, such as internet access, printing services, etc.

A SOA Service is defined as a unit of work to be performed on behalf of some computing entity, such as a human user or another program. SOA defines how two computing entities, such as programs, interact in such a way as to enable one entity to perform a unit of work on behalf of another entity.

The SOA Service is much more granular that an IT Service and the latest can be the aggregation of several SOA Services. For these reasons, more and more IT Service Management and SOA will relate to each other and be part of an SOA Governance framework which should really be considered as part of a broader IT Governance strategy.

SOA is introducing many independent and self-contained moving parts, components that are typically widely reused across the enterprise and are a vital part of mission-critical business processes; it becomes critical to properly manage the life cycle. SOA governance usually includes:

Lifecycle management. This involves the definition, the implementation and the enforcement of policies and processes across the entire SOA lifecycle.

Policy management. This process is used for a successful web services deployment ensuring that services, XML messages and transactions comply with local and global security and operational policies. This woulde include access-control list management, identity management authentication and authorization policies.

Contract management. This activity consits of managing the relationships between service consumers and providers. Policies, capabilities and Service Level Agreements (SLA) are negotiated. Service Level Management is an ITIL Service Delivery process can be used.

SOA metadata management. More and more data services are created based on various information sources, metadata centric visibility tying data services to their associated information sources participating in Data Integration techniques is critical. SOA Metadata management can be based on SOA Metadata repository and SOA Registry.

Activities within Release Management must also cover SOA solutions but have additional constraints

Release Management helps to communicate and manage expectations of the Customer during the planning and rollout of new Releases. It also allows agreeing the exact content and rollout plan for the Release, through liaison with the Change Management process. New software or hardware releases are then implemented into the operational environment using the controlling processes of Configuration Management and Change Management. Also, a Release should be under Change and Configuration Management and may consist of any combination of hardware, software, firmware and document Configuration Items.

Release Management activities in the development, control, test and live environments include:

Release policy and planning. The Release Policy document covers Release numbering, frequency, the level in the IT infrastructure that will be controlled by definable Releases. The SOA policy defines configurable rules and conditions that affect services during design time and at runtime. The SOA policy is used to validate services at design-time, well before they're released to consumers, and is used to enforce specific standards and behaviors at runtime. The Release Policy has to include instructions such that deployed SOA solutions have to comply with the SOA Policy. Release Planning would also have to include applications running on SOA infrastructure.

Release design, build and configuration. The Release design of a SOA application differs from a classical application as several web services can be aggregated for a composite application from in-house developments or from third party components. License, support a and Service level Agrements will have to be defined at the web service level and Application Development groups will have to negotiate at the component level with the different vendors. The Release Build will require additional efforts because of the highest granularity of software components and also because an impact analysis is required to identify what other applications could be affected. Configuration will require detailed procedures for installation from all web services providers.

Release acceptance. This activity is responsible for testing a Release, and its implementation and Back-out Plans, to ensure they meet the agreed Business and IT Operations Requirements. Additional consideration has to be given to existing applications already using some component of the release. An impact analysis will conduct to a non-regression testing for other applications already using some components. A controlled test environment must be configured to replicate the current live version also taking into account external web services. Vendors should be able to contribute to the release and provide as well a test environenment.

Rollout planning. First of all it is almost impossible to agree a rollout plan without consulting the customers; indeed they are an integral part of the planning. So to meet this goal companies will need to work closely with the customers to prepare a release or rollout plan that not only meets IT needs but also takes into account customer availability and their business deliverables. Once the plan is agreed, the IT department will need to provide constant feedback to the customers during the processing of the Release or rollout. Ideally the customers should be able to view the plan on-line any time and should receive regular reports from the plan team leader. SOA applications do not really impact this activity as customers are often not aware of the underlying architecture.

Extensive testing to predefined acceptance criteria. Testing of a Build or Release to ensure that the parts including the web services work correctly together. SOA will require additional non-regression testing because of the potential share of components between old and new applications. Tests may have to include vendors’ components when used and will require dedicated tests vendors environments even if the web service is hosted somewhere else.

Signoff of the Release for implementation.

Communication, preparation and training.

Distribution and installation. This will cover the installation of new or upgraded hardware and the distribution and installation of software. The ITIL Definitive Software Library (DSL) which is the storage of controlled software in both centralized and distributed systems will also contain the SOA hardware and software components. External components will have to be documented in a SOA registry-repository as they will be hosted externally.

SOA Repository and Registry

The ability to register, discover, and manage Web services is an essential requirement for any SOA implementation. This need may not be fully appreciated in the early stages of an SOA rollout when dealing with a small number of services but becomes almost mandatory when there is a need to support a large number of Web services. When the number of services deployed grows to dozens or hundreds, centralized facilities for access and control of service metadata and artifacts becomes critical. A service registry provides these capabilities and becomes a key infrastructural component. First generation service registries were based on the UDDI standard but new products have recently emerged from various vendors inspired by the standard.

SOA Repositories and registries should integrate with CMDBs (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Registry and Repository linked to a CMDB

Product choices and strategies

Systinet is a mature solution but requires further integration in the HP IT Service Management suite. The roadmap for HP’s IT Service Management soultions identified Peregrine ServiceCenter has the evolution for the HP OpenView Service Desk. However as HP also acquired Mercury, the future of the HP CMDB will target Appilog (Now Mercury Application Mapping). In January 2006 Mercury extended its offering with Systinet which provides the foundation for SOA Governance and lifecycle management. Mercury ITG for the time being manages Change and Release Management, Peregrine ServiceCenter manages Change Management, and Systinet 2 manages SOA Changes. The Governance Interoperability framework (GIF) developed by multiple SOA vendors does not seem to cover the integration with a federated CMDB[i].
IBM proposes its Websphere Service Registry and Repository V6 which integrates with the Tivoli CCMDB. This solution will communicate with Tivoli CCMDB which manages Changes and Configuration. The Tivoli CCMDB also integrates with IBM Tivoli Release Process Manager and Tivoli Configuration Manager which are other Release Management modules. The end to end solution will have to be validated.
Flashline which joined in august 2006 the BEA Aqualogic product family is a new offering but BEA until now distributed Systinet. Flashline is now the BEA Aqualogic Enterprise Repository, has out of the box connectors source code management systems but does not have yet integration with ITSM suites.
Webmethods acquired Infravio but seems more focused on new clients acquisition with an integration with Fabric. Its governance edition integrates with System Management suites such as IBM Tivoli, BMC Patrol, CA Unicenter but custom development would be required.
Amberpoint is a Web services management product which completes a repository-registry. Amberpoint integrates into any IT environment and specifically system management suites, but does not consider yet ITSM (although it does deliver a module related to SLM).

Release Management is a pre-requisite to properly manage the service lifecycle

IT infrastructure and operations/engineering professionnals using IT Service Management and starting SOA programs should evaluate the maturity of their Release Management process or consider its implementation. The acquisition of a SOA Governance platform must take into consideration existing IT Service Management suites in order to have as a target an end to end view of the SOA components deployment. Without any integration, operations staffs will not be able to quickly track the end to end life cycle and carry out root cause analyse in an efficient way in case of problems.

Review the process activities and ensure they take into consideration components based on SOA infrastructures. Release policy and planning will be adapted to SOA solutions implementations taking into consideration the use of potential external and distributed web services. Design and build of a Release will have to integrate more granular components which can be hosted externally and sold by vendors. Service Level Agreements will have to be defined not only at the IT Service level but also at the Web service level. Testing will have to cover non-regression for shared application components and situations were componets are hosted externally.
Evaluate cautiously SOA Governance platfoms. SOA Management platforms, metadata repositories and registries should take into account not only Release and Change Management, but also Service Level Management from Service Management suites. Identify the vendor’s strategy in terms of either partnership with ITSM vendors, or internal roadmaps such as IBM and HP.
Understand the level of integration required between products. A complete integration would be ideal but the existing solutions are not yet there. Some vendors have started to understand the need for integration between a SOA Registry and repository and a CMDB in a federated way, the repository-registry being considered as a specialized database in this federation. Some others are only provinding APIs to system management solutions.
Ensure that Underpinning Contracts are covering Release Management for third party components. Companies building applications either composite or integrating in BPM activities third party web services should define in a SLA with the vendors how new external components versions should be managed in the Release Management process. Vendors should not be allowed to upgrade customers web services without any authorization if hosted externally. The contract should specify that any new component modification will be part of the customer’s IT Operations Releases covering testings.

What It means...

Convergence between the SOA registry, repository and the CMDB

The registry and repository of SOA has allowed convergence of the development time asset repository with the run-time service registry. We must now proceed into the management repository. As we frequently see another repository associated with that space called the Configuration Management Database, or CMDB. A convergence across this space is required in order to be able to correctly track the end to end life cycle of Web services as well as to maintain an up to date software and hardware information. Part of the metadata associated with a service needs to be the machines where it is deployed. The chances are that information may already be in the CMDB.

Non ITSM shops will integrate SOA Governance Platforms with adhoc deployment solutions

Companies which have not considered ITIL as an IT Operations framework can deploy a SOA Repository and Registry without fully considering the Release Management process. They will be able to manage the service lifecycle and if they have a software deployment product, they will use it for deployment. Reconciliaton between the various products will have to kept manually or integration development will be required. However IT Operations group haven’t yet endorsed IT Service Management and starting to embrace ITIL will gain substential benefits in terms of customer’s quality of service. Release Management among other processes such as Change and Service Level Management will definitly improve the quality of SOA solutions.

[i] Ten leading SOA vendors have partnered with Systinet for the GIF, including Above All Software, Actional, AmberPoint, Composite Software, DataPower, HP, Layer 7 Technologies, MetaMatrix, Reactivity, and Service Integrity.

ITIL 2007

2007-02-13T11:23:00.000+01:00

Le forum pour tous les DSI et les responsables d'ITIL

22 - 23 mai 2007, Hotel Concorde LAFAYETTE, Paris

Les relations entre IT Service Management et Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)

Les liens entre IT Service Management et SOA
La relation de certains processus ITIL avec SOA. Ou sont les intersections ?
La gouvernance SOA, ses composantes, le cycle de vie des services
Un exemple, comment le processus de Release Management s’intègre dans une gouvernance SOA
Les outils qui peuvent supporter les processus, l’architecture et la gouvernance

Urbanisation des Systèmes d’Information & Architecture d’Entreprise 2007

2007-02-13T11:14:00.000+01:00

Urbanisation des Systèmes d’Information & Architecture d’Entreprise 2007

Communiquer et Vendre son Projet d’Urbanisation comme un Investisssement de long terme & Estimer la Valeur et la Rentabilité de cet Investissement

Event Date: 26-27 March 2007

Location: A Five Star Venue To Be Announced Shortly, Paris, France

14:30 Mise en Oeuvre d'une Gouvernance Informatique, démarche, standards, processus et outils

Vision de XXXXXX des composantes d'une Gouvernance IT (ex: ITIL, CMMi, TOGAF, Cobit, ISO)
Les standards des domaines de Recherche et Innovation, Architecture d'Enterprise,
Service Management ainsi que leurs relations
Définition et démarche des processus clés de Gouvernance
Choix d'outils pour le support des standards de Gouvernance IT
Intégrer l'Architecture d'Enterprise comme composant clé de la Gouvernance
Faire fonctionner le tout ensemble!

The relationship between IT Service Management and SOA

2007-02-13T10:50:00.000+01:00

INFOTECH for Pharma & Biotech

12 - 15 March 2007 Novotel London West, UK

15.05 The relationship between IT Service Management and SOA

Is IT Service Management an emerging subset of SOA? There is a high level of correlation between success at SOA and commitment to ITIL. ITIL is a standardized approach and series of documents that are used to aid the implementation of a framework for IT Service Management. This customizable framework defines how ITSM is applied within an organization, covering processes such as service desk management, incident management, problem management, configuration management, change management, and release management among others.

Service oriented architecture is an architecture that allows to loosely couple capabilities that can be described as reusable services to support a business process. Processes such as availability management, change management or release management “are just business processes that are particular to IT”. We now use this service-oriented architecture to link the business processes associated with IT, with the technology components that make up the IT infrastructure to an integrated platform that includes a configuration management database, an enterprise service bus, and a process orchestration layer. So we can think of IT service management as another use case or usage scenario for SOA. This session will cover xxxxxx's roadmap and reflections in these two domains.

Are there any relationship between Demand Management, Requirement Management, Request Management and Change Management?

2007-01-23T16:00:00.000+01:00

In the context of IT, Demand Management is a process which manages the complex and strategic IT demand requests issued by the business. In this process we prioritize, consolidate, schedule the requests, enabling the business users and IT to collaborate efficiently at every step, cutting costs and accelerating resolution. Normally, this is an activity belonging to Portfolio Management which is the the process of determining (and monitoring) how much money the enterprise should spend on the various categories of IT-enabled business investments. Demand Management works with both business and its IT peers through an ongoing and iterative process that aggregates demand for IT services, represents the resources requested and their costs to the business, and helps optimize the deployment of IT resources over time. Demand Management is often covered by Portfolio Management solutions or Request Management solutions.

A few examples are Mercury ITG, Clarity (Niku) from CA, Compuware Changepoint and Borland Tempo.

These suites are more in the PPM market than anything else and these vendors should be considering to link PPM suites with IT Service Management suites for several reasons.

Requirements Management is the science and art of gathering and managing user, business, technical, functional requirements, and process requirements within a product development project. The project could be for a new consumer product, a web site, a system or a software application. In all these cases, the five classes of requirements should be represented.

Solutions such as RequisitePro from IBM and Telelogic Doors support that process.

Here we see in some way some identical concepts with Demand Management and potential links also with IT Servie Management.

But let’s still define two additional concepts.

ITIL doesn't have a separate process for Request Management as it does, for instance, with Incident Management in version 2. The Request Management will manage (from request to fulfillment) the goods and services requested by users based on the catalog provided. Standardized goods and services can be made available to the end users through self-service interface or by calling the Service Desk. When handling the request the Request Management will also refer to the SLA.. Version 3 should clarify the situation and define a new process, where Service Requests are now a function of Request Management which ties on the Change Management process (In version 2, Service Requests were a part of the 'Incident Mangement' life cycle).

The Change Management process ensure that standardized methods and procedures are used for efficient and prompt handling of all changes to minimize the impact of change-related incidents and improve day-to-day operations. Changes are issued either from Incidents, Problems or customer’s requests. There are also touch points between Project Management and Change Management.

Finally and to keep it very simple, everything is about a user asking something to an IT department, with different levels of importance. From a new product to a new service, from a additional or new feature to a physical piece of hardware, allowing the business to be more efficient.

There should be a clear alignment of these concepts with an end to end process, integrating IT Service Management at the end. All demands should end up in the ITIL Change Management process and vendors should integrate their platforms to facilitate that integration.

IT Research and Innovation: Preparing the future

2007-01-16T14:42:00.001+01:00

IT Research and Innovation provides a framework for an organization to achieve IT objectives through the systematic and sustainable applicatoin of innovative processes and methods. Innovation encompasses everything from product development to process improvement and employee engagement.

To run such initiative, it is important to define an IT Research and Innovation framework describing a flexible, structured process achievable within any organization. A framework helps to tap into human capital and creative potential of the IT department within the context of a focused approach of delivering business value to drive a variety of innovation-related activities: new service development, process improvement/development, new technologies and IT methodologies, the implementation of IT services and systems.

An IT Research & Innovatoin pipeline consists of a new approach to help the IT Department to put innovation into a wider context within the IT organization.

As research progresses, specific areas of an Innovation Pipeline is expanded with the goal of developing a coherernt and consistent framework aimed at achieving strategic IT objectives through the systemic and sustainable application of innovation through an IT department.

Various solutions supporting Innovation as a process do exist and can easily be implemented in any company. As an example: Brightidea.

Business Processes and Services are not always correctly associated

2006-12-20T09:49:00.000+01:00

For a few months, discussion around processes and services has been a hot topic in my company. Everybody has his own interpretation and very few information exist related to the subject.

This post is the follow up to a previous article I wrote a while ago:

What is a Service?

It is important to specify that sometimes when people talk, the term Service has to be considered either as an ITSM Service or an SOA Service-web service. This is clear to me that BPM and SOA should be tightly integrated, but let’s look at this slightly differently…

A Business Process has activities. An activity could be one to many Services.

But you can also look at this in another way...

A Service is one to many Business Processes. A Business Process has activities, and as already said, an activity is one to many Services. Isn’t this confusing?

What I try to say is that we need to be clear (at least for me...) when we talk of a Service. Are we talking of Service in Service Management terms, or in SOA Terms?

As an example:

The Service "e-mail" has several Business Processes such has:

Creation of email, classification, forwarding, etc...
Calendar Management, invitation for meetings, reminders, etc..
etc..

If for example we define the Calandar Management process and look at activities, maybe at some stage we would define a Service which lookup for availability of people in a meeting. This would be an SOA Service "Availability of people"...

To summarize and be clear, I would claim that ITSM Services could count one to many Business Processes, and Business Processes could one to many SOA Services. “E-mail” is an ITSM Service and “creation of an email” being a transaction is an SOA Service.

Does this make sense?

Innovation has to be the result of an Enterprise Architecture program

2006-12-11T17:04:00.000+01:00

One of the steps of an Enterprise Architecture program is to look at Business Architecture. The Enterprise Architect or the Business Architect (sometimes a Business Analyst) starts to describe the current Baseline Architecture. This is usually done through MS Visio types of diagrams or with either the use of an Enterprise Architecture or a Business Process Analysis tool. The Business Architecture defines the organization value chains and how all its business processes fit together, are managed, monitored, measured, etc.

Then that team starts to develop a target Business Architecture describing the product and/or service strategy, and the organizational, functional, process, event, information, and geographic aspects of the business environment.

There must be then an analysis related to the gaps between the Baseline and the Target Business Architecture. As with the Baseline artifacts, the Target architecture information should be captured in with a phased approach with the organization Enterprise Architecture stakeholders and senior management. Once populated, the variance between the existing baseline, view and the transitional and future, target, views is used to identify the performance gaps in the Enterprise Architecture. The Performance Gap (also know as the transition strategy information to migrate the organization from its “As-Is” architecture to the organization “To-Be” architecture) information is then used to help identify what investments need to be supported for funding and implementation.

But during this Gap analysis phase, the Enterprise Architect plays a fundamental role in enabling business innovation, and facilitating the provision of a flexible and resilient infrastructure. His role will be to manage and incubate successful ideas through to implementation, as the Business is always looking at innovations in products, services, and business models to drive growth and profits.

A good Enterprise Architect also needs to be an innovator.

Innovation is critical, especially in today’s rapidly changing technology and business landscape. Having a n Enterprise Architecture that supports an IT Strategy and provides the flexibility to achieve the right balance between IT efficiency and business innovation is a keystone to business adaptability and growth.

"The CMDB Initiative..”, but where is the evolution?

2006-12-08T12:59:00.000+01:00

Late April, a group of system and service management vendors decided to propose a standard related to a repository for IT assets, and their configurations items change over time.

In other words, BMC, Fujitsu, IBM and HP decided to create a model for a CMDB which would allow storing information such as desktop and laptop client images or configurations, servers, storage pools or networks and so on.

Very often information is spread among various sources and no standards exist on how to exchange meta data from all these potential sources of CMDB information. Today, the CMDB interfaces that exist are all proprietary, which is the problem that this group wants to tackle.
This working group will issue a white paper within the next month that will spell out their initial goals in more detail. And by the end of the year, they hope to have a draft specification proposal, at which point they hope to formalize the process by choosing a standards body.

But is that enough?

Focusing on data exchange is fine but shouldn’t they also consider the CMDB Meta data and propose a common model eventually re-usable by third parties?

All vendors’ CMDB have their own Meta model and as from now I have never seen from any vendor a roadmap related to the repository. As an example, with the acquisition of both Mercury and Peregrine, HP initially announced the migration from the HP Openview Service Desk, to Service Center, and now has announced that next CMDB would be the one from Mercury, which is in fact…Appilog… (An acquisition from Mercury). So what!

There is a need for a “next generation CMDB” for the following reasons:

- BPM based on a SOA architecture invoque IT components (software on hardware…) and we should have a link between a Business Process and the underlying Cis. A CMDB should also be process based.
- Relation is important that’s for sure but dependencies is another key topic. How does infratructure relates one to the other, how information relates one to the other, how physically components relates one to the other, how does application code relates (Cendura acquired by CA is maybe one of the only company which deleivred that capability) etc… A CMDB should be also able to add dependencies on the top of relationships.

This initiative will help the concept of federated CMDB and information exchange but will not really look at today’s requirements… A unified Meta model could be an interesting initiative for these vendors as this would create a new generation of unified Service management/Business Process management solutions.

IT Processes, Business Processes, who is coordinating what?

2006-12-05T12:14:00.000+01:00

More and more IT departments refer to IT Governance, Best Practices, quality and processes. To run efficiently an IT shops, processes are supposed to help companies to excel. The disctinction between best practices and processes is not so clear but let’s assume that this is complimentary. Processes are either standardized; refer to existing frameworks such as ITIL, Six Sigma, eTOM and other best practices.

An IT Process is also a Business Process. It has only an “IT Flavour”.

Looking at the Business side, Business Process Reegineering (BPR) and now Business Process Management (BPM) are activities which also look at improving how a Business works. Some companies develop a target Business Architecture describing the product and/or service strategy, and the organizational, functional, process, event, information, and geographic aspects of the business environment.

Very often, based on my experience, and observations, IT processes do not have a process owner. If there are owners, sometimes they are siloed. As an example, the ITIL Incident Management process owner does not work in harmony with the ITIL Availability Management process owner, etc. Sometimes, politics, company’s mindset, or personnel agendas, prevent to do a consistent job.

On the Business side, it happens also that processes are siloed and not cross-functional. The integration between IT Processes and Business Processes is even not considered despite the fact that all Business Processes should be linked to IT Processes. The processes and activities of a Line of Business have Incidents, Problems, issues with availability etc…

The first step would be to have for the IT department a Service Manager (e.g. ITIL) to coordinate all the processes related to IT Service Management. On a parallel, the Business should also have owners for their processes.

Recently I was looking at some documentation related to the SAP ESA (Enterprise Service Oriented Architecture) and found a very interesting comment from Shai Agassi, member of the SAP Executive Board and president of the SAP Product and Technology Group (PTG). He claimed that “Chief Information Officer” function is morphing into two distinctive roles: the Chief Process Innovation Officer (CPIO), and the Chief IT Officer (CITO, to coin a new acronym). In this new model, the CPIO is in charge of innovative business processes and continuous process integration.”

All processes have definetly to be coordinated, IT or not in a consistent way. As improving processes allows to bring innovation, this new role (Chief Process Innovation Officer), would allow companies to create new synergies, between the Business and IT, considering the CPIO as a partner of LOBs, in charge of processes deisgns with the business’ network. That position would require new skills to be developed as part of the IT organization. Such a role would be the best way to create an harmony for IT/Business processes.

Service Catalog, what do you exactly mean?

2006-12-01T11:47:00.000+01:00

These days everybody is referring to a Service Catalog whatever that means. Unfortunately there is some misunderstanding between people as sometimes they are referring to SOA and sometimes to IT Service Management.

An ITSM Service Catalog describes all services that are offered by a service provider. In some cases, all services offered by the IT department of a company. The Service Catalog is part of the entire Service Level Management process. The Service Catalog describes the standard services offered, based on which agreements are made with clients. These agreements are subsequently covered in Service Level Agreements. It also becomes the basis for documenting procedures and processes in an IT organization.

Depending on the purpose the organization hopes to achieve, the service catalog may be rich in detail or simply provide a top level explanation of services. An IT department manages, maintains and supports part of the IT infrastructure of the Organization. This infrastructure consists of a large quantity of products with which services can be provided.

These services are described in the Service Catalog.

To first identify services, we have to work from the perspective of the core business purposes. Then, look at what IT offerings support those services. After the core purposes, we have to move into those supporting areas that IT also serves, such as administrative or general organizational support. The entire Service Catalog should be viewed from the customer’s perspective. Some services can be further broken down into sub services as well.

For every service a clear description and all relevant characteristics are included. Based on this a client can assess the business application and the usefulness of a service for their own organization.

After looking at services from the business perspective, we start to define each service with the following information:

-Service Name (a simple description, preferably the same name the customer would use)
-Service Description (high-level description of the service written in language customers can understand)
-Support Contact Point (Where should the customer begin an inquiry or report problems regarding the service?)
-Responsible Manager (Contact person responsible for the service)
-Customers/Users (What set of customers (specific or general) utilizes this service?)
-Detailed Specifications (Some items may not require all of these elements, but possible elements to include in specifications are):

Inputs (hardware, software, infrastructure, customer inputs, etc.)
Outputs (final products viewed from a customer perspective)
Default items always included
Optional items the customer may request or pay extra for
Excluded items which are never included
Service hours of availability
Up-time and service availability goals
Support provided
Performance standards for the service
Customer procedures for starting, changing or ending the service
Charges (if appropriate)
Disaster/recovery
Data Integrity
Security
Training
Etc.

A Service Catalog is intended for all clients of an IT department, in other words, the business unit managers and/or their representatives that want to be extensively informed about the services offered by the IT department of his company.

An SOA Service Catalog has another goal: to manage, organise and reuse services. One of the key promises of SOA is reuse on a much more granular level than one could ever hope to achieve with pure object oriented techniques, but reuse isn't something that we get for free. Particularly, reuse problems arise when others within a teamdepartmententerprise don't realise that we have already defined and/or built a particular service that they could reuse.

To achieve in some way that objective, a SOA Service Catalog needs to exist and document the basis of each service. To build such a Service Catalog is not an easy task as you will need to first define the granularity of your services (please refer to my previous post: What is a Service?) which decribes the differences between an SOA Service and an ITSM Service).

As for an ITSM Service Catalog, information has also to be identified and captured:

Service name
Description
Type of service (e.g. business, application specific, data, etc)
Service level agreements and other quality of service characteristics (e.g. performance, scalability, security, availability, etc)
For each service operation
Operation name
Description
Request/response messages input/output parameters and possible errors
Pre-conditions
Post-conditions
Whether the operation is idempotent

SOA Service catalogs leverage both Web services (application services (provided by reusable software components) that are typically found further down around the middle of the IT stack) and BPM to eliminate an expensive burden on business. To be effective, that service catalog must contain services in the language of the customer, must be transactional and finally flexible.

For sure both Catalogs relate one to the other but what is contained inside is quite different. The SOA Service Catalog should be considered as a Service Registry. The future will tell us how to link both catalogs once synergies between ITSM and SOA will be better documented and companies will have reach an upper level of maturity in these two domains.