SenseAgility group Podcasts

 

Decoding Business/IT Unity (March 2010)

A lot has been written and said on the topic of Business/IT Alignment.  A lot of methods have been tried, and yet the goal has never seemed as elusive as it does in today's business climate. Business comes to the table with the  increased pressures of the business cycle, the ever increasing information velocity, and the ever-more demanding client.  IT comes to the table with solutions that seem to only increase in complexity bolstered by ever expanding technology disciplines, vendors, and standards, not to mention the baggage of years of suboptimal decisions coming home to roost. Business comes to the table from the top down.  IT from the bottom up. They each speak a myriad of different 'Englishes'. They generally have an issue agreeing on how to define terms of engagement, or even who should own those terms, something we commonly see bubble up to the surface as data governance challenges. The mismatch between the business operating models of IT and their business stakeholders (or BOMM for short) can provide clues as to why the relationship between business and IT sometimes comes to resemble a cold war.  This presentation will examine Business IT Alignment Patterns (and anti-Patterns) from the perspective of Business P&L Owners at various sizes of organization.

ACORD Panel - SOA and the Insurance Industry: Lessons Learned From the Trenches (May 2009)

In this user panel, several practitioners will look at the links, synergies and dependencies between service-oriented architecture (SOA) and the insurance industry. How does SOA fit into the picture? How can it become more valuable? Does SOA need to be part of a broader scope? Hear firsthand experience and lessons learned from the panelists.

Moderator(s):

Richard Soley, Object Management Group;

Panelists:

Matthew Josefowicz, Novarica, a Novantas company
Paul Ayoub, Employers Insurance Company
Aleks Buterman, Lincoln Financial Group


Relationship between EA, SOA, Business Architecture & BPM (March 2009)

Abstract: Interview with SearchCIO (TechTarget) on the (mostly) made up battle lines between SOA and BPM disciplines. Neither is right nor wrong - this is not a "Highlander" scenario. Both are complimentary organizations looking at distinct perspectives to achieve value, and should be incentivised to collaborate to achieve the optimal value for the company.

 

Gartner AADI Summit User Panel: Measuring Value of SOA Panel (December 2008)

In the opening statements, the panelists – Aleks Buterman of Lincoln Financial Group, Kevin Forbes of Healthways, Mark Kyzko of US Department of Defense, and Michael Onders of National City Corporation – all spoke of business transformation concerns driving SOA and shared key metrics related to their efforts. Like the drivers, the metrics were business focused, such as dollars saved, revenue growth enabled, cost avoidance, business accuracy, business efficiency, time to market and business agility.

A key to success mentioned by all panelists is business architecture, specifically business capability mapping. Shifting the traditional business-IT conversation from application specific features and functions to common business capabilities accelerated business buy-in, increased business participation, and in one case, changed IT funding practices, resulting in lines of credit for shared business capabilities.

After the opening statements, the panelists engaged in conversation with each other, the audience, and moderators on a variety of topics, including how to measure business agility; the ties between data management, business visibility and SOA; and the heightened rigor in testing practices and environments to accommodate the complexity of a shared services environment.

Panel Abstract:
In this session, several practitioners will share first-hand experience of justifying and measuring the value of their service-oriented architecture (SOA) activities.

Key Issues:

  • How to make the initial business case and continuously demonstrate the benefits?
  • What metrics to use?
  • What return on investment (ROI) to expect?
  • What challenges have they encountered, and how did they overcome them?

Moderators:

Nicholas Gall, Gartner
Richard Soley, Executive Director, SOA Consortium; Chairman and CEO, Object Management group

Panelists:

Aleks Buterman, Lincoln Financial Group
Kevin Forbes, Healthways, Inc.
Mark Kryzko, US Dept. of Defense
Michael Onders, National City Corporation


Gartner EA Summit User Panel: SOA and EA: Lessons Learned From the Trenches (December 2008)

In the opening statements, the panelists –Todd Biske of Monsanto, Aleks Buterman of Lincoln Financial Group and Kanai Pathak of Schlumberger – spoke of the relationship between their EA and SOA practices, including how perceptions of “EA as an ivory tower practice” can impede SOA startup and acceptance. Value delivery is the best way to overcome this cultural obstacle; “success is contagious”.

After the opening remarks, the audience tapped into the knowledge and experience of the panelists on a variety of topics, including applying service-orientation to business process, information and integration issues; marketing a SOA program, measuring SOA value, governance, and achieving SOA maturity.

As the session closed, each panelist shared a lesson learned the hard way:

  • Don’t “deploy and forget” your services, assign an owner for long term care and feeding, and consumer relationship management.
  • Don’t mire the business in complex business analysis artifacts. Elicit information from the business, without bogging them down in unfamiliar, unwelcome, techniques and artifacts.
  • Don’t underestimate the impact of expedited software development on downstream testing and deployment activities. Perform business process analysis on your SDLC and apply automation wherever possible.

Session Abstract:
In this user panel, co-moderated by Gartner and the SOA Consortium, several EA practitioners will look at the links, synergies and dependencies between SOA and enterprise architecture. How does SOA fit into the EA picture? How can it help make EA more valuable? Does SOA need to be part of a broader EA? Hear from our panelists about their first-hand experience and lessons learned, and ask them your own SOA/EA questions.

Moderators:

Nicholas Gall, Gartner
Dr. Richard Mark Soley, Executive Director, SOA Consortium; Chairman and CEO, Object Management Group

Panelists:

Aleks Buterman, Lincoln Financial Group
Todd Biske, Senior Enterprise Architect, Monsanto
Kanai Pathak, Schlumberger