Advising on IT-business alignment Rethinking enterprise and infrastructure architecture Microsoft...
-
date post
20-Dec-2015 -
Category
Documents
-
view
214 -
download
0
Transcript of Advising on IT-business alignment Rethinking enterprise and infrastructure architecture Microsoft...
advising on IT-business alignment
mwdmacehiterward-dutton
Rethinking enterprise and infrastructure
architecture
Microsoft Infrastructure Architect Forum
24 October 2005Neil Macehiter, Partner
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 2
Key messages for today
IT-business alignment has never been so important
Alignment must be pursued in the context of understanding business processes, priorities
Service-orientation is not just for applications Contracts aren’t just about function: they
encapsulate and communicate business priorities to IT delivery organisations
Enterprise architecture needs to be more inclusive, sophisticated
IT governance models must take all this into account
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 3
Agenda
Business and IT: new tensions IT-business alignment Alignment principle #1: service-oriented IT Alignment principle #2: understanding
business processes and their priorities Enterprise architecture must reflect IT-
business alignment principles A governance model for service-oriented IT Recommendations
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 4
A brief introduction to MWD
Strategic advice and consulting Focus on issues concerning IT-business
alignment– Driving more business value out of enterprise IT– Not about the “nuts and bolts” of individual
technologies
Core: two highly experienced industry analysts / practitioners– Sun, Oracle, Sybase, Ovum, Deloitte Consulting,
etc
Based in UK, Europe-wide focus
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 5advising on IT-business alignment
mwdmacehiterward-dutton
Business and IT: new tensions
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 6
Business pressures are driving change in new ways
Globalisation– Customers, partners, suppliers – and
competition– Connectedness driving sophisticated value
chains
Transparency– Industry regulations, consumer pressure and
competition driving openness
Service focus– Differentiation and shareholder value
increasingly derived from service experience
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 7
Common resulting business/technology change projects/scenarios
Managing and proving regulatory compliance
Refinement of approaches to business and technology outsourcing
Integration of processes horizontally across organisations
Integration of processes, products and offerings between organisations
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 8
The challenge: IT often fails to support these types of changes effectively
Technology integration is costly, risky and complicated
Information is everywhere, but getting access to the right information at the right time is very difficult
Modifying system behaviour takes too long and changes are difficult to communicate and implement effectively
Much of IT system and operations expenditure is bloated and fixed - operations run with excess redundant capacity
The result: IT seen as a cost centre, not a source of business value
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 9
Dynamic, collaborative processes (product innovation, marketing, strategy setting, etc)
Stable, predictable processes (accounting,
order fulfilment, HR, logistics, etc)
Web user experience (increasing numbers of ERP/CRM applications, content management, etc)
Desktop user experience (office
productivity, communication/
collaboration, etc)
Unstructured information (office documents, web content etc)
Structured information (customer records, order &
fulfilment records, accounts, etc)
Three fractures: information management, process support and user experience
Information management
Process support
User experience
Strong heritage of
management; BUT tends
to be application-
specific
Little heritage of
formal management; storage is fragmented
Strong heritage of
management; BUT tends
to be application-
specific
Little structured automated
support from IT
Familiar, highly
interactive BUT tends
to be application-
specific
Open and accessible
environments but
usability can be poor
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 10advising on IT-business alignment
mwdmacehiterward-dutton
IT-business alignment
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 11
IT-business alignment: multiple angles
IT
Business
Changeimplications
Changecapabilities,limitations
Investmentin capability
Deliveryof value
It’s not just about “building stuff that the business will use”
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 12
A common language is the essential starting point
IT
Business
?
“Investment prioritised in terms of business need”
“Systems that deliver value to the business”
“Clear direction from the business about focus, strategy”
“Collaborative approach to implementing business change”
A common, agreed representation of business activity, goals
+A common, agreed view of how current and future IT provides structured support to the business in this context
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 13
Alignment demands that IT becomes a service provider
Business
IT
Busin
ess pr
oces
s
Busin
ess pr
oces
s
Busin
ess pr
oces
s
Busin
ess pr
oces
s
Busin
ess pr
oces
s
ManagedIT
serviceManage
dIT
service
ManagedIT
serviceManage
dIT
service
ManagedIT
service
A P P L I C A T I O N S & I N F O R M A T I O NI N F R A S T R U C T U R E
B U S I N E S S S T R A T E G Y
Business processesform the foundationof a commonlanguage
IT defines and delivers“business level” serviceswhich support the rightprocesses, the right way
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 14advising on IT-business alignment
mwdmacehiterward-dutton
Alignment principle #1:
understanding service-oriented
IT
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 15
So what is an IT service?
“CRM database
”
“Provide automated support for my sales
force”
“Update customer details”
Line of business perspective
IT operations perspective
Developer perspective
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 16
Managed IT services – aligned with business processes
Lifecycle servicesManaging the lifecycles of business functions and infrastructure
Business function servicesAutomating business functions
Infrastructure servicesProviding the platform
Users’ experiences of “managed IT service”
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 17
Contracts bring obligations for suppliers and consumers
Message FormatMessage Sequence
Functions
SecurityResponse Time
Throughput
Usage CostLiability Clauses
Trust
FunctionalTerms
QoSTerms
Commercial
Terms
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 18advising on IT-business alignment
mwdmacehiterward-dutton
Alignment principle #2:
understanding business
processes and their priorities
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 19
A universe of business processes [1]
E E E E E
M M M
S
“Execution” processes – instances handle particular units of work within business activities
“Management” processes – instances oversee instances of execution processes
“Strategy” processes – instances oversee instances of management processes
A hierarchy of business processes
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 20
A universe of business processes [2]
E
E
E
M
M
S
Contribution to competitive differentiation
E
E
E
M
M
S
Non-differentiating(focus should be on efficiency)
Differentiating(focus should be on flexibility)
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 21
Observations on the nature of business processes
E
E
E
M
M
S
E
E
E
M
M
S
Increase
d structu
re, predict
ability
Increase
d colla
boration, a
d-hoc nature
Non-differentiating(focus should be on efficiency)
Differentiating(focus should be on flexibility)
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 22
Implications for business function service design
Level of
pro
cess
abst
ract
ion
Low
High
Non-differentiating(focus should be on efficiency)
Differentiating(focus should be on flexibility)
Business activity role
“Strategy”business processes
“Management”business processes
“Execution”business processes
Activity functions
Technical functions
Reusability importanceincreases
Openness, flexibility demands increase
Efficiency demand increases
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 23advising on IT-business alignment
mwdmacehiterward-dutton
Enterprise architecture
must reflect IT-business
alignment principles
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 24
The real world
From Towards
Build, or buy vs. build
Application implementation
Buy AND build AND integrate
Back officeBusiness area investment
focusFront office and
beyond
“Personal productivity”
desktopIT access environment
Productivity desktop +
global access to resources
Data processingTechnology innovation
focus
Communication, collaboration,
integration
Older approaches fail to capture reality re: integration, communication, collaboration,
supply complexity
Outsourcing vs. in-house
delivery
Capability supply “Multi-sourcing”
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 25
A “traditional” view of EA [1]: The Zachman framework
Source: John Zachman, ZIFA
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 26
A “traditional” view of EA [2]: TOGAF ADM
Source: Open Group
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 27
The good and the bad of EA frameworks
The good The frameworks give us a
useful “language” for communicating and sharing ideas about how IT systems can/should support business needs
Methodologies like the TOGAF ADM give solid templates for EA process work
Starting to consider more dynamic aspects of EA– as-is, to-be, vision views
The bad The roots of most
frameworks are in the creation or change of transactional information processing systems
The real world of IT is much more ugly and complicated
Still documentation-oriented – not focused on the process of architecture evolution & governance
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 28
Business process
Applications
Data
The challenge
Activities, processesThe business
The real world doesn’t “decompose” nicely – and IT isn’tjust about things you build in-house
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 29
Providing structured support for business processes means understanding scope & scale of interactions
From
Data design tightly coupled to application design, and
application design to “user requirements” – very restricted
view of process needs
B u
s i n e
s sp r o
c e s s
Towards
B u
s i n
e s
s p
r o
c e
s s
Loosely-coupled resources provide services which are
designed to support the interactions that take place within a business process
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 30
EA approaches must consider business process support more broadly
B u
s i n
e s
s p
r o
c e
s s
Transactionalservices
Informationservices
Communication& collaboration
services
Support scenario: a mesh of
interactions
We have to model more than just transactional applications
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 31
An alternative enterprise architecture model
Business architecture- activities, entities- goals, strategy, differentiation
Process architecture- roles, flows, resources
Business function service architecture
Infrastructure architecture- security, identity management- resource management
Transactional / information management
Analytics, discovery, reporting
Communication,
collaboration
Historically the focus of
architecture has been here
Historical disconnect here
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 32advising on IT-business alignment
mwdmacehiterward-dutton
Enterprise Architecture and
IT Governance
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 33
Enterprise architecture…
Needs to be driven in partnership with the business
IT
Business
Lifecycle
Business function
Infrastructure
Functional QoS
Commercial
Should consider all the different views of service provision – not just functional considerations
Should follow a service-oriented model – but one which is about more than application functionality
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 34
These perspectives are the key dimensions for IT governance, too
InvestmentDelivery
Change
Funct
ional
QoS
Comm
ercia
l
Business function
Infrastructure
Lifecycle
Contract aspects
Serv
ice t
ypes
Relat
ionsh
ips
Business processes, priorities
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 35
Enterprise architecture and IT governance should be considered together
InvestmentDelivery
Change
Funct
ional
QoS
Comm
ercia
l
Business function
Infrastructure
Lifecycle
Contract aspects
Serv
ice t
ypes
Relat
ionsh
ips
Business architecture
Process architecture
Captures the iterative process
of architecture change
Infrastructure architecture
Business fn architecture
TX/IM A/R C/C
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 36
You can use the model to…
Identify strengths and weaknesses in your current IT governance approach
Identify the contributions made by particular technologies to business objectives
As above for IT vendors Consider the dimensions that affect
sourcing decisions
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 37advising on IT-business alignment
mwdmacehiterward-dutton
A worked example: the
role of DSI
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 38
DSI: the “design for operations” approach today…
InvestmentDelivery
Change
Funct
ional
QoS
Comm
ercia
l
Business function
Infrastructure
Lifecycle
Contract aspects
Serv
ice t
ypes
Relat
ionsh
ips
Capability today is in designing business function services with explicit reference to runtime QoS directives and validate them against a static infrastructure model
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 39
DSI: with planned “Longhorn wave” technology
InvestmentDelivery
Change
Funct
ional
QoS
Comm
ercia
l
Business function
Infrastructure
Lifecycle
Contract aspects
Serv
ice t
ypes
Relat
ionsh
ips
With planned future capabilities, design-time QoS directives form the basis of a “live model” which is interpreted and maintained by server infrastructure to perform goal-oriented infrastructure monitoring and management
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 40
A call to action
For architecture to contribute to IT-business alignment, you have to follow a holistic approach– Not just applications but infrastructure and lifecycle services– Proactively consider the links between all three– Look for technologies and patterns which support the
linkages
Set up an architecture governance practice which doesn’t just allow change, but promotes it– Not a project-focused approach but an ongoing process with
senior level sponsorship– Close links to business stakeholders and their priorities– Think about using contracts, policies and processes as the
foundation of a common language
© Macehiter Ward-Dutton 2005 www.mwdadvisors.com 41advising on IT-business alignment
mwdmacehiterward-dutton
Thank you