Enterprise Architecture, IT Strategy & Others

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  • EA – Make an impact and enjoy

    Enterprise Architecture is all about making an impact to the organization in various perspectives like technical, financial, business, organization, information, infrastructure and etc. Making an impact to organization will not happen if some one just does his/her job. EA must enjoy and love their job to make an impact to the organization. The love and joy should not be synthesized but naturally initiated and developed.

    The real meaning of success is making an impact and enjoy what you do every day – Dr. Ralph Shrader , Chairman & CEO of Booz | Allen | Hamilton. This concept applies to all the jobs in general. The Enterprise architects in the IT organization are the roles have very high likelihood of making an impact to the IT organization. If you want to be a successful Enterprise Architect and make an impact to the organization, understand the EA, navigate the organization, add value to stakeholders and ENJOY doing it every day.

  • Delphi Technique – A must have for an Enterprise Architect

    Enterprise architect provides a service to internal customers (who are also fellow employees of the same organization). The value of the enterprise architects are demonstrated to the organization by providing value added  consultation and services to the projects team, senior management team and office of CIO. For instance, enterprise architects shall create a technology road map, the future technologies must be used by the organization for any future projects. The project team who wants to follow the road map may not have enough technological exposure to take steps to implement the component of the technology road map in their projects. There may be many reasons not to follow the technology road map by the project teams. The reasons could be political, technical, operational, irrational, and etc. Most frequently the reasons would be presented as rational but the real core reason could be irrational. Until the EA really understands the motive of not following the technology road map, the EA is not going to be successful in the organization. It is a must for a successful enterprise architect to understand the real motive. Why the road maps are not followed? There could be a real issue in following the road map. For instance, if the technology road map indicates to use BPMS for all future projects. The project who understand the technology road map wants to use this technology in their project, but the vendor may be very inflexible in their license, or it could be expensive, there could be resource constraints in the job market and etc. The EA who walk away after creating the road map will not face the problems but their recommendation will not be followed in the organization for legitimate reasons.

    Sometimes the reasons would not be legitimate reasons. The project teams do not want take risk by adapting new technology to their project. Could be due to, cost of the resources in the technology, creditability of the EA team, unknown reasons.

    It is non technical problem and it is more organizational political problem. There is no logic directly required to solve this kind of problem. When no logic is followed on purpose, then it becomes logical. This topic deserves a separate blog posting. (Topic: ” No logic on purpose is also logical”)

    In this case, Delphi technique is one of the best technique to understand why EA recommendation is not accepted and followed. By engaging on the informal discussion with the various stakeholders in the organization and correlating it would provide the insight on the real motive of the key stakeholders for not following the technology road maps.

    The technology road map is an example. There are many areas this technique would be followed by EA and IT strategist. There are numerous area where the similar problem exist, delphi technique is a best way to go around and get into the crux of the problem. EA should be mastered in this technique to be the best EA and provide the greater value to their internal customers.

  • Falcons Vs Stars (Round #2, Match #2, Season 2008)

    It is my first second round game in 2008. I could not play last week for multiple reasons. I had to go with my son for a city (Farmington Hills) parade and one of my college mate came from Dayton. Looks like, Falcons played an emotionally exhaustive match in my absence and enough damage and control was made before game against stars.

    Both team was on time on fine Michigan Sunday morning and quick in setting up the field with umpire’s concurrence. Toss won by Stars and with out any hesitation, they decided to bat. Few ramblings on how bad the field was and Sun was coming straight to the batsman.

    Falcons’s bowling

    Srikanth and Uppu started our bowling today. There were few wides to start with. Except the wides both bowled really good. The pitch was set such way that the wicket keeping position was half in the grass and half in the circle (we play in the base ball ground). I knew from the beginning, it was going to be tough to keep the wickets in that position. I could not cleanly stop few wide balls and fetched additional runs. Stars were very slow in scoring where as our bowlers were scoring fast for them by bowling wides and I assisted them by not collecting the wide balls cleanly.

    Uppu bowled few awesome deliveries today. There was a distinct nick on his bowling and umpire for some reason was not sure and did not give him out. It was very clean caught behind and Uppu and Falcons became unlucky. After few balls, the same batsman played a lazy stroke for a very good length rising ball and this time umpire was focusing enough to give a caught behind decision with out any hesitation. There was another catching opportunity from Uppu’s bowling and I tired my best. I could not fully capture what happened and why I missed that catch. I touched the ball and did the ball had enough spin to escape my finger? Did I jump late to the raising ball? Did I jump faster? I really do not know but I missed a difficult catch (It is difficult because it was at least 3 foot above my head).

    Keshav has been consistently bowling good and his swings are noteworthy. I wish to see him bowl the red ball with 3 slips. He bowled exemplary deliveries.

    Hari has been doing good both in the field and with his bat. He made few great stops and made a run out. I liked what I said to him. “Some times our weakness becomes strength” He was throwing the ball so high to me when the batsman was in the middle of the pitch. Since he throws slow, it helped to jump accordingly to collect the ball and run out the batsman. New Sudhir made few excellent fielding. Few well judged catches made by Keshav, Srikanth and Matta.

    Finally, Stars were all out for 68 runs and significant contributor to the tally was extras we gave him in wide,byes and no balls.

    Falcon’s batting

    Babu and I went to start the innings. Babu treated the bad balls and respected the good balls. I was rotating the strike by placing the ball. There was no pace in their bowling. The ball does not come to the bat and even the full toss balls you need to wait so long to connect it. I made 3 pull shorts and fetched 2 runs each and placed 4 times in the gap for an easy single. In this season, it was the first time, I got out for a good ball. In all other games, either I get run outs or chase the wide balls. It was raising delivery I tried to place it in the gully and the ball was quick and I was not quick enough. The ball was going to the first slip and fielder took a sharp catch. It was a good catch. Before I got out, Babu defended the ball and the ball was coming so slow and it hit the bat after he completed his stroke and went for an easy catch. Piyush, Keshav, Hari & Sudhir all got out cheaply. Matta and Sai took the game to the end with their patience. We won the game with bonus point. We spared almost 50% of their bowling. It was a good practice match for Falcons and it was a good umpiring from Sankar.