AGILE is a space Scientific Mission devoted to gamma-ray astrophysics supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), with the scientific and programmatic co-participation of the Italian Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) and the Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN).
AGILE was launched by the Indian PSLV rocket from the Sriharikota base (Chennai-Madras). The launch was made, as planed, on 23th April 2007 at 12 00 a. m.
Every process was executed correctly.
Video is now available
These are my thoughts about various issues faced by an enterprise architect.
Here you will find thoughts related to enterprise architecture, TOGAF, SOA, BPM, MDA, MDD, Web 2.0 etc.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Centralised service delivery team
Typically in business IT world, budgeting and portfolio definition phase determines what business benefits should be targetted for in a given period and what is the maximum cost that can be paid to achieve those benefits. Business projects are then executed to deliver business benefits while minimizing cost and time to get those benefits. So notwithstanding the various benefits of building reusable services for enterprise, projects tend to do point solutions. Mainly because of these budget and time considerations.
In response to this situation, one of the best practices that has evolved in SOA implementations is to have a central team implementing services for business projects. This has been a good idea. It can address many of the governance challenges. Mostly because this central service team (lets call it services delivery team - SDT) is managed and governed by principles set by enterprise architects for SOA, rather than budget and cost considerations alone.
However there are a couple of challenges in putting this to practice.
Initially the SDT was set up as an island, which owned the services and its interfaces. The SDT utilised existing capabilities or whenever necessary got the capabilities built. The engagement between project team and the SDT, was mainly of an outsourcer - outsourcee type. The project team defined its requirement and threw those over to SDT. Which then worked out the interfaces (keeping in reusability in mind). Then further outsourced building of capability required (if ncessary), to teams maintaining the systems which might provide the capabilities. The SDT had only application architects and high level designers apart from project managers. So the role of this SDT had become that of a systems integration designers and SOA standard tools had become SI tools.
This mode of working had turned into a waterfall life-cycle model, partly because the way engagement worked. This started to add a lot of overheads in terms of time and effort to project estimates. At the same time, benefits were not immediately realised for projects. As a result project team started resisting this engagement model, which in turn was viewed as rejection of SOA by project teams (which it was not). When project managers are measured by budget and schedule compliance alone, it was natural for them to resist this engagement model which took away the control of deciding how much budget and schedule risk they can afford to take. So SDT too are facing problems.
I think a new co-sourced engagement model needs trying out. In this model, services delivery team works as part of project team, governed by same budget and schedule consideration. But they are also governed by SOA principles too. So when these two governance principles contradicted, comporomises were required to be made. These compromises were inevitably are made in favour of project. Rarely in case of strategic services, the compromises are made in favour of services. These compromises, in their wake, will leave what I call 'non-'services. Some of these non-services need to be refactored into services by a part of service delivery team, which gets its funding straight from CIO. This team has limited funding, hence could only turn so many non-services into services, resulting into a back-log. Over a period of time, size of back-log would give a fair understading of the costs involved in making tactical compromises against strategic imperatives. This model needs to run for some time, for its efficacy to be known. For this model to work, it would need strong SOA governance framework and a strong testing facility in place.
Any sharing of experience in this area is most welcome.
In response to this situation, one of the best practices that has evolved in SOA implementations is to have a central team implementing services for business projects. This has been a good idea. It can address many of the governance challenges. Mostly because this central service team (lets call it services delivery team - SDT) is managed and governed by principles set by enterprise architects for SOA, rather than budget and cost considerations alone.
However there are a couple of challenges in putting this to practice.
Having a right engagement between project team and this SDT is a big challenge. This engagement model breaks or makes the future of SOA, in the enterprise. It is vitally important to get this model right.
Getting the composition of this SDT right is another challenge, that must be addressed.
Initially the SDT was set up as an island, which owned the services and its interfaces. The SDT utilised existing capabilities or whenever necessary got the capabilities built. The engagement between project team and the SDT, was mainly of an outsourcer - outsourcee type. The project team defined its requirement and threw those over to SDT. Which then worked out the interfaces (keeping in reusability in mind). Then further outsourced building of capability required (if ncessary), to teams maintaining the systems which might provide the capabilities. The SDT had only application architects and high level designers apart from project managers. So the role of this SDT had become that of a systems integration designers and SOA standard tools had become SI tools.
This mode of working had turned into a waterfall life-cycle model, partly because the way engagement worked. This started to add a lot of overheads in terms of time and effort to project estimates. At the same time, benefits were not immediately realised for projects. As a result project team started resisting this engagement model, which in turn was viewed as rejection of SOA by project teams (which it was not). When project managers are measured by budget and schedule compliance alone, it was natural for them to resist this engagement model which took away the control of deciding how much budget and schedule risk they can afford to take. So SDT too are facing problems.
I think a new co-sourced engagement model needs trying out. In this model, services delivery team works as part of project team, governed by same budget and schedule consideration. But they are also governed by SOA principles too. So when these two governance principles contradicted, comporomises were required to be made. These compromises were inevitably are made in favour of project. Rarely in case of strategic services, the compromises are made in favour of services. These compromises, in their wake, will leave what I call 'non-'services. Some of these non-services need to be refactored into services by a part of service delivery team, which gets its funding straight from CIO. This team has limited funding, hence could only turn so many non-services into services, resulting into a back-log. Over a period of time, size of back-log would give a fair understading of the costs involved in making tactical compromises against strategic imperatives. This model needs to run for some time, for its efficacy to be known. For this model to work, it would need strong SOA governance framework and a strong testing facility in place.
Any sharing of experience in this area is most welcome.
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Tuesday, April 24, 2007
AGILE Outsourced
AGILE is a space Scientific Mission devoted to gamma-ray astrophysics supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), with the scientific and programmatic co-participation of the Italian Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) and the Italian Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN).
AGILE was launched by the Indian PSLV rocket from the Sriharikota base (Chennai-Madras). The launch was made, as planed, on 23th April 2007 at 12 00 a. m.
Every process was executed correctly.
Video is now available
AGILE was launched by the Indian PSLV rocket from the Sriharikota base (Chennai-Madras). The launch was made, as planed, on 23th April 2007 at 12 00 a. m.
Every process was executed correctly.
Video is now available
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Centralised service delivery team
Typically in business IT world, budgeting and portfolio definition phase determines what business benefits should be targetted for in a given period and what is the maximum cost that can be paid to achieve those benefits. Business projects are then executed to deliver business benefits while minimizing cost and time to get those benefits. So notwithstanding the various benefits of building reusable services for enterprise, projects tend to do point solutions. Mainly because of these budget and time considerations.
In response to this situation, one of the best practices that has evolved in SOA implementations is to have a central team implementing services for business projects. This has been a good idea. It can address many of the governance challenges. Mostly because this central service team (lets call it services delivery team - SDT) is managed and governed by principles set by enterprise architects for SOA, rather than budget and cost considerations alone.
However there are a couple of challenges in putting this to practice.
Initially the SDT was set up as an island, which owned the services and its interfaces. The SDT utilised existing capabilities or whenever necessary got the capabilities built. The engagement between project team and the SDT, was mainly of an outsourcer - outsourcee type. The project team defined its requirement and threw those over to SDT. Which then worked out the interfaces (keeping in reusability in mind). Then further outsourced building of capability required (if ncessary), to teams maintaining the systems which might provide the capabilities. The SDT had only application architects and high level designers apart from project managers. So the role of this SDT had become that of a systems integration designers and SOA standard tools had become SI tools.
This mode of working had turned into a waterfall life-cycle model, partly because the way engagement worked. This started to add a lot of overheads in terms of time and effort to project estimates. At the same time, benefits were not immediately realised for projects. As a result project team started resisting this engagement model, which in turn was viewed as rejection of SOA by project teams (which it was not). When project managers are measured by budget and schedule compliance alone, it was natural for them to resist this engagement model which took away the control of deciding how much budget and schedule risk they can afford to take. So SDT too are facing problems.
I think a new co-sourced engagement model needs trying out. In this model, services delivery team works as part of project team, governed by same budget and schedule consideration. But they are also governed by SOA principles too. So when these two governance principles contradicted, comporomises were required to be made. These compromises were inevitably are made in favour of project. Rarely in case of strategic services, the compromises are made in favour of services. These compromises, in their wake, will leave what I call 'non-'services. Some of these non-services need to be refactored into services by a part of service delivery team, which gets its funding straight from CIO. This team has limited funding, hence could only turn so many non-services into services, resulting into a back-log. Over a period of time, size of back-log would give a fair understading of the costs involved in making tactical compromises against strategic imperatives. This model needs to run for some time, for its efficacy to be known. For this model to work, it would need strong SOA governance framework and a strong testing facility in place.
Any sharing of experience in this area is most welcome.
In response to this situation, one of the best practices that has evolved in SOA implementations is to have a central team implementing services for business projects. This has been a good idea. It can address many of the governance challenges. Mostly because this central service team (lets call it services delivery team - SDT) is managed and governed by principles set by enterprise architects for SOA, rather than budget and cost considerations alone.
However there are a couple of challenges in putting this to practice.
Having a right engagement between project team and this SDT is a big challenge. This engagement model breaks or makes the future of SOA, in the enterprise. It is vitally important to get this model right.
Getting the composition of this SDT right is another challenge, that must be addressed.
Initially the SDT was set up as an island, which owned the services and its interfaces. The SDT utilised existing capabilities or whenever necessary got the capabilities built. The engagement between project team and the SDT, was mainly of an outsourcer - outsourcee type. The project team defined its requirement and threw those over to SDT. Which then worked out the interfaces (keeping in reusability in mind). Then further outsourced building of capability required (if ncessary), to teams maintaining the systems which might provide the capabilities. The SDT had only application architects and high level designers apart from project managers. So the role of this SDT had become that of a systems integration designers and SOA standard tools had become SI tools.
This mode of working had turned into a waterfall life-cycle model, partly because the way engagement worked. This started to add a lot of overheads in terms of time and effort to project estimates. At the same time, benefits were not immediately realised for projects. As a result project team started resisting this engagement model, which in turn was viewed as rejection of SOA by project teams (which it was not). When project managers are measured by budget and schedule compliance alone, it was natural for them to resist this engagement model which took away the control of deciding how much budget and schedule risk they can afford to take. So SDT too are facing problems.
I think a new co-sourced engagement model needs trying out. In this model, services delivery team works as part of project team, governed by same budget and schedule consideration. But they are also governed by SOA principles too. So when these two governance principles contradicted, comporomises were required to be made. These compromises were inevitably are made in favour of project. Rarely in case of strategic services, the compromises are made in favour of services. These compromises, in their wake, will leave what I call 'non-'services. Some of these non-services need to be refactored into services by a part of service delivery team, which gets its funding straight from CIO. This team has limited funding, hence could only turn so many non-services into services, resulting into a back-log. Over a period of time, size of back-log would give a fair understading of the costs involved in making tactical compromises against strategic imperatives. This model needs to run for some time, for its efficacy to be known. For this model to work, it would need strong SOA governance framework and a strong testing facility in place.
Any sharing of experience in this area is most welcome.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)