07.13.10
What’s Inside Your IT?
[Cartoon]
Have you seen the information technology that your organization is dependent upon? Can you see the processes, rules, and data that make your organization unique? In most organizations, the applications have the processes, rules, and data buried inside. All that is visible is the user interface.
You can go down to your factory floor and see how components come together to produce final products. You can visit the call center and see your personnel taking and handling calls. You can even go to the mail room and see the inbound and outbound processes.
Seeing information technology is another matter. You can go to the computer room and see racks of electronic components and wiring. This is similar to going into a telephone wiring closet. You can’t see the phone calls there anymore than you can see the information flow in a computer room. What if your data center is in the clouds? You don’t even have a computer room to go into.
More than 90% of the information processing within most organizations is done by using information technology. This means that most information processes are essentially invisible. Your business is then based upon the trust that the programmers of the applications have done everything correctly and will continue to do so in the future. You know the programmers. Most of them are in their twenties and will leave you or your software provider for another higher paying job at any time.
This is a scary scenario of flying high with the future of your organization based primarily on something that you cannot control. If risking your organization’s future seems acceptable, consider that more than half of the information technology projects end in failure with the other half falling somewhere between success and failure.
This situation should be intolerable to any organization. It is time for change. It is time to expose the mysteries of information technology so that everyone can see and understand them. This vision must do more than just show what it does. It must also show how it is done.
The best approach to achieve visualization is through Enterprise Architecture. Enterprise Architects have a primary goal of organizing all the components of information technology into an understandable view. With this view, the organization’s management can then direct the changes needed for applying their strategic goals. The Enterprise Architect will then support these directives by establishing the boundaries for effective governance.
The Enterprise Architect is supported by well-defined methodologies and standards. The methodologies define the processes that the Enterprise Architect should follow and the standards help define the boundaries for governance. Some of the key standards include Business Process Management, Service Component Architecture, and Relational Data Management.
With the wonderful methodologies and standards available today, there is no reason that every business cannot have a complete view of their information technology. It is time for every organization to recognize the importance of Enterprise Architecture and begin to “Control Information Technology Yourself”.
Closing the Business / IT gap
