RON TOLIDO

There is something symbolic about it: organising an IT / architects conference in the Central Hall in London. Right next to the Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, The Open Group Conference takes place once more in one of the landmark buildings of the protestant Methodist church. Established in the 18th century by John Wesley, the Methodist movement consists of people that aim to live a devout, serious life. Not some noncommittal philosophising about the heavenly glory and all that, but practicing faith every dag again, through dedicated, hard work. It’s only when you share your meal in the soup kitchen with the underprivileged of this world, that you start to experience the real essence of faith, so the Methodists believe.

Interesting thinking and at the very least, it gave an extra dimension to the Architect’s panel discussion I witnessed on the podium of this same building, now exactly two years ago. The topic was the eternal tension between the long term and the short term. In the panel,  there were enterprise architects, IT strategists and a market analyst (no, not exactly the underprivileged). The hypothesis discussed was that the shallowness of today’s economic climate asks for a more careful, architected approach. That way, the requirements of the business can be much better aligned with solutions and it will be easier to achieve – and demonstrate – the value of IT.

A politically correct argument that nobody could really oppose to.

But one of the panel members, the CIO of Transport for London, was in no mood to be politically correct. “Yes, architecture and strategy” – he pronounced these words with just the subtlest hint of disdain – “all of that is absolutely crucial, but if the buses don’t run tomorrow because of a computer error nothing else matters much anymore; let’s make sure we master the basics first”. Being a seasoned manager of quite some IT departments, he was proud to tell the audience that he brought back the size of his architects team to just one fifth. “Anybody who doesn’t truly understand what happens in the everyday operations or fails to bring direct value to it, is of no use to me”.

Now that warmed up the audience. John Wesley would be proud of it: how spiritual and high-aiming our ambitions may be, we can only truly live up to them through the sobering experience of daily practice. Dreaming about Business/IT fusion, perpetual innovation and Web 2.0? Fine. Just make sure my workstation functions every morning first.

And the one does not exclude the other. Having an extraordinary good grip on infrastructure and core applications motivates: it generates exactly the positive energy that is needed to explore new ways over and over again. The foundation of change therefore is in repetition, routine and control.

Wax On, Wax Off, as another spiritual leader would say. Change yourself, but always with both feet firmly on the ground. For that, you don’t need to be a Methodist to say hallelujah.

This post is a slightly modified version of a 2009 post on Capgemini’s CTO blog.

Just to make sure: there is absolutely nothing wrong with White Elephants. Actually, in Asia they were often regarded as signs of prosperity and success and emperors would hold them as status symbols. On the other hand, these huge animals would deliver little value and yet cost a fortune to be maintained.

A White Elephant thus shows a fair balance of blessings and curses. Much like in the world of Business Process Management, which has its own collection of trunk bearing white animals. They are called Proof of Concepts. Sometimes, it’s too hard to explain to the organization what BPM can do (especially if we ask the Mother of All Truth, Wikipedia about BPM: “a holistic management approach focused on aligning all aspects of an organization with the wants and needs of clients”, sounds – well – very holistic indeed).

A local proof of concept, pragmatically addressing a real issue in the business, is then often a splendid way to break through the inertia. As we will show through three cases at the upcoming Gartner BPM Summit, it demonstrates the value of BPM and paves the path towards wider enterprise use. But every now and then, the owners of such a prototype become so attached to it, they cannot dispose from it anymore. It becomes their own, precious status symbol. Keeping it alive, scaling, performing and integrated with other systems requires disproportionate attention and budget. It can even inhibit a wider roll-out. It looked so fresh, promising and simple in the brochure of the technology provider. But now this big white beast has outgrown its stable and is blocking the entrance.

How to prevent it? Manage expectations upfront, explicitly. Design for scalability, performance and integration. Create and maintain an architectural perspective. Essentially: think cradle-to-cradle, even when it is ‘just’ a proof of concept.

There is great potential in a new breed of solutions that have BPM inside. Just make sure they don’t grow into White Elephants. Unless you are an emperor, of course

Just sharing with you that we are currently finalizing the 2011 edition of Capgemini’s TechnoVision. An important inception is the analysis of the applications landscape and the impact on delivery models as we are shifting towards a new category of solutions that are lightweight, agile and created in – or very near – to the business.  Actually, we distinguish different ‘Application Lifecycles’, each with their own dynamics around requirements, quality, time-to-market, agility, tools being used and place within the organization. We thought a transport metaphor would be quite effective, so prepare yourselves to be familiarized in the near future with 5 different types of applications, ranging from TRAIN apps (solid, stable, standard, predictable) all the way to SCOOTER apps (highly individual and personalized, ultra-agile, ad-hoc). Much more soon, so stay tuned to this blog. For now, one little visualization of what happens when you try to make a TRAIN application behave like a SCOOTER. I believe our ‘application city’ streets are full of these trains gone rogue. Let’s hope they are just a bad dream soon.