Avoiding the Bimodal Disaster - New Life for Enterprise Architecture

Avoiding the Bimodal
Disaster
New Life for EA
Jason Bloomberg
President
jason@intellyx.com
@theebizwizard
Copyright © 2016, Intellyx, LLC

About Jason Bloomberg
• President of industry analyst firm
Intellyx
• Agile digital transformation thought
leader
• Write for Forbes, several blogs, biweekly
newsletter the Cortex
• Buy my latest book,
The Agile Architecture
Revolution
Copyright © 2016, Intellyx, LLC3

What is Bimodal IT?
• Traditional IT (Mode 1) is
slow, focused on reliability
over agility, removed from
customer
• Fast IT (Mode 2) focuses on
agility, takes Agile/Kanban
approach, business-centric
• Digital Transformation
efforts are driving this split
Everyone agrees this situation is
common – the disagreement is
what to do about it
PhotoCredit:EstherJasonPratthttps://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonpratt/

The Digital Mandate
• The web drove ebusiness
reinvention in the 1990s
• Mobile disrupted
technology consumption
worldwide
• Additional touchpoints
exploded the digital
challenge
• Now the IoT is layering on
further complexity
PhotoCredit:EstherVargashttps://www.flickr.com/photos/esthervargasc/

What is Digital?
Customer preferences & behavior
drive technology choices
Range of technology touchpoints is exploding
PhotoCredit:RevolWebhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/revolweb/

What about
Transformation?
Internal organizational change is necessary
to maintain focus on the customer in today’s
digital world
PhotoCredit:Pascalhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/pasukaru76/

What is Digital
Transformation?
• Customer pressures
driving technological and
organizational change in
companies
• Enterprises rethinking:
– How they serve
customers
– The role IT plays
– How they build & manage
teams
– How they innovate
PhotoCredit:LouisK.https://www.flickr.com/photos/bonaparty/

Today’s Agile Imperative
Organizations must
capitalize on
disruption to
achieve greater
innovativeness
and resilience in
the face of digital
transformation
priorities
PhotoCredit:WalterLimhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/coolinsights/

Gartner’s Advice
• Both modes are
essential
• Slow, Mode 1 IT should
co-exist with fast Mode 2
• If your IT organization
isn’t bimodal, it should
become bimodal
Vendors of Mode 1 gear
pay most of Gartner’s bills
PhotoCredit:DineshrajGoomanyhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/dgoomany/

Let’s Poke Some Holes…
• Gartner says: Mode 1 IT
shouldn’t focus on agility
– But: IT must be agile to
support changing end-to-
end digital needs of
enterprise
• Gartner says: It’s fine for
Mode 1 to take waterfall
approach
– But: waterfall fails over 85%
of the time! The definition of
insanity…
PhotoCredit:GeorgeCollerhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/devilelephant/

Three Dimensions of
Digital Diversity
PhotoCredit:AlexM.https://www.flickr.com/photos/outsider434/
• Front to back
– End-to-end from the
customer to the systems
of record
• Breadth of interaction
– Diversity of customer
touchpoints an form
factors
• Depth of community
– Broad ecosystems of
vendors and services

Let’s Poke Some More
Holes…
• Gartner says: Mode 1 should be IT-
centric, removed from customer
– But: in the digital world, everyone
must focus on the customer
• Gartner says: Mode 1 governance
should be plan-driven, approval
based, while Mode 2 governance is
empirical, continuous, & process-
based
– But: traditional approaches to
governance will either slow
everyone down or lead to Shadow
IT issues
PhotoCredit:NicMcPheehttps://www.flickr.com/photos/nicmcphee/

What About Governance?
• IT governance should focus on
security, compliance, and
alignment with business goals
generally
– Slow processes for enforcing
slow policies the “scar tissue”
holding back agility & innovation
• Dividing security & compliance
into “slow” & “fast” a recipe for
vulnerabilities & breaches
Security & compliance must be
comprehensive to be effective
PhotoCredit:SarahJoyhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/joybot/

But Wait, There’s More…
• Separating slow, “dull”
IT from fast,
“interesting” IT
– Everyone wants to be on
the interesting side!
– Leads to morale issues
– Very difficult to recruit
new people for “dull” IT
PhotoCredit:RossDunnhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/rdb466/

Big Mistake: Shifting
Digital Away from IT
• Leads to digital efforts
disconnected from IT
• ‘Legacy’ systems of
record act as limitations
• No effective cooperation
between Digital & IT
(CDO & CIO for
example)
PhotoCredit:ErikPittihttps://www.flickr.com/photos/epitti/
Don’t fall for bad bimodal advice!

Follow the Money
• Budgets for separate Mode 1
& Mode 2 efforts can squeeze
Mode 1 budgets
– Carving off part of IT as the
“business-focused” part leads
to poor allocation of funds
– The digital mandate requires
customer-driven, end-to-end
budgeting
PhotoCredit:ImagesMoneyhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/59937401@N07/

Shifting the Center of
Gravity
Center of gravity is
the IT infrastructure
Center of gravity
is the customer
PhotoCredit:seanfonellihttps://www.flickr.com/photos/seanoneill/
Traditional IT
The Digital World

Essential Tool: Self-
Organization
• Traditional hierarchical
organizational models
limit or eliminate self-
organization
• “Skunkworks,” startups,
and DevOps organizations
work best when self-
organized
• Should digital efforts be
self-organized?
PhotoCredit:Jo-AnDeArkTorreshttps://www.flickr.com/photos/jo-an-torres/

Self-Organization Thrives
on Disruption
• DevOps-style self-organization essential
for agile, innovative digital transformation
• Challenge: scale up
self-organization
from small team
level up to
enterprise level
PhotoCredit:EricaJoyhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/ericajoy/
Innovation hangs in the balance

The DevOps Mentality
• Self-organized
teams deploy when
ready
• Deployments are
increasingly
granular
• “Fail fast” mentality
PhotoCredit:DennisHamiltonhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/orcmid/
Resilience becomes part of
the culture

The DevOps Virus
• DevOps proves
self-organization
can scale across
organizational silos
• Digital
transformation
requires end-to-
end reorganization
Let DevOps infect your organization
PhotoCredit:actionvancehttps://www.flickr.com/photos/actionvance/
PhotoCredit:Pascalhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/pasukaru76/

EA Shouldn’t Be City
Planning
PhotoCredit:AlexM.https://www.flickr.com/photos/outsider434/
• The more planned
a city is, the less
agile it becomes
• How do we get the
results we want
from an unplanned
city?
Facilitate & Leverage
Self-Organization

The Center of Digital
Enablement
• Team responsible for
end-to-end best
practice across digital
effort
• Where the enterprise
architects fit in
• Essentially becomes an
innovation competency
center
PhotoCredit:SonnyAbesamishttps://www.flickr.com/photos/enerva/
Let CODE self-organize

Getting to ‘Square Zero’
• Digital transformation can’t
start in earnest until you
clean up the worst messes
– Does IT know what apps it’s
responsible for?
– Does IT know which systems
talk to which?
• Fix what’s broken
– Iteratively
– With constant focus on
customer priorities
– Avoid being dogmatic
PhotoCredit:StevenDepolohttps://www.flickr.com/photos/stevendepolo/

Rise of Self-Service IT
• Rise of the
‘citizen’
– Citizen integrator
– Citizen data
analyst
– Citizen developer
• IT empowering
self-service across
the board
The ‘app store’ model for IT
services
PhotoCredit:SalimVirjihttps://www.flickr.com/photos/salim/

“Demise” of Enterprise IT
Department
• Out:
– IT as cost center
– IT as gatekeeper, slowing
things down
– IT as owner of all technology
• In:
– IT as service
provider
– IT as
marketplace
– IT as facilitator
of security,
governance,
and access to
systems of
record
PhotoCredit:BillBradfordhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/

The Core Business Goal
Agile
Digital
Transformation

Avoiding the Bimodal Disaster - New Life for Enterprise Architecture

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