Matt Deacon's digestive blog

Talking Architects with Angela Yochem

2009-11-12T10:33:43Z

Angela Yochem is an executive architect with a leading multinational organisation and an IASA fellow. Her public role and passion for architecture is incredible but it is her clear business focused approach that really sets her apart from the rest. We constantly strive to align more closely with the Business to understand how we can move from servant to innovator. Angela has succeeded in going much further and is I would argue an integral part of the success of the business for which she works. There...(read more)

Talking Architects with Neil Ward-Dutton – Do architects love the cloud?

2009-11-02T11:51:43Z

Well, maybe they don’t actually ‘love’ the cloud but according to the research by MWD Advisors in partnership with the IASA it appears that they are cautiously optimistic which came as quite a surprise. Neil, Research Director from MWD talked to me recently about their involvement with IASA and what they have started to uncover in terms of the value of architects in delivering “sustainable business value from IT investment”. He argues that it’s one of the big questions out there and architects are...(read more)

Talking Architects with Len Bass – new series on Channel 9

2009-10-28T18:11:42Z

Talking Architects is a UK channel 9 series that I’ve just launched to reach out to prominent people within the Industry to discuss the issues that architects face. If you think I should talk to you or to anyone you know especially in the UK then drop me a line! First up is Len Bass , co-author of Software Architecture in Practice and longstanding member of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI)whom I managed to talk to at the recent IASA ITARC conference in NY. Quality Attributes...(read more)

Dave Chappell on Azure and other cloud offerings

2009-10-26T13:54:45Z

been out a while but here’s a great interview* between Dave Gristwood and Dave Chappell on the value of Azure in comparison with other cloud platforms like AWS, Google AppEngine and Force.com well worth the time to watch! * Ok, so when I say great video – I did the filming so am to blame for the “headless” shots and crass product placement!...(read more)

Cloud: An Architects Perspective

2009-10-06T11:56:02Z

Many thanks to everyone who took part in the Architect Forum on the 25th, and I mean everyone – I haven’t witnessed such a vocal audience in some time – really great mind share all round. Here’s all the links to slides that were used and I hope to have videos edited before too long! Articulating the value of Cloud Computing Neil Ward-Dutton, Research Director, MWD Advisors Before we can talk about value and selling the idea to the business, we have to be clear what we’re talking about! What...(read more)

UK IASA leadership strengthened!

2009-09-23T14:32:00Z

Last night was the UK IASA AGM which proved to be a great success and I am delighted to welcome 4 new faces to the IASA leadership committee as a result. We also took time to review the IASA plans to launch certification which were also well received by the group. So here's to an exciting year ahead and in delivering some really tangible value to our members! Please join me in welcoming the returning and new members of the IASA leadership team: Matt Deacon, returned as Chair Eoin Woods, returned...(read more)

Architecting for the Lines!

2009-09-15T12:17:17Z

It is so often the case that integration is a secondary concern and along with identity, audit/logging and reporting it ends way below the fadistic significance of the UX in driving developer time (and cost). Not that I want to decry the importance of UX of course – user adoption and therefore project success is often most measured on this basis, well, initially at any rate – the significance of this belies another story of why projects fail but let’s return to integration or the ‘lines’. Many an...(read more)

Cloud Architect Forum 25th September London

2009-09-07T14:37:34Z

Short notice, but definitely worth coming too (places limited to 90). The architect forum on the 25th September at Cardinal Place, London will look at cloud from the architects perspective, looking at the opportunities and challenges that enterprises are facing. To register go here Given that I had Simon Guest , Senior Director of Technical Strategy in the Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE) group at Microsoft over I felt I had to get something together for us to talk with him. Here’s some of...(read more)

Certifying IT Architects (second try)

2009-08-04T14:32:41Z

So loads of people looked at my last post on this subject but few actually decided to respond to the poll:(. So here’s v2 – to register your opinion is now only a click away …. go on:)!...(read more)

Do architects need certifying?

2009-08-01T11:50:00Z

Following on from my "mind the architect gap" posting the other day we've put up a quick poll on the UK IASA portal to test opinion. Go and have a look and remember if you're a practising architect then have you joined IASA yet?

Projects failures on the up …

2009-07-31T20:32:25Z

A final thought before the weekend …

I received the 2009 Standish CHAOS report from a colleague the other day that shows yet another jump in project failure rates. I often refer to Standish in my presentations so decided to look at the trends from 1994 when Standish launched their CHAOS report. Thankfully, before getting too far I had the good fortune of finding this post from Jorge Dominquez who had already compiled the following table.

	1994	1996	1998	2000	2002	2004	2006	2009
Successful	16%	27%	26%	28%	34%	29%	35%	32%
Challenged	53%	33%	46%	49%	51%	53%	46%	44%
Failed	31%	40%	28%	23%	15%	18%	19%	24%

Jorge concludes that project success is a ‘little worse than in 2006' but definitely better than 1994’ and suggests some reasons for this such as better project management (but he would say that;)). However, I think this conclusion misses an important and significant trend.

I’ve plotted this in the following graph that really illustrates the situation quite neatly. Project failure has consistently increased since 2002 while successes have in reality effectively plateaud overall. Looking at challenged projects, these appear to be reducing and almost mirror the inverse of increase failures suggesting if anything that we might be just getting better at dropping the axe on ailing projects rather than letting them die a long and lingering death through underachievement.

The other thing Jorge notes which I tend to agree with although have little empirical evidence for other than observation is that “complexity and environments have increased while the time to deliver has been reduced”. If you think about it complexity continues to increase but the tools we use have barely really changed in comparison. Add to this shortening timelines would result in more black and white project successes or project failures – there is little point in delivering something that is challenged!

Here’s a couple of slides from a deck I used back in 2007 that illustrates this point quite neatly …

Architect Insight Conference breakout videos now live!

2009-07-28T16:58:00Z

Finally after much angst the breakout sessions from AIC09 are now live here!

Upcoming North Eastern Cloud Events

2009-07-17T18:31:04Z

Quick note before going on leave to make sure you are aware of the following cloud events in Newcastle on the 29th July.

Both Simon Davies and I will be there but if that's not enough then there will be loads of other great talks on ...

CloudSeminar

How 'the cloud' can help your IT operation

Date: Wednesday 29 July
Venue: Newcastle University

Time: 1pm-5.30pm
Cost: £10 (free to Codeworks Connect members)

For more information and to book your place go to http://www.amiando.com/CloudSeminar.html

CloudCamp

Venue: The Beehive, Newcastle University
Times: 18.00 - 21.30
Cost: Free

To register please go to: www.cloudcamp.com/north-east-england2

Windows Azure Stick Man

2009-07-16T17:12:51Z

Great explanation of Windows Azure from Steve Marx …

Mind the architect gap

2009-07-16T14:14:30Z

I’m fortunate to know and work with a great many really influential architects both within my organisation and outside through my work as UK chair of the International Association of Software Architects (IASA). However, it has become increasingly apparent that for some the role of architects/architecture is clear while for others it is not. For me this begs the question that as organisations wake up, could there be and increasing gap between supply and demand of capable architects.

Back last year I commissioned some research with Freeform Dynamics to look at the difference between “progressive” IT organisations and followers. This clearly demonstrated a significant correlation between Architecture, integration and progressive IT. A more recent Forrester study shows the key role of Enterprise Architects in purchasing where “just fewer than 90% of IT execs said it was important, very important, or mandatory for EAs to approve technology purchases”. And back with the IASA, we ran a study with MWD Advisors that demonstrated the value of architects in design and implementation of BPM projects.

While these studies provide empirical evidence of the key role architects play in delivering business value do they also indicate and emerging gap between supply and demand of good architects? As more and more businesses seek architectural guidance will there be enough qualified architects to go round? Indeed this leads us on to what does a qualified architect look like and how do you spot one? Currently, this is measured by “time in service” or “battle scars” (I saw that on a job spec recently) but with corporate governance once again coming under the spotlight is this rule of thumb approach enough? can you trust mission critical systems to a guy with “battle scars”?

I know I’ve said this before, but is it time to we started to define the profession more accurately and perhaps more importantly, start to define the route(s) to becoming a professional? The millennials are rapidly taking over the asylum and out numbering the genXs (I’m one) and worse, the babyboomers are disappearing to the south of France and taking their “battle scars” with them. In many ways you can look at the future of technology in many ways looks similar to phases in the past but is anyone learning from their mistakes? Is anyone interested – you can bet that the milennials aren’t – how many of them have heard of “the mythical man-month” for example?

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