Matt Deacon's digestive blog

Talking Architects with Angela Yochem

matt deacon — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:33:43 GMT

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...(read more)

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

matt deacon — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:51:43 GMT

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...(read more)

Talking Architects with Len Bass – new series on Channel 9

matt deacon — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:11:42 GMT

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...(read more)

Dave Chappell on Azure and other cloud offerings

matt deacon — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:54:45 GMT

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...(read more)

Cloud: An Architects Perspective

matt deacon — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 11:56:02 GMT

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...(read more)

UK IASA leadership strengthened!

matt deacon — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:32:00 GMT

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...(read more)

Architecting for the Lines!

matt deacon — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:17:17 GMT

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...(read more)

Cloud Architect Forum 25th September London

matt deacon — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:37:34 GMT

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...(read more)

Certifying IT Architects (second try)

matt deacon — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:32:41 GMT

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?

matt deacon — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 11:50:00 GMT

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 …

matt deacon — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 20:32:25 GMT

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!

matt deacon — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:58:00 GMT

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

Upcoming North Eastern Cloud Events

matt deacon — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:31:04 GMT

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

matt deacon — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 17:12:51 GMT

Great explanation of Windows Azure from Steve Marx …

Mind the architect gap

matt deacon — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:14:30 GMT

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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