Tag Archives: events

Open Group Conference 2014 Bangalore – Where is EA now ?

opengroup

Was at the open group conference at Bangalore and spoke on “Enterprise Architecture and Keeping your business relevant”. Was off to native and could manage to attend the second day of the conference at Phillips Innovation Campus.

Initial Talk was by Jason Uppal on how EA was used to solve problems in the heath care industry and his experience in the same with some case studies.

Some interesting perspectives on initiatives from the Open Group to take Togaf body of knowledge to colleges along with Computer Society of India and an effort to popularize it apart from being used by the industry alone.India ranks third in the list of Togaf certified candidates and increasing year on year. This was briefed by James of the Open Group.

EA and the Developing World

Far away countries such as Finland and Brunei are also adopting Togaf and there is growing list of developing countries such as Mongolia  which also is adopting Togaf for overall streaming lining of IT services. This was presented by Vish Vishwanath of CC and C solutions.He also walked through the penetration of EA in these markets and how EA can significantly be used to solve newer technology adoption issues. Developing countries will have to go through the same curve where EA can play a good role in packaging and getting your business / IT strategy right. This market is hugely untapped and really be a good case in point to explore and would most likely a candidate where future success stories would be crafted. 

Keeping Your Product/Solution Relevant

Spoke on using EA to help keeping the business relevant. Touched upon how a reference architecture helps create a north star to follow. How a large company can stay agile and make quick turn around as it is said making “Making an Elephant Dance”. Most large corporations are now focusing on learning this key skill. Gave a brief presentation with 18 list of TODO’s for a company (product/solution). Irrespective of the size of the company the ability to dance to various market and customer tunes is what helps it stay on top of the curve. The presentation details are shared here. All of the slides have 18 TODOs listed ( in no specific order ) and each category needs a deep dive into what can fit well for an organization specific context. Overall a handpicked set of initiatives that help a product or a solution to be relevant in today’s times. Even implementing a few of these initiatives to a reasonable degree of seriousness can create the hockey stick effect on your annual performance report , which is the last slide of the presentation. 

opengroup_2014

Commoditization of EA

That apart there was a talk on how EA is being packaged and off shored an IBM perspective by Sreekanth. This dealt with the issues of putting solution architecture work miles away from where it is being consumed and how technology has progressed in making this happen. How customer’s are now adopting this mode of delivery and look forward to having a robust process framework around this to help with getting predictable and estimates for the same. Ideally they would like to have better control on the work pieces assigned to the team off shored to and be able to estimate and bill accordingly. As a lot of things are new on this front as always it takes sometime to stabilize things on this front. Have come across SAP and other vendors opting for a packaged implementation points sort of a things which is like a work break down structure for your activity at customer location. World is indeed getting flat including off shoring innovation work  till the point that you are not sure your idea is going to fly. In which case more clarity emerges and all trial and product pivoting also is getting off shored.

There was a talk by Hari from TCS on a case study of who they used Archiemate to map customer requirements and showcase value to the customer end user on use of the same. This is a neat initiative that is picking up momentum on tying together business and IT together. UML is for techies and not all business nuances can be conveyed using the same. The business folks are not UML friendly and a free format diagramming visual standard such Archiemate is useful in helping bridging the gap between the two.

Disconnect between Archiemate and Togaf : For people entirely new to these they need to be treated separately and does not pose a problem. For folks coming from the Togaf world there seems to be a missing perspective ( data ) which archiemate has across all the layers and gives primary prominence to Business , Application and Technology at least in the views. The data part of the details are implicit across the visual representation of Archiemate and quite embedded as a part of Business , Application and Technology instead of being treated separate. Quite understandable as bringing data architecture at a overview level can pose the trees get coverage instead of the forest. Anyway it is a step to bridge the divide between business and IT. Have heard about how this standard is helping many approach architecture diagrams without being overwhelmed at the outset with semantics of the new standard or other intricacies of UML which for a person from the business would be hard to scale upto. Certain regions have a good adoption of this standard and certain countries are ok with BPMN / UML or arbitary or No UML as it is referred to where every organization creates a standard that suits its needs the best with legends etc.

A weekend well spent discussing things that matter and can change lives and our part in the same.Attending conferences always keeps you relevant and of course helps one in keeping abreast of what is happening around.

Summary Execute Execute Execute – Message from StartupCity2013

startupcity2013

Was at the startup city 2013 NIMHANS Bangalore yesterday. Was fun/motivating/inspiring to hear from stories of struggle and eventual triumph hitting blocks and then tasting success at all scales from small medium shops to big success such as Chetan Maini ( reva fame), Arun Jain ( Polaris) , Cric Info founders , Gaadi / Galaata founders. The air smelled of entrepreneurship and Silicon India organized it paving a way for an ecosystem where like minded folks gather and discuss ideas big and small.

Listing down a few key takeaways  which are eternal in nature and many echoed the same.

Chethan Maini (Reva) ( Be passionate about your work) . Money is an offshoot of your work.         It is OK for people to laugh / not agree with your idea initially but believe in yourself.

Arun Jain ( Polaris)

Team building is being part of the team and not merely leading the team. Feel as if you are one.       Have many ideas what to do ? Stick to one idea , eat the idea, sleep with the idea and get up from bed with the idea and you will find success.

Padmaja Ruparel ( IAN Network)

A class B idea with a class A team is better than an class A idea with a class B team. Finally execution , execution and execution alone matters.

Balaji Parthasarthy  ( SnapFish)

Know what works for you and a team is better than an individual as more energy and diversity is put to use. Of course single founder exceptions could be there as well.

Many people think on the same lines finally whoever sticks or believes in their idea and takes it to conclusion gets the slice of the cake ( angels/VCs included)

2 Minute Elevator Pitch ( Tell me what you do in 2 minutes product/team/company etal )

The best part of the program was each startup was given a 2 minute elevator pitch to drive home the message what they do. Some performed great in the act and some still taking baby steps in their companies and products did not do so well although they might have great products. Overall no idea is mean or small there is a potential in everything that solves a problem or a society’s need for something.

Meet the VCs 

You did not need credentials to meet people to fund your ideas there were separate rooms for finding people to fund your ideas and evaluate them.

There were people other great people who were part of open discussions and finally the CXO conclave at the end of the day sharing their stories and thoughts on tech entrepreneurship in India.

Overall the event was great and nice to breathe the same air as that of the founders and CXO’s of various companies big and small under one roof. It was definitely worth hearing to many young turks who are on their way to creating something great and of value to the society. The startup culture is on its way and as per discussions now India is only way behind the bay area in US in terms of emerging startup scene. It is good to get yourself in there and get rub shoulders with a crowd who stick out and ready to tread a different path to achieve the destiny of their making. If you are not creating something then you cannot predict the future. Nice to know that alongside all the hard work and passion behind the scenes some sweet smells of success of companies could be smelt there. It is good to get the aspiration of people high by hearing of folks who have done it once/twice many times before you. You get a feeling that it is after all not something only a few could venture into…

Nice hangout on a saturday came back feeling Bangalore is happening on many fronts.