One more must read book. 7-S model is interesting and provides insight into the working of organization. This link shows the various models at organization, team and individual levels.
7-S model define the various elements which forms the organization. I am still trying to understand the various stages in the life of any organization. Is there exits a trend for stages during life of Organization? May be on the lines of Tuckman's team model.
Another team model worth reading is Situational Leadership.
Experience matters more than any theoretical knowledge. I think in Architect role, we get lot of opportunity to hone leadership & process management skills but people management skills take a backseat. In my view, People management skill is also important in long term and one should find ways to develop it.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
The Google Story by David A. Vise
Not just another book. It looks more like a fiction. Google phenomenon happened during our lifetime and before our eyes. Its a inspirational story.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page are people of principles and beliefs. They have reaped benefits of economies of scales. Google is default search engine and have unique position. Power of Google lies in
- Search Engine business case i.e. Information and Search significance are directly proportional to each other, both are growing at fast pace.
- Secondly, in having a winning edge on technical front. Mammoth hardware clusters and creative software to harness the power to generate lightening results.
- and in the last, they are able to build a big brand name associated with high integrity, values and reach.
Lets end this blog entry with Google Motto "Don't be Evil".
Sergey Brin and Larry Page are people of principles and beliefs. They have reaped benefits of economies of scales. Google is default search engine and have unique position. Power of Google lies in
- Search Engine business case i.e. Information and Search significance are directly proportional to each other, both are growing at fast pace.
- Secondly, in having a winning edge on technical front. Mammoth hardware clusters and creative software to harness the power to generate lightening results.
- and in the last, they are able to build a big brand name associated with high integrity, values and reach.
Lets end this blog entry with Google Motto "Don't be Evil".
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Is productivity directly proportional to time?
Few Indian companies are thinking to increase weekly working hours from 40 to 50. In my view productivity is not directly proportional to number of hours spent in office. It could easily be improved by increasing the focus on doing right things and improving motivation of workforce. But by increasing number of hours would only increase the billable hours not productivity.
Quite opposite to study conducted by Gartner and trend suggest that weekly hours will reduce.
Quite opposite to study conducted by Gartner and trend suggest that weekly hours will reduce.
SOA in MOE and LOE
More acronyms - MOE and LOE. May be due to my roots in Telcom domain, I am used to acronym in day to day life. MOE means Management Oriented Enterprise and LOE means Leadership Oriented Enterprise.
MOE is basically a type of culture prevalent in Enterprise. In this type of Enterprise, there exists lot of committees. Every decision is approved by hierarchy of people. Decisions are based on big reports. Long discussions take place to improve the efficiencies. Every big enterprise has processes. In this enterprise, employees follows all the processes to complete milestones. It helps to check the progress but the value of each step in process is not evaluated. Employees just complete the activity to tick the completeness. Delivery is primary focus.
LOE is another type of culture prevalent in Enterprise. In this type of there exists Leaders. Leaders at all levels. These Enterprises also creates lot of small committees. These committees come up with small action items. They believe in pilots, POC, prototypes instead of big reports. Long discussions too happens but with actionable outputs. Processes are followed and employees try to add value in each step. Quality is primary focus.
Somehow, I feel MOE adopts top down approach of SOA and LOE adopts bottom up approach due its culture. A push for top down in LOE is going to be much more successful than in MOE.
MOE is basically a type of culture prevalent in Enterprise. In this type of Enterprise, there exists lot of committees. Every decision is approved by hierarchy of people. Decisions are based on big reports. Long discussions take place to improve the efficiencies. Every big enterprise has processes. In this enterprise, employees follows all the processes to complete milestones. It helps to check the progress but the value of each step in process is not evaluated. Employees just complete the activity to tick the completeness. Delivery is primary focus.
LOE is another type of culture prevalent in Enterprise. In this type of there exists Leaders. Leaders at all levels. These Enterprises also creates lot of small committees. These committees come up with small action items. They believe in pilots, POC, prototypes instead of big reports. Long discussions too happens but with actionable outputs. Processes are followed and employees try to add value in each step. Quality is primary focus.
Somehow, I feel MOE adopts top down approach of SOA and LOE adopts bottom up approach due its culture. A push for top down in LOE is going to be much more successful than in MOE.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Run a country without governance
Idea looks quite weird to run a Country without governance. Even thought is scary that if no governance is present in country, what will happen to state of a nation.
Think of a Country which is composed of States. And there is no central governance present, what will happen to States. Few States might be able to self govern, few will loose direction and few will become rogue States. With time, it will become difficult to manage the Country as a whole. Vision of country will be blurred and lost. States won't be able to leverage each other strengths. States will try to run their own charters and soon forget that they are part of Country. Most of States will have their own priorities, goals and budgets.
Still not convinced and think that Governance is overhead in a Country. Just for information, check the link Somalia , which is the only country in the world where there is no government.
Think of a Country which is composed of States. And there is no central governance present, what will happen to States. Few States might be able to self govern, few will loose direction and few will become rogue States. With time, it will become difficult to manage the Country as a whole. Vision of country will be blurred and lost. States won't be able to leverage each other strengths. States will try to run their own charters and soon forget that they are part of Country. Most of States will have their own priorities, goals and budgets.
Still not convinced and think that Governance is overhead in a Country. Just for information, check the link Somalia , which is the only country in the world where there is no government.
Now just replace the Country with Enterprise and States with Projects. Hope you understand that missing governance in Enterprises is one of most common reason for complex IT state.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Candidate for the EDA
For a long time, I am reading excellent posts on SOA and EDA blog by Jack Van Hoof. EDA reminds me of Telecom domain. This domain is excellent candidate for EDA. Telecom network generates the events. These events are intercepted by application services like Prepaid, Ringback tone, Follow me, VPN etc.
Explaining my point with scenario like execution of Single Service -
Consider scenario where prepaid caller dials a called party number. A event is generated, service capture the calling party number and called party number. Based on called party number it routes the call. Now caller listens the ringing. Called party picks up the phone. Another event is generated. Service captures the events and starts charging. There is voice channel between caller and called party. After sometime, called party hangs the phone call. Another event is generated and service based on this event stops charging and persist the duration of call. In this flow, based on current event and last event result, application service executes the business logic. There is requirement for storing the state of call. This makes scenario little bit complex. Events cann't be consider stateless in real sense.
Execution of Multiple Services
In this case, one approach is to introduce Service Manager and this Service Manager further manages the interactions with several services and their sequencing.
In contrast with Enterprise application, Telecom applications are more chatty i.e. Events are too many and are of very short duration. Due to this, scalability and performance becomes burning issues. Secondly, all these events are in real time. While events are processed, customers are waiting for call to connect, waiting for ring back tone, announcements etc. It makes true testing ground for EDA.
In last, I feel, SOA and EDA could change the landscape of Telecom services. Niche companies could provide services like charging, rating, application services on internet. These services could be consumed by operators instead every one building themselves. Telecom domain is always a front runner at concept level. Hub & Spoke model of Telecom switches was innovated three decades back. This model is foundation for buzzword ESB nowadays.
Explaining my point with scenario like execution of Single Service -
Consider scenario where prepaid caller dials a called party number. A event is generated, service capture the calling party number and called party number. Based on called party number it routes the call. Now caller listens the ringing. Called party picks up the phone. Another event is generated. Service captures the events and starts charging. There is voice channel between caller and called party. After sometime, called party hangs the phone call. Another event is generated and service based on this event stops charging and persist the duration of call. In this flow, based on current event and last event result, application service executes the business logic. There is requirement for storing the state of call. This makes scenario little bit complex. Events cann't be consider stateless in real sense.
Execution of Multiple Services
In this case, one approach is to introduce Service Manager and this Service Manager further manages the interactions with several services and their sequencing.
In contrast with Enterprise application, Telecom applications are more chatty i.e. Events are too many and are of very short duration. Due to this, scalability and performance becomes burning issues. Secondly, all these events are in real time. While events are processed, customers are waiting for call to connect, waiting for ring back tone, announcements etc. It makes true testing ground for EDA.
In last, I feel, SOA and EDA could change the landscape of Telecom services. Niche companies could provide services like charging, rating, application services on internet. These services could be consumed by operators instead every one building themselves. Telecom domain is always a front runner at concept level. Hub & Spoke model of Telecom switches was innovated three decades back. This model is foundation for buzzword ESB nowadays.
Friday, June 29, 2007
Integrity of Bloggers
Few months back, there was lot of buzz around the Blogger's Code of Conduct from O'Reilly Radar. My viewpoint is that blog shows the level of Blogger integrity. My thoughts about Employers and Employees perspectives are -
Employers Perspective - Many companies are not in favour of employees expressing views in public domain. If you see from employers viewpoints, not all employees are mature and have high level of integrity. There are intermittent periods when employee is not satisfied due to any reason and publish their views based on perception or prejudice not on facts. Blogging requires high degree of mutual trust between employers and employees.
Employee Perspective - A blogging demands a high integrity from the bloggers. In my view, best practice is to keep blog independent of company references. Never ever share the company information or link to company site. Blog's objective is to share your thoughts with people with same frequency. There is no inherent requirement to share any kind of company information.
Few attributes of good bloggers -
1. Ownership - Any comments published on one's blog are responsibility of blogger. Always keep moderation on for your blog. Just publishing a disclaimer is not enough.
2. True Character -Its a test of one character when things are not moving in right direction in professional life, one should resist any comments on it. This is time when you will do something unethical. If you can't resist and can't stop yourself from mud slugging, stop blogging for sometime.
3. Correct information - Bloggers shall share the correct information. It should not be biased based on one's goals. This shared information is for the benefit of bloggers community. This is platform which provides the opportunity to learn from each other experiences. May be good idea is to declare one's level of expertise on blog topic.
4. Respect - Show respect for other bloggers. Only constructive comments drives the fruitful discussion.
Happy Blogging !!
Employers Perspective - Many companies are not in favour of employees expressing views in public domain. If you see from employers viewpoints, not all employees are mature and have high level of integrity. There are intermittent periods when employee is not satisfied due to any reason and publish their views based on perception or prejudice not on facts. Blogging requires high degree of mutual trust between employers and employees.
Employee Perspective - A blogging demands a high integrity from the bloggers. In my view, best practice is to keep blog independent of company references. Never ever share the company information or link to company site. Blog's objective is to share your thoughts with people with same frequency. There is no inherent requirement to share any kind of company information.
Few attributes of good bloggers -
1. Ownership - Any comments published on one's blog are responsibility of blogger. Always keep moderation on for your blog. Just publishing a disclaimer is not enough.
2. True Character -Its a test of one character when things are not moving in right direction in professional life, one should resist any comments on it. This is time when you will do something unethical. If you can't resist and can't stop yourself from mud slugging, stop blogging for sometime.
3. Correct information - Bloggers shall share the correct information. It should not be biased based on one's goals. This shared information is for the benefit of bloggers community. This is platform which provides the opportunity to learn from each other experiences. May be good idea is to declare one's level of expertise on blog topic.
4. Respect - Show respect for other bloggers. Only constructive comments drives the fruitful discussion.
Happy Blogging !!
Saturday, June 23, 2007
SOAtization of Enterprise Culture
For last few years, whenever any projects is initiated or any product is launched, it claims to be following principles of SOA. Most of big Enterprise claims that they are in process of successfully adopting SOA. To measure the maturity, one can find many SOA maturity models on lines of CMMi models.
Actually, SOAtization of Enterprise is a change in culture of Enterprise. One needs lots of impact players, support of management, proper communication to developer community, strong collaboration with business and Enterprise Architecture team.
SOA is a concept, architecture approach and above all its a cultural change. Enterprise starts discussing in taxonomy of business processes. Top down approach is followed to find business services. Delivery teams believes in building reusable business services and infrastructure services. A proper governance exists and services are registered in repository. People don't owns the applications and projects.
Simple way to check the SOAtization of the Enterprise is to find whether people are building business processes or applications.
Actually, SOAtization of Enterprise is a change in culture of Enterprise. One needs lots of impact players, support of management, proper communication to developer community, strong collaboration with business and Enterprise Architecture team.
SOA is a concept, architecture approach and above all its a cultural change. Enterprise starts discussing in taxonomy of business processes. Top down approach is followed to find business services. Delivery teams believes in building reusable business services and infrastructure services. A proper governance exists and services are registered in repository. People don't owns the applications and projects.
Simple way to check the SOAtization of the Enterprise is to find whether people are building business processes or applications.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
SOA - The Elephant
There is always a debate who should drive the SOA initiative in Enterprise. It could be business, architecture team, delivery or Operations team. It benefits all of them in different ways. SOA from different viewpoints looks like
- Business see SOA as a set of business services that are exposed to its clients. It reduces the time to market and costs of building business processes. It increases business agility and simplify the IT.
- Architects see SOA as an architectural approach to build business processes. It is based on well known principles and patterns like loose coupling, separation of concerns, encapsulation etc. It constitutes of provider, consumer and contract.
-Developer see SOA as a set of standards, tools and technologies like Web Services.
-Operational people see SOA as a better contract between Service provider and Service consumer.
In my view, SOA impacts the entire Enterprise and everyone is stakeholder. Unlike earlier concepts of distributed computing in IT, SOA is more near to business people. Hope IT will fulfill the agility and reusability promise this time.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Monday, May 28, 2007
"The World is Flat" by Thomas L.Friedman
Shape of world is changing from Round to Flat. This brilliant book finds out the forces behind it and impact of them on our day to day life.
A must read book for every organization & individuals who wants to survive in Flat world. Rules of game are changing. Countries & Corporation who will adapt to changing rules will grow and others will fight for their survival.
I feel, in another decade, people in India & China will face the same challenge and difficult time as faced by people in West today. It will be opportunity and concern at the same time.
Another thought, all flatteners are happening to reduce TIME spent in chores. Time is becoming most precious and whatever we think of today is time consuming, will not be done by us in future. It will be either outsourced, off shored, in-sourced, automated, extinct or ignored.
Check Convergence II chapter in book, vertical silos are replaced by Service ecosystem in businesses. It reflects that World is also adopting concept SOA in its own way.
A must read book for every organization & individuals who wants to survive in Flat world. Rules of game are changing. Countries & Corporation who will adapt to changing rules will grow and others will fight for their survival.
I feel, in another decade, people in India & China will face the same challenge and difficult time as faced by people in West today. It will be opportunity and concern at the same time.
Another thought, all flatteners are happening to reduce TIME spent in chores. Time is becoming most precious and whatever we think of today is time consuming, will not be done by us in future. It will be either outsourced, off shored, in-sourced, automated, extinct or ignored.
Check Convergence II chapter in book, vertical silos are replaced by Service ecosystem in businesses. It reflects that World is also adopting concept SOA in its own way.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Mindset of Companies
First thought, do companies too have mindset? Entirely based on my own experience, I agree, companies have mindset. I am being lucky to work in companies with different mindset.
Second thought, Is it possible to categorize the mindset? It could be based on size, domain, geography, business model and vision. Most popular or known to me ;) categorization is based on business model like Product, Service and End user companies. Another popular one is based on size like Start ups, mid size or large Enterprises.
Now further talking about the Mindset based on business model. We all agree that Product and Service companies have different way of working. What about End user companies? These companies who don’t have IT as there core business and still build there own IT systems. If I put the Product and Service companies on opposite ends and now want to put End user companies between these two ends. Will End User Company aligns more to Product or Service Company? Thought is still vague, context and taxonomy is missing. Lets define in next paragraph.
Product companies generally have better vision and strategy. They have more focus on non functional aspect of IT system like extensibility, flexibility, modifiability, manageability, scalability etc. Service companies generally have wider experience of domains & technologies. They maintain the resource pools. They have more focus on delivery. Due to this non functional aspect gets less attention unless conveyed and agreed before signing off. Any changes after delivery means more revenue for Service Company.
Now, lets again think about End User Company, they are building systems for themselves in competitive market. This means they have to focus on Time to Market and aligns more to Service Company. But they have to maintain the system after delivery too. They can’t ignore the truth; maintenance & enhancements cost is much more than original development cost. This is fact and leads to conclusion that End User Company should be more aligned to Product Company Mindset.
Second thought, Is it possible to categorize the mindset? It could be based on size, domain, geography, business model and vision. Most popular or known to me ;) categorization is based on business model like Product, Service and End user companies. Another popular one is based on size like Start ups, mid size or large Enterprises.
Now further talking about the Mindset based on business model. We all agree that Product and Service companies have different way of working. What about End user companies? These companies who don’t have IT as there core business and still build there own IT systems. If I put the Product and Service companies on opposite ends and now want to put End user companies between these two ends. Will End User Company aligns more to Product or Service Company? Thought is still vague, context and taxonomy is missing. Lets define in next paragraph.
Product companies generally have better vision and strategy. They have more focus on non functional aspect of IT system like extensibility, flexibility, modifiability, manageability, scalability etc. Service companies generally have wider experience of domains & technologies. They maintain the resource pools. They have more focus on delivery. Due to this non functional aspect gets less attention unless conveyed and agreed before signing off. Any changes after delivery means more revenue for Service Company.
Now, lets again think about End User Company, they are building systems for themselves in competitive market. This means they have to focus on Time to Market and aligns more to Service Company. But they have to maintain the system after delivery too. They can’t ignore the truth; maintenance & enhancements cost is much more than original development cost. This is fact and leads to conclusion that End User Company should be more aligned to Product Company Mindset.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Tactical Projects and Flyover in City
Just a thought, if Enterprise Architecture is analogous to City planning than Tactical project becomes analogous to flyover in City.
Flyover is constructed to reduce the bottleneck at one junction/crossing. Similarly Tactical project is executed to provide the short term solutions.
Flyover results into traffic jam on subsequent crossing after the flyover. Now we need to build another flyover to remove this bottleneck. Is it right approach? Or do we need long term planning to handle increasing traffic and a better public transport to take care of public. A better infrastructure and proper city blueprint to avoid all these traffic jams.
Same thing happens to Tactical project, which results into another tactical and another tactical. We need Enterprise Architecture to prepare Blueprint and vision of enterprise. This will help in reducing risk and cost of IT.
Flyover is constructed to reduce the bottleneck at one junction/crossing. Similarly Tactical project is executed to provide the short term solutions.
Flyover results into traffic jam on subsequent crossing after the flyover. Now we need to build another flyover to remove this bottleneck. Is it right approach? Or do we need long term planning to handle increasing traffic and a better public transport to take care of public. A better infrastructure and proper city blueprint to avoid all these traffic jams.
Same thing happens to Tactical project, which results into another tactical and another tactical. We need Enterprise Architecture to prepare Blueprint and vision of enterprise. This will help in reducing risk and cost of IT.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Improving Architectural Skill
Few tools to improve the Architectural skills are -
1. Reading books & best practices
2. Defining & Assurance of System Architecture
3. Attending seminars & conferences
4. Discussions with experienced Architects, colleagues & team
5. Reading white papers & blogs
6. Writing blogs and books
7. Registering for daily updates on technology and domains from Internet sites
Fastest way to improve skills is through point number 4, Dangerous way is to be dependent only on point number 1, Slowest & safest way is through point 2 and Impressive way is through point number 3.
1. Reading books & best practices
2. Defining & Assurance of System Architecture
3. Attending seminars & conferences
4. Discussions with experienced Architects, colleagues & team
5. Reading white papers & blogs
6. Writing blogs and books
7. Registering for daily updates on technology and domains from Internet sites
Fastest way to improve skills is through point number 4, Dangerous way is to be dependent only on point number 1, Slowest & safest way is through point 2 and Impressive way is through point number 3.
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