7 reasons it4 it is good news

© CC and C Solutions. All Rights Reserved. 1© CC and C Solutions. All Rights Reserved. 1

Why IT4IT is Good News for ArchitectsDan WarfieldSenior Enterprise Architect, CC and C AmericasLondon, 25 April [email protected]


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Enterprise Architecture Start-up / Cloud / Big Data

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Who are CC and C Solutions?• A global Enterprise

Architecture and IT Transformation consultancy, and a global leader in EA training.

• Gold member of The Open Group and leaders in the IT4IT forum.

• Our mission: to lead development and growth of Enterprise Architecture and IT Capability:

o for the individualo for the organization o and for the industry


Disclaimers• My conclusions are not scientific, but are based on more

than 30 years of professional experience working to improve business outcomes for enterprise IT.

• Past successes and (especially) failures have given me the context to appreciate the value of IT4IT in recent practical work.

• Company-specific information on project work is not included here, to respect confidentiality and because the focus is on generalizable lessons.


Some Real-World Problem StatementsWhen I was running operations,

you IT people gave me all kinds of reports so I knew what was happening everywhere.

Now that I’ve been asked to look at improving IT, I realize there’s no useful information at all about what you’re doing in your own house.

- European Supply Chain Executive

• Understand, anticipate and influence the business demand for services• Drive the delivery teams to develop more effective methodologies and standards• Oversee operation of IT services to ensure it aligns with business objectives

- IT Executive Job Spec, UK Retailer

IT Operations Management (ITOM) and IT Service Management (ITSM) work has traditionally been managed as a set of point solutions, supported by a wide variety of unaligned processes, tools, metrics and information models.

Friction among these discrete silos have bogged down service delivery. Overlaps, gaps, red tape, manual processes and inconsistent data increasingly create extra cost, slower delivery and dissatisfied customers.

- EA Executive Report, US Fortune 100 Company


One Real-World ExampleChallenges

• Create an Enterprise IT Operating Model as a reference point for creating transformation roadmaps across the whole scope of CIO responsibilities

• Create a functional model of IT as a Business, as a template for rationalization, alignment and future-state planning for IT tooling

Dynamics• All stakeholders need to be engaged – Infrastructure, Development, Audit, Finance, HR, and

Executives• Many previous attempts to work with a common view of “What is IT?”• Well-defended silos everywhere – many understand the threat

Outcomes• Starting with IT4IT and cross-functional team, extended model and localized presentation to

achieve broad acceptance• Built transformation strategy heat map and now executing on highest-value targets• Architecture and budget consolidated at IT4IT level – no more decisions in silos


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Seven Reasons IT4IT Is Effective

.....

It is really about service delivery

It requires a common operational data model

It can be the lens for strategic transformation

It demands standardized APIs across diverse toolsets

People get it

It isn’t proprietary

It is based on value chains


People Get It


People get it• The EA’s everyday challenge to make complex ideas

understandable is often an issue when talking to mainstream IT managers and practitioners.

• The IT4IT model has the distinction of making immediate sense to pretty much everyone in the enterprise IT ecosystem. People can quickly find themselves somewhere on the map.

• This instant recognition is in stark contrast to esoteric models like ITIL and COBIT, which are robust, complex, very useful to experienced practitioners – and incomprehensible to most people, including most IT professionals.


Service Portfolio

Component

Portfolio Demand

Component

Proposal Component

Policy Component

Defect Component

Requirement Component

Project Component

Test Component

Build Component

SourceControl

Component

ChangeControl

Component

Problem Component

Incident Component

Event Component

Diagnostics & Remediation Component

Usage Component

Chargeback/ Showback

Component

Strategy to Portfolio Requirement to Deploy Request to Fulfill Detect to Correct

Offer Mgmt. Component

Offer Consumption Component

Conceptual Service

Blueprint

Concep-tual

Service

Logical Service

Blueprint

Service Release

Desired Service Model

Service Monitoring

Component

Catalog Composition Component

Enterprise ArchitectureComponent

Service Design

Component

Fulfillment ExecutionComponent

Request Rationalization

Component

Configuration Management

Component

ReleaseComposition Component

Service Level Component

Actual Service

CIs

BuildPackage

Component

Service Release Blueprint

IT4IT Reference Architecture L1 V.2.0

People Can Find Themselves Here


Why Does This Matter?For change to get traction, all stakeholders need to be

engaged and aligned – Infrastructure,

Development, Audit, Finance, HR, and Executives

Many previous attempts to work with a common view of “What is IT?” have fallen

down on semantic dissonance

With at worst a little light translation,

everyone who matters seems to understand

Level 1. Now we can talk about change from a

common starting point.


IT4IT isn’t proprietary


Some of the OptionsPositives Negatives

COBIT

• Process oriented• Complete• Detailed• Well-defined

• Skewed to the auditor’s perspective• Very complex• Steep learning curve• Proprietary

ITIL

• Well-known• Many practitioners• Maps to many tools• Lots of third-party information and

resources

• Skewed to the infrastructure & operations perspective

• Primarily narrative• Waterfall-oriented• Proprietary

IT4IT

• Function-oriented• Covers the main end-to-end IT Value

Chain• Couched in familiar language (mostly)• Methodology-neutral• Defined information model• Non-proprietary

• Immature• Not well known• Strategy and support functions

mostly out of scope


Why Does This Matter?• Pressure from technology

vendors• Pressure from services vendors• Unbalanced perspective from

professional bodiesProprietary best practice IT models, valuable as they may be, are skewed to commercial or professional agendas, resulting in uneven depth and coverage. At best they are designed for a narrower audience than the CIO, and can often gloss over anything not deeply interesting to their owners and / or target group. As these models have matured, feedback loops have sometimes built up between modeling committees and practitioners that result in increasingly parochial content in each model. There should be less risk of this problem in a broader forum.


IT4IT is based on value chains


The IT4IT™ Value Chain Model• IT4IT applies Porter’s thinking to the Business of IT. The

IT4IT Value Chain describes the IT Service Lifecycle, which is captured in four IT Value Streams.

15

IT4IT fully describe the four Value Streams.

Supporting Activities are described only to the extent they directly interact with the IT Value Chain


Why Does This Matter?• Value chains are a tried and true model for business value

creation.• Value chains are familiar to every non-IT executive in a large

enterprise.• It remains easy (if done correctly) for EAs to map these

directly back to enterprise strategy.• If done correctly, we can know – and show – what we’re talking

about when we claim our IT investments have something to do with the actual purpose of the enterprise (which is never making back-office IT operations more elegant).


IT4IT is really about service delivery


What Do We Mean By Service Delivery?• The focus of the enterprise IT conversation shifts from point-

solution projects to business services that have an IT component.

• The model for IT delivery, management and charging is about outcomes rather than activities.

• Services are much more than infrastructure examples like “provision a server.” If that’s all we needed, we wouldn’t need service catalogs or IT4IT – or architecture, for that matter.

• Everything consumed by IT customers can be seen as a service. That’s the starting point. .


The IT4IT™ Service Model

• The Service Model – the core IT4IT concept, starts as an idea.

• It eventually becomes an IT Service that can be deployed, managed, consumed and measured throughout its life cycle

19

ConceptualService Model

LogicalService Model

Service

Catalog

Entry

RealizedService Model

Becomes…

Ordered

Published in…

Released/Deployed!

• In a fully mature IT4IT environment, the Logical Service Model resides in a robust Service Catalog, which contains all the information needed to order and deploy manageable production instances (Realized Service Model) of the service.


The Service Model Backbone is at the core of IT4IT. In IT4IT the organization is built around nurturing the Service at every stage of its metamorphoses, and keeping traceability throughout the life cycle.

Service Portfolio

Component

Conceptual Service

BlueprintConcep-

tual ServiceLogical Service

BlueprintService Release


Service Design

Component

Fulfillment ExecutionComponent


Component

ReleaseComposition Component

Actual Service CIs

Service Release

Blueprint


Why Does This Matter?• Service Model-based IT operations have the core

framework needed to support end to end automation, traceability, metering and pricing.

• The Value Chain as the mechanism for managing the Service Model Portfolio, is a powerful conceptual structure that can define orchestrated outcomes across a range of multisourced developers, support staff and technology vendors.

• As a standard way of defining and managing Service Models emerges, it will be possible to build a link connecting today’s siloed tools for functions such as EA, PPM, APM, Deployment, Service Delivery, Financial Management, ITSM and ITOM.


Service Portfolio

Portfolio Demand

Proposal

Policy

Defect

Requirement

Project

Test

BuildSource Control

ReleaseComposition

ChangeControl

Problem Incident

Event

Diagnostics & Remediation

Usage

Chargeback/Showback

Offer Management

Offer Consumption

Service Archi-tecture

Policy Require-ment

Scope Agree-ment

IT Initiative

Portfolio Backlog

Item

Source

Conceptual Service

Blueprint

Conceptual Service

Logical Service

Blueprint

Test Case

Defect

Offer

Service Release

Build

Service Catalog Entry


UsageRecord

Fulfillment Request

Sub-scription

ChargebackContract

Request

Problem/Known Error

Incident

Event

Service Monitor

Run Book

RFC

Service Monitoring

Catalog Composition

Shopping Cart

Enterprise Architecture

ServiceDesign

Fulfillment Execution

Request Rationalization


Service Level

Service Contract

Actual Service

CIs

Service Release Blueprint

BuildPackage

Build Package

IT4IT requires a common operational data model


Key Data Object Example

Key Attributes The Portfolio Backlog Item data object shall have the following key data attributes:

DemandID: Unique identifier of the Portfolio Backlog Item (demand request). DemandDescription: Description/details of the Portfolio Backlog Item (demand request). Source: Where did the demand originate from (e.g., person/department)? ITServiceID: Is demand related to a live service (e.g., enhancement requests)? DemandFulfillmentStatus: Status information. DecisionMaker: Information on who took the decisions related to the demand.

Key Data Object Relationships The Portfolio Backlog Item data object shall maintain the following relationships:

Portfolio Backlog Item to Conceptual Service (n:1): One Conceptual Service may be related to one or more Portfolio Backlog Items. Portfolio Backlog Item to Requirement (1:n): A Portfolio Backlog Item is mapped to one or more Requirements which will need to be delivered to successfully fulfill the demand. Portfolio Backlog Item to Scope Agreement (n:1): One or more Portfolio Backlog Items may be included in a Scope Agreement.

Portfolio Backlog Item (data object): Portfolio Backlog Items represent the repository of all incoming demands including but not limited to new requests, enhancement requests, and defect fix requests.

Source: The Open Group IT4IT™ Reference Architecture, Version 2.0 55 © The Open Group


Why Does This Matter?Traceability from the production environment to business users and their interests

A consistent horizontal semantics is critical to control of the end-to-end Value Chain.

Enables the mechanics of effective, modern service delivery -- like automated closed-loop defect management, DevOps, effective metering and usage monitoring, real complexity management,

We can replace artistry, manual hand-offs and tribal knowledge with consistent automated processes.


IT4IT demands standardized APIs across diverse toolsets


Standards and APIs• A common data model connecting a standard set of

processes across the IT landscape also means that a standard set of APIs must emerge.

• This will impact tool vendors as well as in-house solutions and integrations.

• As IT4IT API standards emerge, tool vendor certification will come into the frame.


Why Does This Matter?• Standards make operational life easier and cheaper for

almost everyone.

• Tool vendors will have an incentive and road map for shifting R&D resource to non-commodity development where they can really be different.

• The end-to-end tool Service Model management tool that IT4IT implies is missing today – standards will make this possible,


IT4IT can be the lens for envisioning strategic transformation


How This Works in the Real WorldBeing comprehensible to almost everyone engaged in IT management

… makes it more likely that the outcome of heat mapping exercises would make sense to people who weren’t in the workshop.

Being derived in the first instance from a value-chain way of looking at business problems

… increases the probability that proposed IT transformation investments will align with something actually important to the shareholders.

Being non-proprietary … reduces the chance that heat maps will be

skewed toward outcomes more favorable to salesmen than to the enterprise.


Why Does This Matter?Every CIO (and every Chief

Architect) is expected to answer: How do you provide value to the enterprise? And how are you dealing with the

future?

CIOs lying awake are wondering: How do I

transform the IT organization soon enough, and in the right way, and

without breaking too many things along the

way?

It’s not good enough (and sometimes fatal) to explain

that value delivery is indirect and so too hard to

prove.

A better response is to start with an agreed

model of value traceability at a high

level. IT4IT speaks about business value in a

language the organization can consume.


Learnings• Starting as a skeptical practitioner comfortable with

much more formal models, I came to understand the power of IT4IT as a communication tool that makes it much easier to explain architecture and strategy work to a wide range of stakeholders.

• It was possible to retain consumable clarity while at the same time deepening and broadening the incomplete reference architecture into an enterprise-specific solution.

• In the hands of a skilled practitioner, IT4IT is a valuable addition to any EA and IT transformation tool kit.


Remember, There Are No Silver Bullets• A reference architecture is not the same as a cookbook:

It is by definition incomplete. Additional work needed for adapting IT4IT to real-word scenarios may include:

Adding more detail to currently

incomplete support

components of IT4IT (still on the future agenda for the IT4IT Forum).

Adding some strategic

leadership and support

components that are outside

the current IT4IT scope.

Mapping IT4IT to the other

formal models used in

specialist areas such as ITSM, Audit, Process Engineering

and Application Development.

A bit of renaming

and rearranging

to align with the target

culture.


Thank You

Dan [email protected]


ABOUT DAN • Dan is an experienced entrepreneur, strategist, innovator and enterprise

architect. Recent experience includes creating the IT4IT-based Level Four reference architecture for a Fortune 50 company, with deep cross-linking to COBIT, ITIL and other best-practice models.

• In more than 30 years of Enterprise IT leadership experience, he has been a solution executive, innovation leader and product manager for five global IT software / services companies including IBM and CSC, and worked as an independent marketing and strategy adviser to clients in the UK and US.

• In Fortune 100 corporate IT Dan held leadership roles in IT strategic planning, corporate IT innovation, enterprise IT governance, and delivery of large-scale solutions. As an entrepreneur, Dan owned two UK-based companies providing business advisory and staffing services over a 15-year period.

• He currently works as an adviser on IT strategy, enterprise architecture and B2B marketing, and is the owner of Ajar Publishing, a micro-publishing company focused on ensuring that the Systems Science publications of Dr. John N. Warfield are available everywhere.

7 reasons it4 it is good news

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