mariner innovations practice of architecture

© Mariner Partners Inc. 2013, All Rights Reserved.

Mariner Innovations

Practice of Architecture

October 2013

Carl Ozkaynak

Objectives of this session• What is Architecture?

• What is the Practice of Architecture?

• Why do you need an Architect?

• Architectures Role?

• What is Enterprise Architecture?

• What is an Architecture Framework?

• What is a Roadmap?

• Where does Lean StartUp & DAD fit?

What is Architecture?Wiki-pedia:

“Architecture (Latin architectura, from the Greek ἀρχιτέκτων – arkhitekton, from ἀρχι- "chief" and τέκτων "builder, carpenter, mason") is both the process and product of planning, designing, and construction”, that reflects functional, non-functional, technical, social, environmental, and other considerations.

Architecture must understand the big picture in order to be successful!

What is a practice?• Only way to get better

• Do not think about practicing

– Practice (do it)!

• Set priorities

– How good do you want to be?

• Once you know

– Is it a reasonable goal?

• Set the right expectations

• Develop a practice routine

Why do I need an Architect?• How many times have you heard of

been asked this question?

• How would you answer it?

• Example expectation?

– i.e. getting home, marathon

• Architect, is a building or IT definition

– But, trainers or councillors have the same role

Client Scenario• Help the client rebuild their IT

organization to support continued development and expansion of core business applications

• Application environment contains 2 million lines of java code

• Grown organically over the past 7 years

• Contains a variety of different technology frameworks and architectures glued together

How would you respond?• Missing role

– “An Architect”!!!

• Typical response?

– We have never had one before, why do we need one now?

• Or, we have one but,

– More tactically focused

– Not aligned with the business

– Etc.

Architect Role

• Ultimate ownership of the vision, definition, leadership and responsibility for the successful and efficient delivery of the system.

• Must be involved throughout the entire software development life cycle, not just at design and definition time.

Not a bucket brigade!• Where the architect stands at their place in line,

takes the requirement, does the architecture definition, hands it off to the development team, wipes their hand and says “good luck.”

Must understand the business objectives, goals, and drivers

• Involved from the beginning

• Helps to extract, define and own the non-functional requirements

– These details get easily overlooked or are ill-defined

• How often have we heard “I need it to run fast”, or “It has to be secure” as the only non-functional requirements?

Extract out the who and how!

• To be successful what should you focus on?

– Focus on what you “do” and “need”!

• Sample – What performance level do you need?

Architecture can help!

• Aids with identifying impacts on decisions that directly affect the entire system

– Performance

– Scalability

– Security

– Availability

– Delivery

– Costs

– Efficiency

More than just technology decisions

• The architect provides defining principles, overall structure, and leadership to the team.

• This is not to put process and structure in place just for the sake of it, nor is it structure that is rigid and unchanging.

• To provide leadership and view of the big picture

• Ensure that teams are succeeding

• All the individual stories, components and modules, come together successfully in meeting the functional, non-functional, and business requirements.

More …• Optimize delivery/development

• collaborating with

– Stakeholders

– Business,

– Quality assurance,

– Data

– Support

– Security

• Communicating the vision, the impacts and the trade-offs that result from any changes or modifications to the architecture during the development process.

• Architectures evolve, even during the development process.

• The architect ‘s job is not to enforce a rigid architecture no matter what.

• Rather, maintain the big picture view and determine the trade-offs required in the changes, and own the responsibility for the decision and communicating impacts to stakeholders.

Revisit - Client Scenario

• So, since I did not have someone doing all that…

• Reason why I am bringing you in to help.

What is Enterprise Architecture?

• What does it mean to your enterprise?

– Ivory tower?

– Magazine Engineers?

– Architecture Police?

– Collaborative and valuable resource!

What is Enterprise Architecture?

“The process of translating the business vision and strategy into effective enterprise change by creating, communicating, and improving the key principles and models that describe the enterprise’s future state and enable its evolution. The scope of the enterprise architecture includes people, processes, information, and technology of the enterprise, and their relationships to one another and to the external environment. Enterprise Architects compose holistic solutions that address the business challenges of the enterprise, and support the governance needed to implement them.”

What is an Architecture Framework?• TOGAF

• Developing broad range of architectures– i.e. business architecture

• Describes the fundamental organization of the business

• Method to define the target state of the enterprise– i.e. Building blocks, capabilities, …

– Example: Rocky, Coffee

• Guidance for how to address business issues and needs

Roadmap

Assess

Stabilize

Reform

Best Practices

Standard Services

Central Services

Start End

Phase 1 - Assessment• Understand the maturity of your

organization!• Determining the value in developing

a roadmap!– Organize the assessment: people,

process, technology, cost– Interview: Business, IT, consultants,

vendors– Review: operation solutions, projects,

issues, Application Portfolio, Corporate Objectives

– Track: risks, issues, improvements, drivers

– Develop a plan– Propose a vision and next steps

The Assessment

What has been done well?

What needs attention?

• Points to Categorize– Corporate objectives alignment– The need to integrate– Leadership buy-in– Acceptance to change– Total cost of solutions– Integration skills– Business focus– Understand business processes– Solution options– Integration architecture– Standards and procedures– Data/Information quality

Where does Lean StartUp and DAD fit?

• Lean StartUp– At the beginning &

throughout

– Evaluate viability through product, technology, and business

– i.e. lower running costs, senors, recycling bins

• DAD– Product / Project delivery that

incorporates other discipline.

– Discipline is a good thing!

– Minimize technical debt!

– Predictable release schedules?