2012 Open Group Predictions, Vol. 2

By The Open Group

Continuing on the theme of predictions, here are a few more, which focus on enterprise architecture, business architecture, general IT and Open Group events in 2012.

Enterprise Architecture – The Industry

By Leonard Fehskens, VP of Skills and Capabilities

Looking back at 2011 and looking forward to 2012, I see growing stress within the EA community as both the demands being placed on it and the diversity of opinions within it increase. While this stress is not likely to fracture the community, it is going to make it much more difficult for both enterprise architects and the communities they serve to make sense of EA in general, and its value proposition in particular.

As I predicted around this time last year, the conventional wisdom about EA continues to spin its wheels.  At the same time, there has been a bit more progress at the leading edge than I had expected or hoped for. The net effect is that the gap between the conventional wisdom and the leading edge has widened. I expect this to continue through the next year as progress at the leading edge is something like the snowball rolling downhill, and newcomers to the discipline will pronounce that it’s obvious the Earth is both flat and the center of the universe.

What I had not expected is the vigor with which the loosely defined concept of business architecture has been adopted as the answer to the vexing challenge of “business/IT alignment.” The big idea seems to be that the enterprise comprises “the business” and IT, and enterprise architecture comprises business architecture and IT architecture. We already know how to do the IT part, so if we can just figure out the business part, we’ll finally have EA down to a science. What’s troubling is how much of the EA community does not see this as an inherently IT-centric perspective that will not win over the “business community.” The key to a truly enterprise-centric concept of EA lies inside that black box labeled “the business” – a black box that accounts for 95% or more of the enterprise.

As if to compensate for this entrenched IT-centric perspective, the EA community has lately adopted the mantra of “enterprise transformation”, a dangerous strategy that risks promising even more when far too many EA efforts have been unable to deliver on the promises they have already made.

At the same time, there is a growing interest in professionalizing the discipline, exemplified by the membership of the Association of Enterprise Architects (AEA) passing 20,000, TOGAF® 9 certifications passing 10,000, and the formation of the Federation of Enterprise Architecture Professional Organizations (FEAPO). The challenge that we face in 2012 and beyond is bringing order to the increasing chaos that characterizes the EA space. The biggest question looming seems to be whether this should be driven by IT. If so, will we be honest about this IT focus and will the potential for EA to become a truly enterprise-wide capability be realized?

Enterprise Architecture – The Profession

By Steve Nunn, COO of The Open Group and CEO of the Association of Enterprise Architects

It’s an exciting time for enterprise architecture, both as an industry and as a profession. There are an abundance of trends in EA, but I wanted to focus on three that have emerged and will continue to evolve in 2012 and beyond.

• A Defined Career Path for Enterprise Architects: Today, there is no clear career path for the enterprise architect. I’ve heard this from college students, IT and business professionals and current EAs. Up until now, the skills necessary to succeed and the roles within an organization that an EA can and should fill have not been defined. It’s imperative that we determine the skill sets EAs need and the path for EAs to acquire these skills in a linear progression throughout their career. Expect this topic to become top priority in 2012.

• Continued EA Certification Adoption: Certification will continue to grow as EAs seek ways to differentiate themselves within the industry and to employers. Certifications and memberships through professional bodies such as the Association of Enterprise Architects will offer value to members and employers alike by identifying competent and capable architects. This growth will also be supported by EA certification adoption in emerging markets like India and China, as those countries continue to explore ways to build value and quality for current and perspective clients, and to establish more international credibility.

• Greater Involvement from the Business: As IT investments become business driven, business executives controlling corporate strategy will need to become more involved in EA and eventually drive the process. Business executive involvement will be especially helpful when outsourcing IT processes, such as Cloud Computing. Expect to see greater interest from executives and business schools that will implement coursework and training to reflect this shift, as well as increased discussion on the value of business architecture.

Business Architecture – Part 2

By Kevin Daley, IBM and Vice-Chair of The Open Group Business Forum

Several key technologies have reached a tipping point in 2011 that will move them out of the investigation and validation by enterprise architects and into the domain of strategy and realization for business architects. Five areas where business architects will be called upon for participation and effort in 2012 are related to:

• Cloud: This increasingly adopted and disruptive technology will help increase the speed of development and change. The business architect will be called upon to ensure the strategic relevancy of transformation in a repeatable fashion as cycle times and rollouts happen faster.

• Social Networking / Mobile Computing: Prevalent consumer usage, global user adoption and improvements in hardware and security make this a trend that cannot be ignored. The business architect will help develop new strategies as organizations strive for new markets and broader demographic reach.

• Internet of Things: This concept from 2000 is reaching critical mass as more and more devices become communicative. The business architect will be called on to facilitate the conversation and design efforts between operational efforts and technologies managing the flood of new and usable information.

• Big Data and Business Intelligence: Massive amounts of previously untapped data are being exposed, analyzed and made insightful and useful. The business architect will be utilized to help contain the complexity of business possibilities while identifying tactical areas where the new insights can be integrated into existing technologies to optimize automation and business process domains.

• ERP Resurgence and Smarter Software: Software purchasing looks to continue its 2011 trend towards broader, more intuitive and feature-rich software and applications.  The business architect will be called upon to identify and help drive getting the maximum amount of operational value and output from these platforms to both preserve and extend organizational differentiation.

The State of IT

By Dave Lounsbury, CTO

What will have a profound effect on the IT industry throughout 2012 are the twin horses of mobility and consumerization, both of which are galloping at full tilt within the IT industry right now. Key to these trends are the increased use of personal devices, as well as favorite consumer Cloud services and social networks, which drive a rapidly growing comfort among end users with both data and computational power being everywhere. This comfort brings a level of expectations to end users who will increasingly want to control how they access and use their data, and with what devices. The expectation of control and access will be increasingly brought from home to the workplace.

This has profound implications for core IT organizations. There will be less reliance on core IT services, and with that an increased expectation of “I’ll buy the services, you show me know to knit them in” as the prevalent user approach to IT – thus requiring increased attention to use of standards conformance. IT departments will change from being the only service providers within organizations to being a guiding force when it comes to core business processes, with IT budgets being impacted. I see a rapid tipping point in this direction in 2012.

What does this mean for corporate data? The matters of scale that have been a part of IT—the overarching need for good architecture, security, standards and governance—will now apply to a wide range of users and their devices and services. Security issues will loom larger. Data, apps and hardware are coming from everywhere, and companies will need to develop criteria for knowing whether systems are robust, secure and trustworthy. Governments worldwide will take a close look at this in 2012, but industry must take the lead to keep up with the pace of technology evolution, such as The Open Group and its members have done with the OTTF standard.

Open Group Events in 2012

By Patty Donovan, VP of Membership and Events

In 2012, we will continue to connect with members globally through all mediums available to us – our quarterly conferences, virtual and regional events and social media. Through coordination with our local partners in Brazil, China, France, Japan, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, we’ve been able to increase our global footprint and connect members and non-members who may not have been able to attend the quarterly conferences with the issues facing today’s IT professionals. These events in conjunction with our efforts in social media has led to a rise in member participation and helped further develop The Open Group community, and we hope to have continued growth in the coming year and beyond.

We’re always open to new suggestions, so if you have a creative idea on how to connect members, please let me know! Also, please be sure to attend the upcoming Open Group Conference in San Francisco, which is taking place on January 30 through February 3. The conference will address enterprise transformation as well as other key issues in 2012 and beyond.