By Loren K. Baynes, Director, Global Marketing Communications, The Open Group
In the City of Lights, The Open Group hosted the last quarterly event of 2016, October 24-27. With the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe as backdrops, 200 attendees experienced a very full agenda featuring presentations and case studies on e-Government, Boundaryless Information Flow™, Enterprise Architecture (EA), Interoperability and much more. The event was held at the Hyatt Regency Paris Étoile.
On Monday, October 24, Steve Nunn, CEO & President of The Open Group, welcomed all in fluent French, expressing his appreciation for the attendees from 26 countries who made the journey to the event.
It was an honor to have Emmanuel Gregoire, Deputy Mayor of Paris, begin the sessions. His keynote was titled “Modernize, Innovate and Transform: Paris Administration Case Study on e-Government.” He provided great insight on how to successfully manage and architect such a tremendous endeavor with the objective of digital transformation.
Roland Genson, Director, General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union then spoke about “Standardized Boundaryless Information Flow”. He stated without standards and interoperability, a transformation is impossible. Boundaryless Information Flow is the key enabler for efficiency, cost-effectiveness and agility. Roland also discussed the balance of openness, confidentiality and security.
The plenary continued with a presentation by Robert ‘Bob’ Weisman, CEO/COO, Build the Vision, Inc. Bob, based in Ottawa, Canada, shared his key learnings on EA and e-Government. Enterprise Architecture acts as the cohesive glue between the many management frameworks. Bob said that government has the reliability mindset and e-Government has the validity mindset, and an organization needs to ensure EA is used properly to manage the gaps.
The morning culminated with a European Interoperability Reference Architecture (EIRA) “State of Play” by Dr. Raul Mario Abril Jiminez, Program Manager, EU Policies, European Commission. The EIRA v1.1.0 is based on TOGAF®, an Open Group standard, expressed in ArchiMate®, also an Open Group standard. EIRA defines for cross-sector and cross-border interoperability.
Dr. Raul Mario Abril Jimenez, EU Policies, European Commission
Each session concluded with a Q&A, moderated by Steve Nunn, with many questions posed by attendees.
Two lunchtime presentations featured Phillippe Desfray, Director General & Product Manager, Modeliosoft and Dominique Marie, Lead Solution Consultant, Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Phillipe discussed the need to combine standards to cover entire EA modeling scope. Dominque shared how HPE uses the IT4IT™ standard with customers.
The afternoon offered tracks in Open Business Architecture (O-BA) and IT4IT programs, as well as continuing the theme of EA and Government. A panel discussion was held on the preliminary O-BA standard, an Open Group standard. Subject matter experts were from Huawei Technologies, Philips and Capgemini. They stated the five key elements to BA are common language, holistic view, horizontal and vertical traceability, and integrated practice.
In the evening at the hotel, the attendees enjoyed a networking reception and sponsor exhibits.
Day two of The Open Group Paris, October 25, began with a conversation about business transformation with Steve Nunn and Eric Boulay, CEO and Founder, Arismore and Memority, and partner of The Open Group Paris. Eric stated that business transformation is continuous and never ends. It is a long journey with quick wins along the way.
Packed house in the Plenary on October 25
The theme of digital transformation continued with a joint presentation by Olivier Flous, Vice President, Engineering and Eric Cohen, Chief Enterprise Architect, both with the Thales Group. According to Olivier and Eric, the three streams of the digital transformation framework are customer, operations, people. Furthermore, EA helps manage the complexity associated with digital transformation. Digital driven EA capability is based on an ecosystem collaboration and also applies lean thinking.
Ron Schuldt, Manager, Data-Harmonizing, LLC provided a brief overview of The Open Group O-DEF (Open Data Element Framework) standard. O-DEF is a prime example of The Open Group vision of ‘Making Standards Work™’.
The plenary further featured ‘Continuous Architecture – Reconciling EA and Agility’ by Renaud Phelizon, Senior Consultant, Arismore. He explained continuous architecture is architecture based on shorter and richer feedback loops (build, measure, learn).
Tuesday’s plenary concluded with Bill Wimsatt, Oracle Business Architect, sharing his vision of architecting the digital business – a merger of customer experience and EA. Bill said there is no more stratification as it is now becoming ecosystems. “The advent of full digital business is to become the biggest business/ IT disruptor since the internet.” Digital Lifecycle Methodology consists of ideation, prototype and impact.
Partner lunchtime presentations on EA were offered by Lars Lundgren, Manager and Founder, Biner and Konstantin Govedarski, CTO, Smart360.
The afternoon agenda was full with tracks on Open Platform 3.0™, Digital Architecture, IT4IT, Automation and Standards in ICS Sytems, ArchiMate and Professional Development. Presenters were from companies including Huawei Technologies, ExxonMobil, FEAPO, Capgemini, HPE and The Open Group.
The group then ventured to the evening off-site function at the quaint Le Chalet des Iles in the Bois de Boulogne. It was a fantastic night networking over an exceptional French meal.
Wednesday, October 26, consisted of many tracks / workshops on the subjects of Bridging Strategy and Implementation, Open Platform 3.0™, Architecting for IoT, Architecting Smart Cities and Agile EA. The speakers came from a wide range organizations such as the University of Stuttgart, IBM, Salesforce, Hitachi and BMW AG.
Members only meetings were held every day, including Thursday, October 27.
A special ‘thank you’ goes to our sponsors and exhibitors: BiZZdesign, Good e-Learning, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Modeliosoft, Association of Enterprise Architects (AEA), Arismore, Biner, Mega, Orbus Software, Smart360
@theopengroup #ogPARIS
Looking forward to seeing you at The Open Group San Francisco, January 30 – February 2, 2017! #ogSFO
Loren K. Baynes, Director, Global Marketing Communications, joined The Open Group in 2013 and spearheads corporate marketing initiatives, primarily the website, blog, media relations and social media. Loren has over 20 years experience in brand marketing and public relations and, prior to The Open Group, was with The Walt Disney Company for over 10 years. Loren holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from Texas A&M University. She is based in the US.