By Loren K. Baynes, Director, Global Marketing Communications, The Open Group
The Open Group hosted its latest event in Croke Park in the vibrant city of Dublin, Ireland, April 29 – May 2, welcoming over 200 attendees from 21 countries who included decision-makers, Enterprise Architects, engineers, technologists, and end-users representing many businesses and governments.
The theme of this event and a topic which ran through many of the speaker sessions was ‘Digital in Practice’, covering not only the emerging digital technologies but also the standards, architectures, and business frameworks that support and enable the transition to, and implementation of, the modern Digital Enterprise.
To kick off the event, Steve Nunn welcomed attendees and started the proceedings by introducing Johan Krebbers, GM Digital Emerging Technologies / VP IT Innovation at Shell International B.V., who spoke about how the newly launched Open Subsurface Data Universe™ Forum is changing the Oil & Gas industry. He explored the Big Data challenges of the sector and how the OSDU Forum has set out to solve these, calling for “data to be positioned at the center of everything” and for applications to be split from their data sources. Johan also looked ahead at the Forum’s plans for the future and its drive to create a sustainable OSDU approach.
Steve Nunn, CEO, The Open Group with Johan Krebbers, GM Digital Emerging Technologies / VP IT Innovation at Shell International B.V.
Other plenary sessions on Day 1 included those run by Kevin Corcoran, Principal, CIO Fellow, Technology Services Optimization and Dr. Daniel Spar, Management Consulting Practice Leader at Deloitte Consulting. Together, they looked at how Enterprise Architecture can be leveraged to execute Digital Transformation successfully, providing insight on how organizations can map their vision to the appropriate digital frontier– and in turn future-proof the business. They highlighted the need to create a workforce of digital natives, and how companies can attract and retain tech talent by providing opportunities to work with emerging technologies such as AI.
Sukhi Gill, Vice President and CTO, DXC Technology then spoke about the practice of going digital, focusing on how Enterprise Architects can successfully drive change. He led a discussion on digital disruption, stating that “we’ve moved beyond ‘software is going to eat the world’ to ‘AI is going to eat software’”. Sukhi went on to explain the need for Enterprise Architects to engage key stakeholders. Importantly, this involves starting a project from the “outside-in” by firstly understanding the KPIs that businesses care about.
The final session before the group broke for lunch was with Marcel van de Lustgraaf, Managing Director DTC, VIVAT and Bart van Muyen, Senior Account Manager, Fruition Partners. They presented a case study where VIVAT has collaborated with Fruition Partners to make significant changes to its IT model using The Open Group IT4IT™ Standard as a blueprint. By leveraging Agile IT4IT™ framework, they were not only able to identify opportunities to automate the infrastructure and software production processes, but also successfully implement these in a short time frame. They concluded with their key takeaways, sharing some advice with the audience: “Make IT4IT a priority, focus on communication, select a strategic partner, and you will see positive results. Ultimately, Digital Transformation requires an IT4IT approach.”
On Monday afternoon, attendees split across talk tracks covering Digital in Practice and Open Process Automation – sessions included:
- Lean Practice in Digital Transformation with Rafał Nowakowski, Enterprise Architect, Consultant, Trainer, Altkom Akademia S.A.
- Collaborative Model for Enterprise Privacy Impact Assessments with Shankar Chebrolu,Director of Security Architecture, Red Hat
- Open Process Automation: Past, Present, and Future with Donald Clark, VP Industries and Fellow, Schneider Electric
- Market Opportunities – O-PAS™ with Tim Pieszchala, Global System Architect, Schneider Electric
- Delivering Business Service Integration Paradigm using a Banking Cloud Marketplace with Manuel Angel Romo Esteban, Executive IT Architect and Fernando García Velasco, Senior IT Architect, IBM
- Digital Framework for an Agile Cloud Governance Program with Brian McCarty, Principal Technical Architect (CTO), USAA
- O-PAS™ Cyber Security Aspects for Industrial Control Systems with Camilo Gomez, Global Cybersecurity Strategist, Yokogawa Corporation
- Panel Session: Open Process Automation™ with a panel of experts and moderated by Jacco Opmeer, Program Manager OPAF & DCS Strategies, and Subject Matter Expert for Process Automation, Shell Global Solutions B.V.
The day rounded off with a networking event, allowing attendees to discuss the insights shared in the day’s sessions.
Networking event at Croke Park, Dublin
Day 2 was as jam-packed as the first, with lots of great content on a range of topics. It began with Steve Nunn welcoming the VP of Standards and Certification at The Open Group, Andrew Josey, to the stage to give an overview of the newest Open Badges that were announced at the event.
Plenary sessions were focused around Business Architecture and Smart Cities and started with Paul Homan, CTO Industrial Solutions, IBM who discussed how to apply the TOGAF® Business Architecture enhancements found in Version 9.2 of the Standard.
Paul Homan, CTO Industrial Solutions, IBM
Next up, Markus Helfert, Director, Business Informatics Group and Zohreh Pourzolfagher, Postdoctoral Researcher, The Irish Software Research Center, both from Dublin City University, took to the stage to provide examples of Enterprise Architecture management for Smart Cities. This included details on research that has created a Reference Methodology for developing and transforming public services in smart cities.
Rounding off the plenaries was Professor Kary Främling, CEO ControlThings and Professor in Computer Science at Aalto University. This session covered off Smart Services, open data as a main enabler of Smart Cities, and how the Open Messaging Interface (O-MI) and Open Data Format (O-DF) standards, together with the recently published Open Data Element Framework (O-DEF), provide a complete framework for representing data in these scenarios.
On Tuesday afternoon, track sessions on Enterprise Architecture and Managing Digital Value Streams included:
- Agile Architecture Body of Knowledge with Paul Homan, CTO Industrial Solutions, IBM and Frederic Le, Directeur Associé, Corporate Technology Office, DXC Technology
- Practical Experience of Continuous Architectural Refactoring in a SaaS Offering with Paddy Fagan, STSM, Chief Architect Watson Care Manager, IBM and Eamonn Moriarty, STSM & Chief Architect GHHS, Watson Health, IBM
- Case Study: Using the ArchiMate® Model of the IT4IT™ Reference Architecture Standard with Kees van den Brink, Engagement Lead, Fujitsu
- Using IT4IT™ as a Management Assessment Tool with Dan Warfield, Principal, CC&C Europe
- Automate Your Entire IT Organization (using IT4IT™ and DevOps) with Rob Akershoek, IT Architect, Fruition Partners
The day ended with a networking dinner at the iconic Guinness Storehouse where guests were able to experience Guinness’ long brewing heritage, Irish history, and enjoy local food, drink, music, and dancing with a backdrop of a panoramic view of the city!
Great Irish Band at the Guinness Storehouse
Day 3 saw a TOGAF® and ArchiMate® User Group meeting take place throughout the morning, allowing attendees to learn about the new TOGAF® Business Architecture Credential and ask a panel of experts and practitioners questions on the TOGAF® standard and ArchiMate® modeling language.
In addition, the track featured talks on Smart Cities and Boundaryless Information Flow, and included speakers from ControlThings, Aalto University, CKIR, Forum Virium Helsinki, Métropole de Lyon and BIBA Bremer Institut für Produktion und Logistik GmbH, discussing a range of aspects around the EU bIoTope project.
Interactive workshops on Smart Cities Architecture and Implementation and Data Science were conducted on Wednesday afternoon, allowing attendees more of a deep-dive into these topics.
Another highlight was the awarding of the first TOGAF® Business Architecture Level 1 certificates. These were given out during the event by Steve Nunn and Andrew Josey to some of those TOGAF® practitioners who have gained the certification since its launch.
The Architecture Forum, Digital Practitioners Work Group, IT4IT™ Forum, Open Process Automation Forum™, Open Trusted Technology Forum and Open Platform 3.0™ Forum also ran dedicated Member-only meetings throughout the event.
Many thanks to our wonderful sponsors and exhibitors: Association of Enterprise Architects, Avolution, TM Forum, Van Haren Publishing and Modeliosoft.
Thank you also to all of our fantastic speakers and attendees – we hope to see you at our next quarterly event – The Open Group Denver 2019 – July 22 to July 25, 2019!
http://www.opengroup.org @theopengroup #ogDUB
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 25 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.