By Ash Patel, Marketing Specialist, The Open Group.
The Open Group hosted a virtual event on Enterprise Architecture (EA) for Sustainability July 25 – 27, 2023, assembling leading industry and global subject matter experts. The event looked at Enterprise Architecture (EA) helping organizations identify sustainability goals, along with focusing on the TOGAF® User Group, and The Open Group India Awards for Innovation and Excellence. Here are our key highlights and takeaways from across the three days.
Day One
After a welcome introduction from The Open Group President and CEO Steve Nunn, the event commenced with the first lens of the day on The Agile Organization Through a Sustainability Lens, led by Steve Nicholls DXC Technologist, DXC Technology. This session was grounded in the current Open Agile Architecture™ Standard (O-AA) and focused on section 12 “Agile Organization”. Steve Nicholls also brought together elements from The Open Group London Summit “EA for Sustainability” presentations, and DXC’s experience in the field, to provide a forward-looking view of potential sustainability changes to the standard. Steve’s presentation also emphasized the following theme throughout: “Agility at scale can be achieved when the enterprise is driven by autonomous, stream-aligned, and cross functional teams”.
Steve then wrapped his presentation with some takeaways aimed at the attendees. More specifically asking the following questions: Ask yourself if you know your company’s sustainability goals, do you know your customers goals, and do you have evangelists?
This was followed by Henrik Hvid Jensen, Industry Managing Partner, DXC Technology, who gave a thought-provoking and timely presentation on Accelerating Digitizing the Global Circular Economy. Throughout his presentation, Jensen stressed the importance of how we need a global circular economy to reach climate and environmental goals, and how a global circular economy must offer more attractive business models than the current linear economy. Digitization is a requirement for an efficient and attractive global circular economy. To exponentially accelerate the digitization of the Circular Economy ecosystems, an open shared digital backbone is required.
A standout moment from Henrik’s presentation was when he echoed the following statement, “by 2030, the circular economy is the next economy”. Tying his presentation together, where he mentioned how collaborative business ecosystem digitization will accelerate the transition to a global competitive circular economy. Thereby accelerating reaching the global climate and environmental goals, and how we must act now to safeguard our planet.
After a short break, we leaped back into action with Aaron Rorstrom, Chief Architect Application Services, Capgemini and Caryn Sklar, Certified Chief Architect, Capgemini, leading us through Architecture Modeling and Sustainability. This presentation provided a hands-on approach when it came to Architecture Modeling, further solidifying the importance that sustainability plays within it.
We then heard from Dzmitry Krotau, Lead Business Analyst, Softeq Development Corp. & Andreas Nagel Ventum Consulting, who gave a very valuable look into Open Footprint™ software carbon emissions measurement and the possible solutions and challenges, surrounding it. Their presentation covered Scope 3 emissions, specifically software carbon emissions tracking and reporting challenges.
After a short break, continuing the EA for Sustainability event was John Booth, Managing Director, Carbon3IT Ltd, who spoke about Data Centers and Sustainability. This presentation covered the journey data centers will have to take to meet net zero and sustainability goals for the 21st Century, the impending EU legislation, and showed attendees how to select a data center that meets these goals.
To wrap up the first day, we were led through EA and the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data Management Challenge by Jim Hietala, VP, Sustainability and Market Development, The Open Group. His talk explored some of the challenges faced by large organizations in the area of GHG emissions data management and the impacts that EA practices can have on this area. Jim also described the standards work being done in The Open Group Open Footprint™ Forum in this area, which is expected to help address these data management challenges. It also looked at the regulations that are driving organizations to manage emissions, and the challenges that this new imperative brings. The talk further explored where EA can be helpful to architecting for success in the emissions data management area, and for sustainability success generally.
Day Two
After an explorative and engaging first day looking at EA for Sustainability, we ventured into the first presentation of Wednesday, surrounding the TOGAF® User Group, after being introduced to the day ahead by Steve Nunn. The day started with a presentation on Launching the Inclusivity Standard Working Group, led by Alix Horton, Strategic Partner Manager Microsoft & Azure UK and Ireland, IBM, and Paul Homan, CTO for Industrial Sector, IBM Services UK & Ireland. The session served as an announcement centering around a new working group for the investigation into increasing digital inclusivity. Systemic bias in the workplace and society at large, is persistent and pervasive. As efficiency and accuracy in technologies increases, so does the potential for technological bias. The session broke down what we could expect from the work group, and how it aims to investigate how inclusivity can be built into the architecture as standard, rather than an ad-hoc addition. Overall, the presentation was very inspiring and inciteful, with Alix further discussing the importance of the following: “We must aim for inclusion that is equitable, that everyone has the same opportunities and experiences and that marginal groups are not left behind.”
Next, we heard from Scott Sloan, Chief Technical Officer, Kyndryl, on Digital Transformation Through Industry Reference Architecture: The ZiRA Hospital Reference Architecture, which offered a great exploration into Digital Transformation, through the lens of the ZiRA Hospital Reference Architecture. This session helped to identify the value of industry reference architectures in defining enterprise strategy and managing transformation risk, providing examples from the upcoming ZiRA release.
“ZIRA provides a layered approach everything from a Business layer to the services and processes to the information and application functioning layer” – Scott Sloan.
After a short break, Aaron Rorstrom Chief Architect Application Services, Capgemini, led us through how to use TOGAF® Standard to Support an Innovation Culture. This presentation served as a great way to not only learn more about the TOGAF standard, a standard of The Open Group, but also the importance of supporting an innovation culture, vital in today’s ever growing fast moving technological landscape.
The day then moved steadily along with an in depth and informative presentation from Christopher Frost, Principal Enterprise Architect, Global Services Business Group, Fujitsu, who gave a talk on Agile EA – The Next Iteration. The TOGAF Agile Working Group published their first guide in 2021, Enabling Enterprise Agility, but the group carried on developing more guidance for applying TOGAF with Agility. Next came the Agile Enterprise Architecture Playbook, and now there is work-in-progress on a TOGAF configurator. Chris’s session presented the Playbook and gave a view of the current work on the configurator.
After a break, staying true to the day’s theme, was an expansive look into the TOGAF® Series Guides, specifically the Business Capability Guide, led by Peter Ridgway, Digital Industry Advisor, Digital Transformation Services, Fujitsu Services Ltd. which offered past and present users of the guide, key information on it, and some important takeaways from the guide as well.
To round off the day was Marc Lankhorst – Managing Consultant & Chief Technology Evangelist, Bizzdesign, who gave a presentation on How to use the ArchiMate® Modeling Language to Support the TOGAF Standard. This presentation offered a great how-to guide into the standard while touching on the modeling language to support the TOGAF standard. Thorough and engaging, Marc guided us through all, further emphasizing the correspondence of ArchiMate and TOGAF concepts, the expression of TOGAF artifacts in ArchiMate models, and more generally on the use and visualization of architecture models for different stakeholders in different stages of the architecture process, a true highlight of the day. With that, we returned to Steve Nunn to conclude the two days of the virtual event, who closed the day with comments, and also mentioned the last day of the event revolving around a very celebratory event – this being The Open Group India Awards for Innovation and Excellence, promising to be a very celebratory event.
Day 3 – The Open Group India Awards for Innovation and Excellence
With the main theme of the event revolving EA for Sustainability at this virtual event, we were also very excited to be rounding up the event with The Open Group India Awards for Innovation and Excellence, Recognizing and Rewarding Excellence, Innovation, Perseverance, Leadership, and Community Contribution.
Since launching in 2017, The Open Group India Awards recognized organizations and teams in the South Asia, Middle-East, and African regions that have reached the pinnacle of achievement in applying our standards, open-source software, and best practices in enterprise architecture, IT management, cybersecurity, and digital transformation.
Before a last welcome & introduction for the day ahead, Deepti Nair, Manager, Membership & Market Development, The Open Group, started the evening by mentioning months of preparation leading to the event, back in January when the awards were announced, and the wide use and adoption of The Open Group standards. We then were welcomed warmly by Steve Nunn who gave further background into the awards, and mentioned last year’s awards presentation.
Deepti extended congratulations on behalf of Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, Honourable Union Minister of Civil Aviation, Steel, Government of India. While mentioning his best wishes to all participants and congratulations to the winners on their remarkable achievements, he extended his heartfelt thanks to The Open Group for recognizing and rewarding innovation and excellence in the use of Open Standards and Open Source.
The last day combined many inspiring and striking presentations. Attendees heard from João Ricardo Vasconcelos, Senior Governance Specialist, Governance Global Practice, World Bank, M. VellaiPandi, Director General STQC, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, Steve Nicholls, DXC Technologist, DXC Technology, and Judy Cerenzia, Vice President Forum Operations, The Open Group. They all gave explorative looks into different innovation areas/standards such as: Whole-of-Government Digital Transformation,importance of Standards and Certifications by Standardization Testing and Quality Certification, and more.
A true highlight of the day was when Dr. Pallab Saha, GM India & President of the AEA India, The Open Group, started introducing all the award winners of the evening in the different categories. The full list of winners can be found below:
A distinguished panel of 28 expert executives, thought leaders, and technology pioneers from four continents dedicatedly engaged in a two-month virtual evaluation process to determine the deserving winners. The categories included the ‘Award of Distinction’ and ‘Award of Merit,’ plus Special Mentions for deserving entries that showed exceptional use of The Open Group standards, including TOGAF®, ArchiMate®, IT4IT™, Open FAIR™, O-TTPS, and OSDU® Data Platform. Additionally, there was a new category specifically dedicated to Women in EA Initiatives.
Finally, Pallab wrapped up the fantastic awards ceremony along with closing remarks and thanking all of the award winners. Steve Nunn thanked everyone for the wonderful event showcasing great work and the benefits for organizations using standards of The Open Group and in general. The pride in the recipients of the awards was very evident as a lot of work went into all the projects. Steve Nunn also echoed Pallab’s thanks to the Jury as well, for reviewing the work and bringing the insights from many different industries and many different perspectives from various countries together.
Sincere thank you to all who contributed to making this virtual event such an engaging and informative event and to our speakers, Members, sponsors, attendees, and staff. Everyone truly brought a vast range of expertise and sincere passion to the discussions, making for truly explorative insights into EA for Sustainability and beyond.
Proceedings for the event are available to Members, and those who attended here .
Save the date for The Open Group Summit in Houston October 30- November 2, 2023. We hope to see as many of you as possible there!
Ash Patel – CDMP, Marketing Specialist, joined The Open Group in 2020, initially working in the Certification Team as a Certification Services Agent, before moving into the Marketing Team where he now works on email mailers, content for the staff intranet (O-Zone), SEO (Search Engine Optimization), to monitoring stats for email communications. Ash holds a First-Class Bachelor’s Degree in Media Production (BA hons) from Coventry University and has a background in content writing, copy writing, script writing, photo editing, and video editing. He is based in the UK.