See you at Evolve EA!

For some time now you've probably noticed our linking to a new sister blog titled Evolve EA. Our new blog will still look at the multiple disciplines that make up enterprise architecture and provide clarity to the alignment between business processes and IT infrastructure in the support of integration and standardization across the enterprise. Since we've established this corresponding blog we want to officially invite you to join us and subscribe to our feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/EvolveEA

As you've already seen, we've been building up the Evolve EA blog with the same quality content that you find here. Beginning today, this will be our last post on this blog but you can join us on the Evolve EA blog, where we hope you'll continue to actively participate as you have here. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you at Evolve EA.

IT Professionals Might be Looking Elsewhere for Employment

James McGovern’s latest post on Enterprise Architecture discusses how many enterprise architects are favoring contract/consultant work over permanent work because of the better paying opportunities and offers.

Enterprise architecture in general might suffer is some of the more qualified IT professionals are leaving organizations for contract work. Another point that James brings up is that perhaps HR isn’t allowing for much flexibility on salary compensation for enterprise architects. Is your company currently using consultants for its enterprise architecture initiatives?

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Enterprise Architecture, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolveea.blogspot.com/

Hottest IT Jobs

In a recent research study done by Forrester, discussed here at InfoWorld, they released what their analysts believe are the hottest jobs in IT. The hottest of all jobs available were information/data architects and information security experts. Making the extremely hot list was data/content oriented business analyst, business architect, enterprise architect, and vendor management experts.

Of all the jobs on the list, Forrester found that these attributes were most important characteristics in all the jobs listed:

* Local knowledge of the business industry or region.
* Cross-discipline knowledge; understanding both management practices and customer groups.
* Those willing to take on high-risk roles that, if successful, will have a major impact on the business.
* Limited external supply; that is, while an outsourcer may be willing to supply 500 coders, the benefits of finding you a half-dozen enterprise architects is not worth their while.
* Consistency with technology, vendor, or industry direction, meaning rapid changes in technology; an example is how mobile put a higher demand on real experts who have domain-specific knowledge.

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Enterprise Architecture, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolveea.blogspot.com/

Growth of SOA in India

Business Standard mentioned today, in this article, that India is expected to have the “fastest growing SOA market in the Asia-Pacific region”. Springboard Research has predicted that this market will have a compound annual growth rate of 49% from 2006 to 2009. Many organizations are already starting to seize this opportunity. Intelligroup, one company interested in this growth rate, believes that 20% of the “larger SAP customer in India” will be adopting SOA within the year. Liladhar Bagad, practice head of Intelligroup, released this statement as a means to explain this growth:

“As organisations become more global, SOA will become an integral part of their strategy. It is aimed at lowering the total cost of ownership, simplifying integration and customisation. Organisations are increasingly embracing SOA as a means to access and distribute information in real time”

It is cautioned, however, that organizations need to be aware of disappointment that some companies may announce. As Chandika Mendi, director and head of Virtusa Corporation, explained

“The reason for the disappointment will be due to taking a much narrowed approach while defining SOA, which could lead to failure of implementations. Also, the initial investment in SOA is high and will reap benefits slowly as the entire enterprise moves to it, which is a fairly long journey,”

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Enterprise Architecture, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolveea.blogspot.com/

Return on Investment or Return on Information?

Anton Venter’s latest post on the IT Knowledge Exchange argues that the real ROI of EA comes from information and its use. Anton makes another great point that documentation of architecture makes finding information easier and readily available. It also becomes easier to provide outsourcers info on the architecture should they need it to support an organization’s applications. What do you think is the real ROI of enterprise architecture?

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Enterprise Architecture, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolveea.blogspot.com/

Putting the "E" in TOGAF: An EAdirections Webinar

In our attempt to deliver the latest updates and insights within the EA space, we’ve scheduled a series of free webinars that will happen over the next couple of months. The first webinar in the series “Putting the "E" in TOGAF: An EAdirections Webinar,” will be presented by three managing directors of EAdirections: Larry R. DeBoever, George S. Paras, and Tim Westbrock. Register now for the webinar on Thursday, Sep 4, 2008 from 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT to save your webinar seat. Here’s a brief description of the webinar and what you can expect to take out of it by attending:

A number of EA practitioners have concluded that TOGAF is not an effective framework (and ADM is not an effective methodology) for Enterprise(wide) Architecture. TOGAF does not cover aligning long-term corporate strategy with IT, and positions EA as a reactive, rather than proactive, approach. In fairness, many have expressed similar concerns about other EA frameworks and methodologies. This webinar explores the “enterprise-ishness” of TOGAF. We discuss our experiences and practical techniques for extending TOGAF (and other frameworks) to significantly increase its effectiveness across the Enterprise.

If you are a Chief Architect or IT manager evaluating EA frameworks, or if you are struggling to apply TOGAF (or another framework), on an enterprise-wide basis, then this webinar is for you. Topics will include:

What you will learn:

• What are the types of enterprise-wide requirements that users of TOGAF struggle with?
• What are the enterprise-wide architectural activities that EA teams should be performing without a clear ‘Business Requirement’?
• How should an Enterprise Architecture account for the fact that most enterprises do not have an ‘end state’ but rather continually adjust to changing markets and opportunities for innovation?
• Are the artifacts produced by TOGAF effective for communicating with the Board and the Executive Committee? If not, can they be made ‘consumable’?

This webinar is being brought to you by the Enterprise Architectures Conference, don’t forget to take a look at the lineup of speakers we have this year. Click on the link below to register for the free webinar.

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/924415223

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Enterprise Architecture, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolveea.blogspot.com/

Path to Become an Enterprise Architect

Praba Siva, in this blog post, created an excellent chart for the path that an individual should follow to become an enterprise architect. He details what type of positions you should hold, for how long, the skill sets learned from each position, as well as what the next steps and positions should be. (Click on diagram to see a larger version)

Alan Inglis, in this blog post, discusses the above chart. He comments that he would add a business entry point, and would also like to see an entry point from an “information or data perspective”.

What are your thoughts? Is there anything else you would add to build on these two authors viewpoints?

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Enterprise Architecture, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://evolveea.blogspot.com/