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This white paper outlines the essential aspects of the validation process and provides a justification for why enterprise architects should form the habit of validating the architectures they build or define. This white paper also suggests some specific techniques for conducting validations of the essential aspects of enterprise system architectures.

A side objective of this white paper is to stimulate discussions and sharing of real world experiences of initiating, conducting, and the overall impact of presenting the validation results. Each of these major tasks of the validation process is an uphill battle requiring technical knowledge and depth, political awareness and people management skills.

As most practicing architects eventually realize, doing the right thing is never easy, and neither is this process of validating enterprise system architectures. Hopefully this white paper will trigger feedback that will help all enterprise architects deal with this issue and begin the process of validating (stake holder approval, acceptance, and adoption) enterprise system architectures.

The Need to Validate Enterprise System Architectures

This may sound very familiar to most enterprise architects but validating enterprise system architectures is not an activity found in most project plans. Yes, the validation process is not necessarily quick nor is it of short duration. However, it is of utmost importance that the foundation of enterprise systems, namely the system architecture upon which major investment of time, money, and resources is committed, is properly validated before it’s too late.

System architectures are artifacts shaped with all the personal biases of the enterprise architect responsible for developing the architecture. Past experiences, current knowledge, and a very personal understanding of the objectives of the enterprise system to be built play a big role in shaping the architects mind and hence the system architecture. Not validating system architectures would mean adopting the view point of the architect or the architecture team which put together the system architecture in question.

Validating system architectures is also hugely beneficial to the enterprise architect as it helps bring all stake holders and leaders together and facilitate a meeting of minds ensuring long term investment and support for the project. No project goes as planned and having this kind of all round support is critical to any enterprise project especially when things don’t go as planned.

An asset oriented view of systems and architectures

Enterprise architects, who view the systems they develop as software assets, tend to include validations into their plans. Assets are built with a long term vision in mind and are expected to have a long lifecycle. Hence it is natural for enterprise software asset architects to understand the importance of being assured that the long term direction set by the system architecture has backing from all stake holders, is affordable from the corporation’s perspective, and will actually deliver on everyone expectations.

It is not possible to define perfect system architecture as many of the parameters involved in forming that architecture will change over the lifecycle of the system. However validated system architectures have the capability to quickly make the necessary midstream adjustments without losing focus of the end goals.

Hence, enterprise architects should cultivate the habit of treating every system they architect as a long term software asset and take validation of their architectures seriously. The next few pages of this white paper discuss the process of validating enterprise system architects, and how to validate specific strategic aspects of the system architecture.

The Process of Validating Enterprise System Architectures

Defining the correct process for validating enterprise system architectures does not need a lot of advanced thinking or process engineering. The process is essentially simple, consisting of common sense tasks. However, planning and executing on these common sense tasks can be surprisingly challenging for an enterprise architect as it depends on the maturing of the corporation’s understanding of the role of enterprise system architectures.

Figure 1.0 presents one such common sense approach that involves three major tasks.

o Initiating an architecture validation

o Conducting the actual validation of the architecture

o Assessing the results of the validation

Figure 1: A common sense approach to validation process

Each of these seemingly easy and straight forward tasks can get complicated due to corporate politics. The biggest stumbling block becomes the acceptance of the results and the eventual sign-off of the enterprise system architecture. This is especially difficult for stakeholders who do not share the same level of understanding of architectures as the enterprise architect. Often, enterprise architects have a tough time convincing stakeholders about the need for validating system architecture prior to commitment of major IT investments.

Stakeholder awareness of the validation process and especially of the results of the processes is extremely important. Successful enterprise architects are routinely able to get stakeholder support to include architecture validations as part of the overall master project plans. The objective of the rest of this white paper is to help enterprise architects create the necessary awareness of what needs to be validated, how the validation will be performed and the expected benefits of the overall effort.

What Essential Aspects of Enterprise System Architectures Should We Validate?

There are many aspects to a system architecture including technical and business oriented and also some management oriented aspects such as implementation roadmaps. However validating each of these aspects is neither practical nor necessary for ensuring the system architecture is valid and will set the correct long term direction for the enterprise system. There are few strategic aspects of the architecture which when validated have a cascading impact on the remainder of the architecture aspects and development of the software asset. The top three strategic and essential aspects of enterprise system architecture that warrant validation are outlined below.
1. Probability and Level of “Adoption Risk”

Most forward looking and long term enterprise architects depends on adoption of new technologies, development techniques, and serious long term involvement of end users. These dependencies on adopting something new, reengineering existing processes etc. come with a higher probability of risk to the project. Understanding this “Adoption Risk” is critical to secure long term support from all stakeholders. Needless to say not having a complete picture of the risks involved will surprise stakeholders and the project will be at risk. It is the job of each enterprise architect to first identify these risks and then validate the architecture’s exposure to these risks by defining appropriate mitigation strategies.

2. Affordability

How much is this architecture going to cost throughout its lifecycle? This is a question most architects hope no one will ask as it’s very difficult or rather next to impossible for estimating accurately the cost of a long term project. Yes, enterprise architects need to have the skills for providing sensible cost estimates that will be acceptable to all stakeholders. These estimates need to be closer to reality than fiction and hence understanding aspects that can potentially influence the cost of the project in the long term need to be validated as part of the architecture.

3. Stakeholder Participation

Do all the stake holders understand, agree and accept the system architecture? Well this rarely happens and most architects will say that trying to get all stakeholders to agree on one architecture is not realistic. However, participation from all stakeholders is paramount to the long term success of enterprise projects and enterprise architects should spend time to understand the major drivers and scope of each stakeholder involved in the enterprise project.

Validating “Adoption Risk”

As discussed earlier, enterprise system architecture is a composition of many different aspects. Each of these aspects has its own lifecycle and the proposed system architecture will consist of aspects that are each in a different state of their individual lifecycle. Figure 2.0 presents a simplified view consisting of two aspects, the overall cost of selecting specific system architecture and the general adoption rate of new technologies

The risk measurement chart shows two key aspects that can influence the system architecture one way or the other. The first aspect is related to the technologies included in the system architecture. Usually there is a mixture of technologies ranging from some in the infancy stage of their lifecycles to other technologies that tend toward becoming obsolete over the lifecycle of the architecture. Generally speaking early adoption of new technologies has slightly less risk as there is room for adjustments as the technology matures. Late adoption of technologies poses a higher risk as technologies are becoming obsolete at a much faster rate.

Another aspect that enterprise architects should factor in their validation is the cost of supporting obsolete or near obsolete technologies. Any good enterprise system architecture has factored in the cost of replacing obsolete technologies with emerging or mature technologies over the lifetime of the software asset.

The goal of enterprise architects should be to keep a healthy balance of technologies with most of them falling in the center of the graph representing mature state technologies.

Validating Affordability

Ensuring a healthy mix of mature technologies is a sign of good architecture, however even the best of architectures do not get approved if the costs are prohibitive. The bigger danger however is when architects do not understand the lifetime cost of specific system architectures. It is much more painful to all stakeholders including enterprise architects when enterprise projects are aborted due to investments not generating expected results or to put it in correct jargon, no return on investment (ROI). A significant factor in ensuring ROI is setting the right perspective and correct expectations. Figure 3.0 presents a multi dimensional view of what enterprise architects should consider when calculating the costs associated with adopting system architectures.

Most architects look as far as acquisition and maintenance phase for calculating the overall costs of developing the enterprise system, acquiring the required licenses and maintaining the system. However, a more far reaching view of calculating costs will also include the replacement phase of the software asset. After all, all technologies eventually become obsolete and are replaced by entirely new technologies or enhanced versions of the same technology.

Most enterprise architects will agree that many times the replacement cost of a software asset is much higher than the acquisition and maintenance costs. The overall cost (time, money, resources) required to develop, maintain, and replace the software asset should be projected during the system architecture validation phase. The focus is not to lower the costs necessarily but trying to achieve more clarity on the costs through out the lifecycle of the software asset.

Validating Stakeholder Participation

So you have covered your bases on the adoption risk front, and also have clarity on the lifetime costs of adopting the software architecture, but are everyone onboard? How many times have enterprise architects been surprised by late objections or key stakeholders withdrawing their support at the last minute? Sometimes support for enterprise projects fades away due to factors beyond the sphere of influence of the enterprise architect. But it always helps to keep all the stakeholders aware of the system architecture and the long term goals on a regular basis. It is vital for enterprise architects to understand that there are many major constituents whose long term participation is absolutely necessary for the ongoing success of enterprise projects. Figure 4.0 presents the stakeholder quadrant consisting of the key stakeholder groups and the architecture scope directly influenced by these groups. Each stakeholder group is a composition of appropriate leadership, management, and staff.

Each view is itself a universe of processes, objects, and state that needs to be enabled and supported by the system architecture. Validating the system architecture across these views is critical for all stakeholders to be in agreement that their interests are taken care of. Enterprise architects should be prepared to initiate and complete this onerous task.

Summary

Validating enterprise architectures is a vital component of ensuring long term successful implementations for enterprise systems. The best enterprise system architectures fail to deliver when defined in isolation. The validation process is essentially about involving all stake holders and getting their acceptance and adoption of the architecture.

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Businesses small and large have been using MS Excel for years to run processes and manage projects. For small, simple projects Excel is a useful organizational tool. However, projects have a tendency to grow in complexity at a rate that Excel can not keep up with.

Imagine that a business needs to track projects or processes and does have the time or budget to put a sophisticated tracking system in place. An IT department does not exist or is busy handling other affairs. Excel often seems to be the obvious, quickest and easiest resource to get things started.

Skip ahead a few months or a year later and those same Excel spreadsheets have now become a burden to the company. Many different versions are being passed around. No one knows who has the most up-to-date files saved on their computer. The project has evolved, making the spreadsheets so complex that only one person understands how to update them or even interpret them, in some cases.

It is now nearly impossible to generate reports from the spreadsheets or track progress and historical data. The data is also not searchable since Excel does not function as a database. The list goes on and on with all the limitations.

It is very understandable why business professionals turn to Excel to run critical processes: most already own a license on their desktop and are familiar with enough to quickly get the project started. They can even bypass IT altogether and maintain the Excel files themselves. The problem is Excel was never intended to be used as project management tool. It is no surprise that collaborating via spreadsheets becomes unbearable rather quickly as projects and processes grow in complexity.

Project Management software solutions such as Interneer Intellect provide business professionals with the same benefits they seek with Excel – ease of use, quick setup, ease of maintenance without IT – all with the full benefits and robustness of a database system, that is collaborative, web-based, multi-user and enterprise level. These systems even incorporated many other features that make it easier for the business users to manage documents, projects and process workflows.

Excel is best for what it was designed to do – accounting and financial calculations. Stop running your businesses on a thread and read white papers and view demos of project management software system. Web-based systems like Interneer Intellect allow for real-time collaboration between team members anywhere. The time saved using project management software will provide ROI.

Choosing The Right Business Path

Technology advances at such a rapid rate that with each passing day it seems to only go faster. Business professionals strive to choose the best tools to efficiently manage and execute projects. With technology moving so fast, there is no time to go down the wrong path. Once on a familiar path, one can continue with confidence. The biggest fear is starting off on the wrong path. There is a simple guideline for determining the correct path and it is this – empowering the end user. End users are their own experts, so the more ability you give them to control their tools the more they will feel comfortable with any given product.

The Current Situation

We live in a time of technology when access to tools has exceeded political boundaries. The Internet and the World Wide Web are part of a user-driven force that is affecting everything in society. Entertainment has become decentralized. We can download songs, which means we do not have to go to the concerts; we can download a movie, which means we do not have to go to the theater. We are in fact becoming a world of Do It Yourselfers who expect user-driven tools. The last thing we want is for our tools to drive us.

Technology is always somewhere between the center point and the perimeter. End users towards the perimeter have greater control over their tools and the systems they use, whereas end users towards the center have little or no input. They must follow the dictates of the tool’s designer.

Some History

In the past, when you wanted to place a call you gave the operator the number and the call was put through for you. Today we dial directly. We still purchase newspapers and read what the editor laid out for us. But now we can go to Digg.com and see what the readers think should be on the front page. Technology seems to be moving us away from the center and out towards the perimeter. Kodak built a business on developing film, whereas the digital camera allows us as many shots as we want followed by all the manipulation of the image cared for.

Design For The Perimeter

By its nature, technology is moving away from the center towards the perimeter. End users are empowered to not only do more things, but to have those things feed back into the system and affect end results. The success of a new piece of technology or business is based on a wide number of factors, but empowering your users rather than trying to overpower them truly provides the best foundation.

Project Management Software that empowers the end user.

In the realm of project management software, systems such as Interneer Intellect are built around empowering end users. These types of systems allow the administrative user to actually design the templates and workflows that project executers see. The entire project management process is guided and designed by the project managers themselves, without hard coding. This is a major breakthrough for project management software.

Most systems trap the end user into attempting to execute unique and often complicated projects with the limited functionality of pre-designed templates. If the business then wants to change the program to reflect the types of projects they run the system must be programmed, costing unnecessary amounts of time and money.

Effective software must empower the end users to design, manage and execute every project in the most effective way possible.

This invaluable feature has convinced enterprises like Bose, Boeing, Verizon and Harman International to turn to tools that allow user-control for their project management needs.

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