Monthly Archives: April 2006

SOA as IT Portfolio process

In the SOA Migration Strategy planning, we are transitioning from DISCOVERY to PROJECT process (see the I.T. Portfolio Book). We will begin a series of projects to implement SOA in the near futureThe book talks about three models for DISCOVERY phase analysis:

  • Technology Maturity Modeling (Gartner Hype Curve)

    • See the example here: http://nnlm.gov/pnr/eval/rogers.html

  • Scenario Modeling – two flavors

    • Business Scenario Modeling, Business Event/Process Modeling

  • Road-map modeling

In the Technology Maturity Model, several pieces of the Web Services stack are fairly mature at this time, others are still in early stages. Overall, there is a belief that the technology is sufficiently mature that we should begin to implement.

In the Road-Map model:

  • At some point in time in the future (say 5 years), we will implement Fusion based SIS, SFS and other software (probably)
  • This will instantly make us neck deep in in the WS-* stack, BPEL and MOM
  • Given this fairly sure hard milestone in the future, we should develop a roadmap that will make us mature in this technology on or before this event.

The Scenario model is under-developed at this time.

We have an opportunity to take SOA Migration through the I.T. Portfolio processes for each phase and to think about the analysis that should occur at each step of the phase.

GTD – Outside Context

Merlin Mann of 43 Folders just posted a podcast called “Putting Geeks In Context”. One issue with the Getting Things Done process is setting up contexts for your activities. I have found that defining meaningful and useful contexts is an on-going process.

Merlin suggests (very wisely I might add) that geeks need to use two super-contexts: Computer and Non-Computer. You then focus on doing Non-Computer things (like phone calls, reading, listening etc.) someplace else besides in your office in front of your computer.

I love the idea and I will focus on using the non-computer work as an opportunity for going outside. If I can find lectures or podcasts that I need to listen to for work, I’ll load them on my iPod and go for a long walk in the middle of day. I can take long documents to Union or Terrace to read.

Great idea Merlin.

U-Minn presentations: SOA, Folksonomy and IT Architecture

On Monday (April 3, 2006), I was at University of Minnesota presenting on four topics. Below are links to the slides as PDFs:

  1. UW-Madison’s SOA Migration Strategy – what is it and how do we get one
  2. Folksonomy and Web 2.0
  3. IT Architecture – What is it and why 3 isn’t enough
  4. Identity Management Nouns and Verbs

Note that the Folksonomy slides are from an Internet2 version of the talk and are more inclusive than the slides I used at U-Minn. Actually, I meant to grab these slides not the ones that I used. There are a list of links of the URLs that I used in the Folksonomy demo here:

Links I Use in My Folksonomy Demo

Kinkless Getting Things Done

I’ve been working with the Kinkless Getting Things Done (GTD) system. For more info about GTD, see my GTD Tag and/or read David Allen’s book, “Getting Things Done…”
Kinkless Getting Things Done (kGTD) is a system for organizing and trapping tasks using Applescripts and Omni Outliner Professional 3.6 (or better).  You create a project and add tasks for the project.  I’m using the term “project” very loosely.  In the sense of this article and kGTD, a project is a collection of tasks.  Tasks are activities that you can complete in one session.  For me, that means less than 20 minutes.   You assign a context for each task.  A context is a realm of completing work (like email, posting, errand, home, phone, etc).

The kGTD system then syncs the projects and gathers all of the tasks by context.  It also sorts tasks by due date and archives tasks.  This is the best task management / efficiency tool I’ve ever used and I have tried several (dozen) I would guess.

To really get a sense of the system, watch the Kinkless GTD Video.

I have knitted this together with Subversion to give me a more ubiquitous task management system.  I sync my file to a Subversion repository on my dreamhost account.  Subversion is a code management tool.  You check out files, edit then and check them back in.  I check out my kGTD file edit it and check it back in.  I can check it out at home or work.  This lets me keep a log of tasks that I can edit from any of my computers.

Check out the links below, watch the movie, read Merlin Mann’s 43 Folders entries and see if this will work for you.

Links that relate to this post…