My presentation on SOA in the Enterprise – Maturity is Key has been posted in a couple of places.
First, on the EDUCAUSE site is the talk listing:
EDUCAUSE – Enterprise 2009 Site
Slides can be found at Slideshare.net:
Category Archives: Featured
John Peterson – Rememberances
I learned that John Peterson, our Director of Systems Engineering and Operations, passed away yesterday evening. I will miss John. I can still see the sideways, quizzical glance and smile he gave me yesterday afternoon as the vending machine spit out 4 dollars in quarters. I can still hear his voice as he said to someone else down the hall, “he just hit the jackpot”.
My first memory of John was from my first Management Team Meeting seven years ago. There was general talk about planning and John popped off, “The mainframe will be going away July 1st.” Everyone laughed and looked at Jack Duwe, our Deputy CIO and CFO. I later learned that the mainframe was going away every year since John came to DoIT. During the seven years we worked together, John replaced the mainframe with a new improved mainframe three times.
John had a great, level-heaed, realistic management style. He told a story about his days when he was a Flight Deck Commander on an aircraft carrier. They had a broken catch wire. The ship’s captain was yelling at John on the flight deck telling him to get the wire fixed. His guys were doing their job and fixing the wire. The captain kept yelling to hurry up. John looked up to the control tower where he could see the captain looking at him, took the battery out of his headset and flicked it over the side of the ship. He tapped the headset and shrugged. “Yelling won’t make a problem go away and it rarely makes it any better” he said about the incident.
John was a great story teller and he had a rich life of stories to tell. I enjoyed when he would recount his days flying fighter jets or as a commander. He told me once about racing to get to a dentist appointment. He had a broken tooth and he didn’t want to miss the appointment. It had taken him weeks to get in and it would be weeks before he could get another appointment. For you or me, that means driving across town. For John, that meant jumping in a fighter jet and flying to another city. He got to the airport and was waiting to take off. The air traffic controller told him that the approach lanes were all stacked up with flights. There was no way to get him out of the airport and to his cruising altitude and cruising lane. John asked, “what if I get to my altitude within the airspace of the airport itself.” He really didn’t want to miss the appointment. The controller said, “that would be fine but there was no way to do that.” John said, “don’t worry, I’ll do it.” He took off and hit the afterburners and headed straight up to 30,000. He laughed because he could hear the controller over the radio saying, “Holy crap… Jesus… look at that…” “I really didn’t want to miss that appointment,” he said laughing and shaking his head.
I enjoyed running into John when he would take his flotilla of misfit dogs out to run. He would pull into the parking lot in his SUV and dogs would pile out. One old deaf cocker would just keep wandering off until John had to run after him. One lab took off and John looked for hours trying to figure out where the dog had gone. But John always stayed level headed in the mix of all this.
What did I learn from working with John? I learned that you stay calm in the midst of adversity. I learned to listen to the story and laugh with joke but also listen for the wisdom that the story holds. I learned that there is the path forward that is obvious to you but that you must have patience while it becomes apparent to others. Mostly, I learned that John was a great man to be around.
Rest In Peace John. You will be greatly missed and well remembered.
Quantifying Me
from Flickr: Yester Prints photostream
There is a meme that has popped up or, at least, it has suddenly popped into my world – the Quantifiable Self. The basis of the Quantifiable Self is that you measure things about yourself and then use that data to improve upon yourself. We all do this to some extent. We weigh ourselves daily or time how long we run and over what distance. Some count calories or count steps.
Some push this to great detail to track influences on complex diseases like migraines. Alexandra Carmichael tracks 40 things about herself daily. There is (of course) a site dedicated to the Quantifiable Self.
I already track a great deal about myself but I don’t measure the out-comes, the effects if you will, of all that I track. The Quantifiable Self people are looking for the little butterfly wing beats that cause the tornados in their lives. To do this, I would need to resolve three issues.
12 Seasons
Flickr: Jorge-11's photostream. The Prague Orloj
Scott Fullerton once worked as a choker-setter in Northern California. He pointed out to me that we really have 12 seasons and that 4 seasons don’t really capture the nuances of the slow changes in nature. Since I’ve been bike commuting I have come to recognize those 12 different seasons.
Winter starts with Dark and Bleary Winter. This micro-season, if I may coin that term, starts about mid-December and it runs to mid-January. The Sun sets at 4PM and rises about 9AM it seems. Once it does rise, it scoots along the Southern horizon so low that Noon sunshine ducks under the eaves and in our front bay window, scuttles across our living room and settles on the floor half-way across our dinning room. The Sun, during the brief period it is up, has as much warmth as a nightlight. We all start running low on vitamin D and cheer.
Dark and Bleary Winter is followed by Bright and Chilly Winter. This is the season we are in now. Bright and Chilly Winter runs from mid-January to mid-February approximately. The Sun is higher and actually caries some warmth. Daylight is returning. Today, we will have 10 hours of daylight. There is light in the western sky at 5PM when you leave work. We still get thrust into the deep freeze by the “Polar Express” – cold winds that come down from the Arctic Circle, unfazed by the expanses of Canada, to land in our back yards. But there is Sun and deep cold is more tolerable when the Sun is more courageous.
B&C Winter is followed by Sloppy Winter. Sloppy Winter is full of melting snow that refreezes and heavy wet snow that falls and gets instantly packed into ice. There are brief periods of brown and gray followed glop then cold once more. Sloppy Winter is the Winter of our discontent. It is the Winter when you start thinking, surely Winter will go away soon only to have another 6 inches or 16 inches of snow fall and the temperatures plummet again.
Sloppy Winter lingers until mid-March when it gives way to Brown and Muddy Spring. You can see the plants are starting to wake in Brown and Muddy Spring. You see the fine light-green haze of buds that are just waiting for the nights to warm a bit more and Sun to gain a bit more courage.
There is one day, early in Brown and Muddy Spring, when you are out and you smell the warm rich smell of damp earth. The ground has thawed and a warm wind is coming from the Southwest up from the Gulf of Mexico. You smell damp earth and you realize that winter seasons have passed and you also realize how much you have missed the air smelling like some warm and liquid.
The very earliest of plants start poking their tendrils out. The early Spring Crocus decide to make their move along with Snowdrops and a few of the most courageous tulips. The song birds start to return. This is a time of migration – warblers and sparrows start flying through bring bright songs to the hedgerows.
It is also time of migration for the last of the snow and mud. Snow begins its retreat leaving a muddy tide behind. All of the sand and grit and car parts that have been bound up through all the Winter seasons are left behind on streets and parking lots and lawns in miniature glacial moraines. Dog toys, not seen since December, reappear in a sodden and forlorn heap. Brown and Muddy Spring is the first promise that the Winter seasons have actually gone. There is one more snow storm, wet and heavy, that will bend over daffodils and flatten the crocus but it will melt in a day or two. The Sun has now girded its loins and it is ready to face another year.
Then comes Kablooie Spring about mid-April and through mid-May. All that pent up energy that has been stored up in frozen soil suddenly explodes out through every branch and twig, bulb and root. Lilacs, Forsythia, Magnolia, you-name-it, it is now game-on for the Spring blooming plants. Mid-April to Mid-May the air is sweet with spring flowers. The birds are singing their heart’s devotion to each other. The spring peepers and letting the world know they survived the Winter and water is fine.
This is Spring. When one thinks of Spring they think of Kabloooie Spring. The bunnies are out and frisky. You see your neighbors our in their yards and you stop to chat and recount the events of the various winter seasons. When you are in the midst of Sloppy Winter and you think, “Enough of this muck! I can’t wait for it to be Spring”, you are really wishing for Kablooie Spring.
But we are in Bright and Chilly Winter now. B&C Winter brings days when we never get above zero degrees (F) but they are tolerable and even enjoyable because the Sun is high and shining. It also brings days like yesterday.
Yesterday was sunny and a warm 40F. Yesterday was a day that you think about opening windows or sitting outside on the porch in the glider and reading. Yesterday was day that can make you think that Kablooie Spring is just around the corner. But, it is wise to remember that there are two more seasons before we get to celebrate the arrival of Kablooie Spring.
The Pattern of Change
Stepping
I just watched a Merlin Mann’s presentation from MacWorld – “Toward Patterns for Creativity” This is not his best talk but it is interesting and amusing in that Merlin Mann way. You can tell that he is in the “there is something good here but I haven’t quite got my head around it yet” state. This is a state that I stumble through often in my work. I learn about a new technique or start to see a new pattern and I can tell that there will be a richness eventually but I haven’t quite grasped the fullness of the idea. All of this is beside the point.
The point that struck me from his talk was towards the end. It came near this slide:
From Merlin Mann's talk on Patterns in Creativity
Merlin made a comment that if you want to get better at your creative endeavor, “you have to work at it and that means less time on Twitter or playing X-Box”. This is a way of restating the cliche that defines craziness as doing the same over and expecting different results. If you want to change something in your life, then you need to change what you are doing now.
This is something that I should make more explicit in my life. I have several personal goals that I’m working. To achieve them, I need to realign my activities and energies. Doing what I’ve always done won’t cause the change that I want to occur.
Painting:
Over Christmas / New Years break I set up my watercolors again. I’ve really enjoyed painting and creating art again. I want to improve my skills and my creative vision and push to find my own style. I cannot do that if I continue with painting the way I have for the past decade which is to occasionally set up and paint a picture or two then put everything away for a year. I need to set some goals then stop doing something else to make time and space and energy for painting.
My goal is pretty straightforward – create at least one painting a month this year. Not very difficult in these Winter months. This will be much more difficult come Summer and hours when I want to spend my time my road-bike cycling around Southwest Wisconsin and on trips or to take Lola swimming.
The realignment: less mindless TV in the evening during the week getting my sketches done, more quality time at the easel on Saturday or Sunday morning.
Interesting outcome: less TV means less desire to buy a new 52″ LCD TV and more listening to music while I draw and paint. I’m saving money and rediscovering my CD collection and new music.
Weight Loss:
When I lived in California, I gained a lot of weight. I have gradually lost about 25 pounds of that weight. I’ve manage to, so far, not regain the weight I lost last Summer when I was cycling. Okay, this is mostly true. I dropped 10 pounds last Summer and I’ve gained back 2 or 3 so far this Winter. I’m fine with that trade: loose 10 over the Summer gain back 3 over the Winter. At that rate, I’ll be at my target weight in 18 months.
My goal is to get to 175 which would put me at a good body fat percentage.
The realignment: Personal Training twice a week. Weight lifting at home once a week. And, lot’s of time on my bike when the weather changes. This means less time working on the yard or house, playing with Lola and watching mindless TV. This will be in direct conflict with Painting. I’m not sure how I will reconcile the conflict with Painting. I feel badly about less time playing with Lola.
The realignment also includes changes in what I eat. I love breads and cookies. I adore cookies. I also enjoy cooking a wide variety of foods. I am explicitly changing to a more vegetarian diet. I’m not becoming a vegetarian – I enjoy being an omnivore. I’m eating fruits and vegetables that are local when possible from our incredible Farmers Market. I’m following Mark Bittman’s advice and reducing the size of my meat servings and their frequency in my diet. I have greatly reduce the refined carbohydrates in my diet.
This brings up another interesting conflict. Eating carbs is good for working out. Not eating carbs is good for weight loss. Eating fiber and protein and fat is good for feeling full and staying satiated though-out the day. Eating fiber, protein and fat before a workout can make you want to puke. Trust me on that one.
Interesting Outcome: increased strength, endurance and flexibility make me feel more vigorous. I sleep soundly at night and I have more energy during the day to work on my other goals. I find that sitting and watching mindless TV makes me twitchy so I want to do something rather than just watch something.
Cycling:
Last Spring I bought a real road-bike. This is first real road-bike I’ve owned since I rode the canyons of the Wasatch range in college. I own and ride my commuter bike a lot but a road bike is a different animal altogether. I loved my Summer of cycling in 2008. This year I want to continue with my cycling and take it up a notch. Last Fall, we rode the Door County Century – a 100 mile ride. This Fall, I would like to ride a double metric century – a 200Km ride or a 124 mile ride. I would also like to move my average moving speed up at least 1 MPH.
The realignment: I spent a lot of time in the saddle last Summer. Towards the end of the season, I was riding 12 to 14 hours a week. I don’t think I can get more time on my bike so I will have to train more intentionally. There is risk in taking on a more serious attitude towards training. You can loose the fun of riding. I had great fun exploring the hills and valleys that surround Madison by bike. I have to tread cautiously here. I have turned cycling into a evaluation of numbers and made great rides bad because I wasn’t hitting speed goals. So I caution myself to not turn the joy of biking into serious work that full of disappointments of milestones not met.
Interesting Outcome: Improving my fitness and technique would increase my average speed. Longer rides would take less time. I would, in effect, free up time to do other things like play with Lola or paint or work in the yard.
Being explicit in the changes in my routing is what Merlin made me think about. Truly focusing on “that is what I used to do. This is what I should do now if I want to reach my goal” will be my challenge.
Blue Sky to Ground part 1
Soaring
I’ve been working with our CIO on the I.T. strategic planning initiative. At the same time, I’ve been working with the Technical Directors and Operational Directors on planning at the technology level. They have been creating a map of what technologies are used to support our services. I’ve had my head in the blue sky of the strategic planning process while I’ve also had my hands in the dirt of the technology mapping. I keep coming up against the issue of how to connect the blue-sky of the strategic plan with the down-in-the-dirt technology planning.
Finding a process and methodology to connect the sky to the ground has taken up a lot of my mental cycles recently. The following is my take on a method to connect the strategic planning to the technology planning.
1. Strategy to Capabilities
The first step is to take the general directives of a strategic plan and have them expressed in terms of capabilities. I see this work being done by leadership as part of a collective planning exercise. As an example, a strategic initiative might be: Classrooms and learning spaces will be equipped with a base set of instructional technologies. This strategic direction then needs to be interpreted into a set of defined and measurable capabilities. A leadership team would be charged with determining the capabilities that would meet this strategic direction. The capabilities should be measurable.
For example, the capabilities might be: Multimedia Projection, Student Response Measurement and Lecture Capture
We could survey all rooms and learning spaces and get measures of current state (for example: 65% of rooms meet the projector capability, 15% meet the student response and 10% meet the lecture capture capability). We could then decide priority – which is more important lecture capture or student response – act on those priorities and measure improvement.
2. Capabilities to Services
The next part of this to map our services to the strategic capabilities. Some services support multiple capabilities (Hosting Services, Identity Management Services for example). Some capabilities may not have a supporting enterprise service. A capability that does not have a set of supporting services might indicate a gap in the enterprise. For example, there may not be a matching Lecture Capture Service that provides the Lecture Capture capability. This might be done in an ad hoc fashion or it might be missing completely. This gap in the enterprise service would be worth evaluating to see if the capability is being delivered effectively in the current structure. If not, then we might want to look at developing an enterprise-wide Lecture Capture Service that supports all of the classrooms.
3. Services To Technical Roadmaps
This is where we use the brick diagram in our planning. The brick diagram captures the technologies that support a given service. The brick captures what is current state (those technologies currently in use), what is tactical (what will be used for the next 0-2 years), what is strategic (on the plans to use 2-5 years out), what is in containment (no new development), what is in retirement (being stopped) and what is emerging (interesting trends that may move into the tactical or strategic realms in the future).
These brick diagrams are created and maintained by the service owner – that is the group that manages the service being provided. The bricks let the service owners and the service teams grab a snapshot of their current state and their strategic plan for the next few years – what they will leverage, what they will stop, what they are watching and what they want to move to – in a simple format.
Core Planning Stack from Tech to Strategy
This set of relationships is managed by a set of governance process that define and prioritize the layer below.
At the lowest level, the service manager or service team usually defines and prioritizes the technology they use to deliver that service. This is the layer that is captured in a brick diagram. They should also describe the capabilities that are delivered by their service and which strategic directions they support.
At the top level, senior leadership should work to refine the strategic directions as measurable capabilities that want to see delivered.
The mid-level governance is a gap in our institution. It is probably filled by project prioritization processes and budget processes. I’ll talk about that in part 2 of this post.
Jim’s Turkey Brine Recipe
I’ve had several requests for my turkey brine and herb paste recipes. In a just-in-time fashion, I’ve posted them below. I use an organic, range raised heritage turkey for my Thanksgiving turkey. I also use this brine for pork chops and turkey breasts that I cook on the grill.
ITANA.org – bringing the catch home
Image courtesy of the Nova Scotia Museum
I’ve been pondering, wondering and worrying about how to bring value out of ITANA.org to the world at large. I struck upon a metaphor over dinner with a friend at EDUCAUSE recently that brought my vision and the issues I’m pondering into sharp light for me at least.
I watched Captains Courageous, a wonderful 1937 film with Spencer Tracy, recently. This is a story about a spoiled boy who ends up on a fishing Schooner. The schooner would launch dories with fishermen aboard them. The dories would bring there catch back to the schooner where the fish would be processed and packed. The schooner would then bring the catch back to the mainland and to the public.
ITANA.org spins up sub-groups that work on a topic. These are the dories if you will. ITANA.org and its sponsors, EDUCAUSE and Internet2, act like the schooners and the delivery systems on the mainland.
If I take this as the operating principle for ITANA.org, then a variety of questions pop into my head:
- How do I make sure those sub-groups have the resources needed to bring back a meaningful deliverable?
- Who should be, as it were, on the dory doing the fishing? (It’s my metaphor and I’m sticking with it to the end – Jim)
- How do I make sure that the delivery from the sub-group to ITANA.org is a smooth as possible and as efficient as possible?
- How do I make sure that the sub-groups are working in fertile fishing grounds?
- How do I make sure that what we are delivering is what the mainland wants?
These are the things that I’m wrestling with as I get ITANA.org up and running.
I see a lot of interest and potential in the bright minds that participate in ITANA.org. We have great conversations. We generate interesting thoughts an comments. Those thoughts and comments get lost in the minutes from the phone calls or the hallway chats or the blog posts and notes from meetings. How do I turn those things into more meaningful deliverables?
Some thoughts that I’ve had on this topic:
- Each sub-team should have one person dedicated to gathering up content. They should pull responses out of the minutes and into a wiki page or section. They should glean the good stuff from the email chatter and add it to the wiki. They would be responsible for rolling-up all the various bits and pieces that go by into a single reference point.
- Each sub-team should have a set of deliverables as part of its charter. For example, the Data Management sub-team agreed to deliver a survey and the survey results.
- Each sub-team should produce some artifact(s) that can be shared with the world at large (e.g. a paper, or video or blog post) that others can consume on their own time.
- I/we should have a standard way of “publishing” these deliverables and a standard set of ways of getting the news out that they have been published.
- We should also be creative in our thoughts about how we engage beyond the core of ITANA.org. Where does Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, the EDUCAUSE blogs and wikis, podcasts, screencasts, vodcasts, etc. fit into the mix?
That’s what I’ve been pondering. Anyone have input? I’d love to hear it.
Technorati Tags: Constituent Groups, EDUCAUSE, Enterprise Architecture, Internet2, ITANA, Leadership
Brick Diagrams and related planning tools
Brick Diagram
Brick diagrams are a strategic planning tool that I mentioned in passing in my ITANA talk at EDUCAUSE. Since then, I’ve had several people ask for more information. So here it is… more information.
Brick Diagrams are used by NIH in their Enterprise Architecture planning process. You can see the NIH brick diagrams and their taxonomy for the brick diagrams on the NIH EA Site.
Other institutions use similar planning tools. Read on to see links to other places that use something similar and to download slides for a talk about Brick Diagrams that I gave to our Management Team.
Riding East with Cranes
from Flickr: KeithCarver
I was riding on a late Summer evening in September and this is a meditation upon a few minutes in that ride.
If you are not familiar with the hills and valleys of Southwestern Wisconsin, let me describe them. These are old mountains, the Driftless, worn down over the aeons by rain and snow. These lands have the soft folds and rolling landscape of a glacial moraine. They are soft and round. They are not miles broad like the Williamette Valley in Oregon nor are they ringed with rocky peaks like the Snake River Valley in Idaho. They are gentle valleys with corn, soybean and dairy cows in their soft bellies. Their tops are fringed with mixed hardwood forests: sugar maple, paper birch, ash with evergreen pines and firs mixed in to form dense canopies above a thicket of lower story growth of ferns, berries, wild rose and wildflowers.
The farmlands are broken with prairie and marshlands, hedges and woodlands. Prairie grasses grow as a tall as your shoulders in places. Prairie flowers; asters, milkweed, sunflowers; sway with dense heads of yellow or purple blooms, snowy white masses, delicate pink miniatures or blooms the size of your head. The prairie plants have deep roots below ground that nourish their rich and dense lives above. The marshes are fringed with willow, dogwoods and cattails. Lilly pads float on their surface and irises sink their roots in the muddy shores. Tri-Color Blackbirds cling to the tops of the reeds and grasses and call out for their mates.
You must imagine these hills with woods on their tops and shoulders and corn, soy, cows, meadows and marshes flowing down their valley floors. Picture them clearly in your mind. Row upon row of rectilinear corn where the land is flat or arcing along the lines of the geography where the land rises up the slopes. Small, upright soy beans turning yellow in late Summer. Alfalfa forming a dense green field between tall yellowing corn stalks. Milk cows, mostly, chewing and lazing in grassy fields. A farm house and its corn crib, barn and silo gather under a stand of trees every once in a while.
Form these images in your head. They are the backdrop for these few minutes that I’m about to describe.
It was a beautiful late Summer/early Fall day. It was still shorts and short sleeve weather but not by much. Warm Sun on my back, cool early Fall air on my arms and face.
I rode out, first north-west, across the country side that I described above – out to Fish Lake and Mud Lake. I turned and started running back East along the southern shore of Crystal Lake back towards Lodi. The sun was low in the West, three fingers off the horizon if you hold your arm out straight.
Now imagine: The road side is thick with willows, sage, prairie rose that is thick with bright hips, late Summer prairie flowers and all of it buzzing and chirping and humming with insects that are making their last pitch for a mate before the frost comes. The left side of the road rises up in woods and understory plants. The first Fall colors are coming on in the wild grape vines that climb the trunks of the old oaks and ash to weave through the canopy in search of Sun. The low dense stands of sumacs, huddled along the edge of the woods, are turning rust and cranberry and burnt umber. I spin along these colors and sounds with the Sun on my back and cool air in my face and on my arms.
The valley runs along my right side with open fields of prairie grass and late flowers. A river turns and dives, back and forth, through the flat land forming marshes with reeds and willows. Below, in the valley grass, I hear the call of Ringed Neck Pheasants then the thrumming beat of their wings. I spin with their thrum.
The sun is flashing low up through the valley, glinting on the river and then tumbling up through the prairie plants and into corn and soy. I’m spinning my way along the road. A flight of Sandhill Cranes rise up out of the marshes down below with their squawking coo. First one crane… then three… five… eight… soon twelve cranes are on the wing in the valley beside me. They rise up eye level and match my speed running East. They coo and squawk. The Sun, three fingers above the horizon, glints off the marshes and tumbles through the prairie. The bushes are buzzing and humming and chirping with insects. I’m spinning my way East in this late Summer afternoon and cranes are the wing to my right and the Sun is on our backs and cool air in our faces. And I spin and they soar and call. And we move together for a minute, two, then three before the cranes turn on wing to the South and head out towards the corn and soy. And the Sun, three fingers off the horizon, glints off wings and water and tumbles through prairie and corn and warms my back as I spin on and away to the East.
I spin and smile at the wings beating South and the river turning and diving and the Sun glinting off the marshes, and humming and buzzing and chirping.
I spin and smile at these few minutes when I was traveling with the cranes through this late Summer/early Fall evening.
Technorati Tags: Biking, Feel good, Meditation
Jim Phelps 
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