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Architecture and finding the path

Ron Kraemer, our VP of Information Technology and CIO, spoke at the IT Leaders Program this week. He built on his blog post, Interdependence – Both Positive and Negative. To paraphrase:

The growing interdependence of our systems is driving the complexity of our systems towards the edge of chaotic systems. The choices that we make are no longer focused on finding the perfect solution. Instead, we can see many possible solutions, many of which are good solutions. The choice is then to pick the solution which builds positive interdependency and limits negative interdependency.

Interdependency and Complexity

Fig. 1: Growing interdependency has put us at the edge of complex and chaotic systems.

In his talk at ITLP, Ron also pressed on the ever-growing rate of change. These two factors limit our ability to design and implement perfect solutions to problems. To paraphrase again:

If you take two years to design a great solution, the landscape will have changed so much that the solution may not be applicable. The level of complexity makes finding and defining the perfect solution even more difficult. The level of interdependence means that even more good solutions are available – when many systems are connected, many systems could be used to provide the solution.

Impossible Route to a Perfect Solution

Fig. 2: Impossible Route to a Perfect Solution

I agree with what Ron has come to believe. The level of integration between systems is very high. The expectation for real-time interactions has become the norm. Users expect to see real-time flight information. They expect real-time updates on openings in courses. Students can see, in real-time, the bus schedule, where they are located and the location of nearest bus stop and the location of the buses on their routes.

This interdependence has driven complexity to the point where perfect solutions are hard if not impossibly to design and deploy. Therefore, we must choose from many good solutions that exist. We need to act quickly to implement some solution to meet the rapid rate of change.

Many good solutions

Fig. 3: Many good solutions

This is where Enterprise Architecture and the other architecture practices can help. If we look out to the future and think about the desired state, then we can begin to sift out those good solutions which move us towards that future state. For us, we had stated that Service Oriented Architecture was a strategic direction. That bounded the future state some. In the student area, we had a future state process diagram. This diagram outlined improvements to the way that students manage course data and move through finding courses to enrollment. This put another boundary on the future state. When it came to think about how we get course roster type information out to a new learning management system (Moodle), we were able to use that projected future state to pick from the possible solutions (flat file transfer, shared database connections, web services) those which moved us closer to future state.

Architecture filtering the good choices

Fig. 4: EA can help filter the good choices that move you towards the desired future state.

The rate of change and interdependency drives the importance of an architectural approach. If you have not thought about the future state, then there is a multitude of choices. To pick from many choices, you have to establish some factors that affect your selection. In a restaurant, this might be dietary restrictions, cost, the weather outside. In technology, it is often quickest and cheapest. But those factors, in this complex environment are often shortsighted and misguided. The quickest and cheapest solution might need to be replicated many times for many systems. This would increase the interdependency in a negative way and push you even closer to a chaotic system. A more expensive, slower solution might serve you well over the long haul.

Architecture can help you make those choices in a framework that is focused on the future and on the overall complexity that you are creating. Enterprise Architecture (and the other architecture practices) can help sort those good solutions and help make sure the choice you make is along the path to desired future state.

What’s the rush America

My long lost then found friend, Jenn Taylor, just moved back to the United States. She asked the question, “what’s the rush? I am just curious beyond words as to what brought this culture to this rapid speed and the underlying sense that we are always in a hurry. Such a rush. Always a rush.” Here is my long(er) answer to her question. I think the American rush is due to four different phenomena acting together.

First: Many Americans seem to have lost the ability to focus on one task at a time. Multi-tasking is the way to do everything. If you are watching a movie, you should also be texting or talking on the phone (at home or in theaters). If you are driving, you should be eating or talking on the phone. What ever you are doing, you should be doing something else.

Second: Many Americans view driving as not an act in and of itself. It is something stuck between two meaningful things. Get ready for work. Be at work. Driving just needs to be gotten out of the way. It shouldn’t occupy time. The act of driving to work isn’t something to appreciated as part of your day. It is like swallowing medicine. It should be done as quickly as possible and not thought about.

Third: Many Americans lack critical thinking skills. I was riding with Joe down to Paoli. We were coming up to a stop sign. At the stop sign there was a line of cars stopped waiting to turn onto a busy road. Joe and I slowed and moved side by side to chat as we coasted up to the stopped cars. An old man in a Toyota RAV 4 blared his horn at us, punched the gas and blew around us at the left, then swerved hard to get in the lane and slammed on his brakes to stop behind the stopped cars at the stop sign. What did he gain? Absolutely nothing. Joe and I coasted up behind him and just laughed at him.

Where is the critical thinking in these moments? What do I gain by my actions? What is the overall effect? Is it really worth it? Many drivers change lanes constantly even though studies have shown that you gain nothing.

I was in the grocery store and there was a woman pushing her daughter in one of the carts that have the fake car on front. The daughter was mimicking Mom, pounding on the horn in the cart and saying, “We don’t have time to stop. I’m in a hurry. Not today.” What did the Mom gain by always rushing her daughter away from things? What was she teaching her daughter? What would the real outcome be if she did slow and stop for her daughter some times?

I’m sure these questions never crossed her mind.

Finally: Americans seem to have lost the sense of civility and the idea of the public. Our Alderperson argued against light-rail on the fact that it wouldn’t stop in front of her house. (You may be for or against, that’s not the point). The idea that there are things to do for the good of the whole rather than personal gain seems to be gone from many Americans ideology. “If it doesn’t help me, I’m not paying for it” seems to be the new American mantra.

I think all these things come together into a storm of rushing, self-absorbed, multitasking Americans racing from spot to stop without stopping to think about what they are doing or why.

Uncommon Thinking…

From the Flickr stream of Bre_Pettis

From the Flickr stream of Bre_Pettis

 

I was chatting with a colleague about the new EDUCAUSE slogan, “Uncommon Thinking for the Common Good” when I realized that the saying encapsulates one way to think of my work as an I.T. Architect.  “Uncommon Thinking for the Common Good” is what I try to foster in the teams that I work with.  I’ll explain this in two parts “Uncommon Thinking” and “for the Common Good”.

Uncommon Thinking:

I try to break people out of their daily routine and their comfort zone.  For instance, I have sat in meetings where a team is supposed to develop a new user interface (UI) for a new application.  I’ve watched as team redraw the UI for the old application, that they use day-in and day-out, as the solution for the new system.  I’ve also seen teams “re-think” how a business process could be done.  The end result was an automated version of the current process.  The new implementation of the old solution substituted emails for people running around with paper.  They are following the same steps, replicating the same authorizations and sending the same forms often without asking “why this form” or “why this person” or even “is this necessary at all”.   My job is to get them to question their old ways of doing things.

People like what they know.  They understand what they use daily.  But advancement comes when we change and disrupt routines, not when we replicate them into a new technology.  You have a telephone book at home with White Pages for people and Yellow Pages for businesses.  Changing that into two Word files you can print doesn’t bring great advancement.  It might be easier to carry only the pages you need but that doesn’t really improve the process.  Search capabilities are a big improvement.  Rethinking how you use the information, such as mapping businesses onto maps so you can find restaurants near your hotel, that brings advancement.  The routine of grabbing a book and looking something up is thrown out.  The new routine is to grab a laptop, look for wireless and Search.

I often introduce myself to new teams saying that my job will make them uncomfortable because I will ask them to throw out what they know and what they are comfortable with.  I tell them I will challenge their assumptions.  I say this not because their assumptions are wrong but to make sure their assumptions are correct and we accept them for the right reasons.

I love the fact that the Web 2.0 explosion is going on.  There are so many examples of “other ways to do things”.  I bring these examples and ask, “why can’t we do this instead?”  I show them Netvibes and ask, “can we make our pages this flexible?”  I show them Etsy’s Find By Color page and ask, “can we make creative ways to search like this?”  I show them The Northface catalog and ask, “should we have filters to help people search like these?”

 

Etsy Color Browser

Etsy Color Browser

 

 

It’s not that I think we should have a UI that looks like any of these sites but I want to break the team’s mindset and get them to start thinking about all of the rich possibilities.  I want them to work with a blank canvas and a rich palette of colors.  I want them to really get imaginative in their solutions to the problems.

I had a watercolor instructor that I worked with at UC Santa Cruz.  We were painting in the woods one day.  Everything I produced came out flat, boring and uninteresting.  They were awful, actually.  I was having a terrible time.  He came by, had a look and asked how it was going.  I grunted out my disgust.  He said, “Give me three paintings, but you can’t use any browns or greens at all. No earth-tones.”  I’m sitting in a forrest of browns and greens.  I was forced to paint purple and blue trees and red ferns.  At first it was very uncomfortable and I was very hesitant.  The first attempts were also awful.  But then, it became fun and playful and the paintings improved.  I was forced to let go of “how it is” and instead I had to play with “how it could be”.

That is the uncommon thinking of the Architecture practice.  Letting go of the how it is and thinking about how it could be when we start with a blank canvas and rich palette.

For the Common Good:

The other aspect that I deal with on teams is the narrow focus of their solution.  Often, the solutions that are put forth solve the very local needs of the group of people sitting around the table.  My work is to ask, “how does this fit with the broader issues that the people deal with daily?”  “What does this solutions do to actually help people?”  “What impact will this have on them?”  Not all solutions should be broadened and generalized to solve a larger issue but we should consider their larger impact. 

Every application must fit into an already rich application environment.  No application is truly a silo-application anymore.  Someone has to use it.  That someone already has a username and password if not several.  That someone already has a day that is full of tasks and applications.  That someone has things that don’t work so well, things that they are comfortable with and things that they cherish dearly.

The impact assessment of a new solutions should consider all of those people that the solution will effect.  If the new process changes their lives from reading paper documents to reading email, the users might not consider it an improvement.  What if reading the paper documents is what they do on the train in the morning?  Then your solution is a step backwards for them.  What seemed like a good idea to the team, reduce paper and use electronic delivery, actually was negative impact to the user and to overall productivity.  The user did that work before they got to the office as part of their daily routine.

This is part one of the “For the Common Good” part of my job. The solution that is delivered needs to take into consideration all those that will be impacted and it needs to fit into their lives and, ideally, change their lives for the better.

The second part comes into play during information gathering and sharing about the solution.  The new application or solution needs to be described in terms of the business value and the overall positive value of the change.  If you are going to add work to busy departmental staff, then it better be for something more than “your system”.  It better be for something like improving the enrollment process for students.  It better be for some larger good than simply benefitting the group developing the solution. You need to gather the business process improvements that the new solution will provide and then use those improvements to describe why the solution is important.

The final part has to do with scope.  Often, issues in one group are problems in another group too. Finding co-sponsors is a way of expanding the positive gain for the new processes or solution.   I spend time looking for others who I can bring into the discussion.  I look to see if the problem can be solved once for several constituents.  The broader solution will require collaboration and compromise but it can bring greater value and reduce the chaos of one-off solutions.  If the problem is solved once for many groups, then there is only one solution to maintain and there are many people who can provide input and expertise.

For me, “for the common good” means considering the broad impact, looking for the greatest value and delivering a solution for the largest constituency.  

Uncommon Thinking for the Common Good:

Bringing this all together provides one view on what I do as an I.T. Architect.  I get people to think broadly about a solution.  I get them to use a blank canvas and a rich palette of ideas when thinking of how we should solve a problem.  I also get them to think about how that solution fits in the larger environment, who it will help and who it will impact and finally who else should be brought into the discussion so we can deliver a far-reaching solution.

If I do my job well, then we get truly creative and expansive solutions that fit into the organization, improve peoples lives and help the greatest number of users.

 

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Riding East with Cranes

from Flickr: KeithCarver

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.

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Digital Neighborhoods – Guiding design

Second LifeDigital neighborhoods seem like a powerful tool for discussing technology and its impact on users (students, staff, researchers, etc) and the concept adds interesting new requirements to projects. Getting a good understanding of your users’ digital neighborhoods can guide design and deployment of new technologies and help predict impacts on the users themselves. Understanding how they move in their neighborhood, where they travel frequently and what places are stable over time, provides insight into the key places you should try to place application.
I came upon Jeff Swain via Twitter which led me to his blog-post about his digital neighborhood. I was wandering in my digital neighborhood and into the surrounding areas when I found his link. Jeff talks about reading David Weinberger’s Small Pieces Loosely Joined. To quote Jeff’s post:

As Weinberger points out space on the web doesn’t work that way. Distance is measured in hyperlinks and proximity is created by interest. In other words, each of us gets to create own own space on the web. Your own neighborhood, if you will, filled with the places you find interesting…. So this got me to thinking, What does my digital neighborhood look like? What seemingly disparate places are loosely joined (pun intended) just because I happen to be interested in them?

Jeff then goes on to do an analysis of his digital neighborhood.

As I read Jeff’s piece, I began to think about the value of understanding digital neighborhoods. If we understood our incoming students’ digital neighborhoods, it would give us a better understanding of how to reach them, what their interests are and places that we should think about pushing content into. One example that we have in place is in Facebook. We now have an emergency notification group and system in place in Facebook. Our leadership can push out notices via Facebook, into the user’s neighborhood.

Another example is our increasing use of RSS feeds for various applications and calendar feeds. This lets users pick up the content and move it to their own neighborhood. I have a calendar feed for our corporate calendar system integrated into my Google homepage. I can check my work calendar while checking personal email, local news and recording my workouts. The fact that my calendar appears among my personal tools means I track changes to my calendar much more closely when I’m at home doing my personal things. In some ways, Google’s custom homepage is like strip-mall with a few anchor stores (Mail, Calendar, Google Apps) and a lot of empty store fronts that you can fill with your own shops.

The value of these virtual malls, is that users can aggregate enough of their own personal content and applications that it makes it worth the trip. Every time you go on the web, you have thousands of possible places you could visit. Yet, you visit a select few. If we continue with the physical store/neighborhood metaphor: Every time you go shopping, you could go to any store in town but you go to a select neighborhood (like our State Street) because of the variety of interesting shops or to a given store because of the shop has some unique value (low price, selection, the one thing you can only find at their store). A similar thing happens when we deploy applications. Users are expected to visit that application because of the unique value it brings. When we bring up applications that are separated from their current digital neighborhood, it is like building your store in a new mall well out of town. The users have to have some reason to visit. The value has to be higher than an application built in their neighborhood or built such that it can easily be included.

This suggests to me at least, that we need to think about our users’ current digital neighborhoods and how we can integrate our new applications and services into those neighborhoods. RSS feeds are a low risk and fairly simple way to move content into their neighborhoods. Facebook groups and applications could reach into the students’ world. Portlet type applications that can be put into existing enterprise portals or into sites like Google’s homepage allow richer interaction. Finally, if if has to stand on its own, it better have unique value that makes it worth the trip.

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Eat your vegis or Have A Little Green Tree – getting EA into the Enterprise

I was thinking about how, when I try to get buy-in for doing Enterprise Architecture as a holistic thing, I tend not get very far with the campus. But, when I parse out little EA bits, they catch on. I was thinking about this in terms of the metaphor: Getting Kids To Eat Vegetables. Before I go on further – this is not meant to demean the campus community nor do I mean to imply they are childish. It is just a good metaphor for my understanding what is going on around me.

There are two approaches to getting kids to eat vegetables. The first is the top-down, holistic approach where you explain that vegis are good for you. You talk about good food and bad food and vitamins and healthy eating. This is the Enterprise Architecture as a holistic practice approach. You talk about why we need to do Enterprise Architecture and the benefits or reducing redundancy, getting a handle on what we are doing and why, setting a clear(er) roadmap for the future. Our institution, like most kids, don’t really get the point of the discussion nor do they buy into the argument.

The second approach (re: kids and vegis) is to sell them on “eating a little green tree” also known as broccoli. Then convincing them that peas with mint are pretty good cold. Once they are eating three or four types of vegis, you can explain the vegetable concepts and start in on nutrition. “You know, carrots make it so you can see better in the dark. That’s pretty cool that a carrot can give you night vision. Let’s eat carrots each night this week and see if on Saturday, we can see better in the dark.” You can get buy-in for the short-term cool gain of one vegetable type.

This is what seems to be working for us architects here at UW-Madison. I have slowly started pushing out some different artifacts and practices. Each one is catching on based on its own merits. We have various places starting with principles using the TOGAF format for Principles .

I’ve started to get people interesting in applying the NIH EA Brick Diagram to various projects and technologies.

This is an interesting approach to “doing enterprise architecture”. I’ll need to focus more on small acceptable bites that are examples of why you should do EA at large. Get them eating broccoli, peas and carrots and then talk about nutrition.

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