Aggregated enterprise architecture wisdom
In this article, I would like to discuss the critical importance of connected healthcare systems during an epidemic or a pandemic. Everyone benefits from connected healthcare systems; people, families, districts, states, nations. Leadership from all levels of healthcare authorities is essential, from hospital workers to governments, to global organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO).
The number of individuals certified in the TOGAF® Certification Program as of May 2020 is growing rapidly and about to surpass 100,000 – currently standing at 98,900. This includes certified individuals from 149 countries, with the most certifications awarded in the UK, USA, India, Netherlands, and Australia.
The TOGAF Standard, a standard of The Open Group, is a proven Enterprise Architecture (EA) methodology and framework, used by the world’s leading organizations to improve business efficiency. Representing a Body of Knowledge from world-leading practitioners, the latest TOGAF Standard, Version 9.2 is universally known as industry best practice.
This week marked a first for The Open Group. While our physical conferences and Member Meetings have become the world-class events for which we are known, the health and safety of our staff, Members, and event attendees take priority during these unprecedented times.
As an organization that prides itself on bringing people together globally, this week we hosted our first ever virtual event, #ogVIRTUAL. In the face of adversity, it was fantastic to see over 2,000 attendees from 85 countries across the world come together virtually to explore the topic of ‘Digital First’.
Every organization needs to be Agile in order to handle all kind of forces and developments inside and outside the organization. Equally, organizations also need the structure and overarching view of an organization that is provided by Enterprise Architecture. and in particular, The TOGAF® standard, a standard of The Open Group. Both Lean and EA can make organizations more Agile, but work from a different, complementary perspective. By synergizing both EA and Lean knowledge, techniques, and people, many organizations are exploiting the strengths of both approaches.
In this time of the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated extreme economic disruption we’re all experiencing, the imperative to move rapidly toward digital products and business models is becoming both clear and increasingly urgent.
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Open Group will host its upcoming virtual event (which was originally planned to take place face-to-face in Mumbai, India) on April 27 – 29, 2020. As an organization that prides itself on bringing people together globally, it is important to us that we continue to do so during these uncertain times. Everyone’s health and safety are the key priorities. The Open Group has planned for the virtual event to be conducive to time zones across the globe.
Recently, the Banking Industry Architecture Network (BIAN) published version 8.0 of its financial industry reference architecture. This provides a comprehensive model of the business capabilities, business scenarios, service domains and business objects used in banking and other financial services.
Like many of technology’s better creations, the IT4IT™ Reference Architecture standard was born out of necessity.
The IT landscape is continually shaped by innovation. Despite that being a cause for celebration for consumers and end-users, the introduction of these new technologies – such as the mainframe, the PC, client servers, the Internet, cloud computing, IoT, etc. – meant that the IT function had, effectively, lost track of what it needed to manage and control.
An open standard architecture-based approach to managing the business of IT was needed. This would have to be a holistic, end-to-end, service-based description of everything the IT function needs, and to be a good steward of all the IT components, solutions, and services within its remit. It was this issue that set in motion the train of events that brought us to where we are today. But there are no grounds for complacency. The work continues.
Even today the complexity and pervasiveness of, and the dependency on, IT systems continues to grow. In many cases, in many organizations today, the management solution is a loose collection of siloed processes. We are still not paying enough attention on how to remain in control. That is why the IT4IT standard is such an important instrument to manage IT, and why we have chosen to document how it came to be.
I wanted to share some updates on training and certification from The Open Group in the light of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) restrictions, covering how we are adapting to the current environment. Our main focus is enabling you to continue to grow your knowledge of our standards and best practices, and become certified, while keeping safe.
In this second article, I discuss key ideas and concepts underlying the design of a Reference Architecture for Health. Based upon the principles developed in the first article, these ideas and concepts describe what is needed. Together with the essential capabilities that we will introduce in a third article, they provide the input to how to build and deliver such a Reference Architecture. This document uses the following approach:
– From the large to the small: Start with the outer context, the overall Healthcare system, and refine into individual subject areas and building blocks
– Outside in: Start outside the organization, from the perspective of a customer, and design your organization around the needs of the customer
In this article, I’ll share guiding principles for a reference architecture for the Healthcare industry. The main beneficiaries of this reference architecture are patients, health professionals, and Healthcare organizations. Its main users are planners, managers, and Enterprise Architects. A second article will focus on key design ideas for such a reference architecture, followed by a third article to describe its essential capabilities.
Before describing the future Enterprise Architect, we will reflect on the current Enterprise Architect, one of their customers – a current line of business leader – and the strained relationship between them. For the sake of personalization, we will call the current Enterprise Architect ‘Archie’, and current line of business leader ‘Loretta’.
In the future state of Enterprise Architecture, the relationship between the two evolves towards one that is more productive and trusted. We describe what a future Enterprise Architect might look like and summarize the salient differences.