EA Voices

The Cynefin framework has five domains. The first four domains are:
Simple, in which the relationship between cause and effect is obvious to all, the approach is to Sense – Categorise – Respond and we can apply best practice.
Complicated, in which th…

<p><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>February 1</span><sup style=”line-height: 19px;”>st</sup><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>, 2013: a memorable day in the Dutch banking industry. One of the “systematically important financial institutions” (SIFI) of the Netherlands, is nationalized. This happened years after the first banks were given state support or were nationalized in the aftermath of the credit crunch. The Dutch Central Bank, and the Dutch Ministry of Finance, say that it could not been done otherwise – there were no means to split the bank into a healthy part and a “bad bank”. Nationalization is the only option to prevent a financial crisis.</span></p><h2><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”><span style=”font-size: 10.909090995788574px;”>Splitting a financial institution</span></span></h2><p><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>The possibility of splitting a financial institution, usually in a part focused on regular retail banking , and a part aimed at investment management, has become a hot topic. Politicians and citizens alike do not accept the bail-out of troubled banks with taxpayer’s money. The Central Bank, the Ministry of Finance, and the financial industry face a big challenge. “Never again”, is a phrase that has lost a bit of its meaning, but which has been said by many experts analyzing the case.</span></p><p><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>A lot of regulation is underway to make splitting a viable option. In Europe, the <a title=”Read the report ‘High-level Expert Group on reforming the structure of the EU banking sector'” href=”http://www.bizzdesign.com/ http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/bank/docs/high-level_expert_group/report_en.pdf”>Liikanen Expert Group emphasized the need for banks</a> and other financial institutions to draw up and maintain effective and realistic so called “recovery and resolution plans”. The objective of such plans is to ensure the resolvability and operational continuity of critical functions of a financial institution. It should be possible to split up an institution in a couple of days (usually a weekend), to prevent awkward side-effects such as bank runs.  As we speak, the Central Banks are urging the banks to make such recovery and resolution plans (due end 2013). Splittability is a </span><em style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>conditio sine qua non</em><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”> in these plans.</span></p><h2>How do we achieve splittability?</h2><p>Obviously, the notion has many aspects: financial, legal, and, last but not least, operational (which is basically everything apart from the financial and legal aspects that usually suck up all the attention). What about the processes? What about the information and the underlying data? What about the Information Technology? Just a few minor, operational details…</p><p>In the Government Committee on Restructuring the Dutch Banking Industry (commissioned by the Dutch Finance Minister, headed by professor Herman Wijffels, and a follow-up on the Liikanen Expert Group) we try to answer these questions. We acknowledge the importance of IT in the financial industry – actually, a bank is completely dependent on it. We acknowledge the importance of data, and the issues around, for instance, data quality, or security. We look at the processes and the governance of financial institutions. All to make sure, that splittability is indeed an option. To make sure that the recovery and resolution plans can be effective, if needed.</p><h2>Enterprise Architecture and <span style=”font-size: 10.909090995788574px;”>splittability</span></h2><p><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>Maybe not surprisingly, we stress the importance of an “old friend” of the readers of this blog: <a title=”More Enterprise Architecture blogs” href=”http://www.bizzdesign.com/blog/serviceline/enterprise-architecture-management”>Enterprise Architecture</a>. The only way to achieve splittability in a manner that safeguards the continuity of at least the healthy part of a bank, is to have a structured overview and a set of principles governing the bank. Enterprise Architecture provides just that.</span></p><p><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>Enterprise Architecture can also reduce the enormous amount of regulation, which is a heavy burden for the banking industry. A set of elegant principles can replace the rules, and reduce bureaucracy and complexity.</span></p><p><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>Enterprise Architecture is not new to banks. Many have invested millions in it, some for more than twenty years. What’s new, is the regained importance. An importance acknowledged by the Government and the Central Bank. This revival will bring Enterprise Architecture on the agenda of a bank’s Board of Directors – a prerequisite for the success of implementation that is still failing in many organizations.</span></p><p><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>Frank Harmsen</span></p><p><strong style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>Note</strong><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>: After the release of the report of our committee, I will deliver a second blog on the role of Enterprise Architecture in the financial industry, focusing on the “specifics”.</span></p><p><span style=”font-size: 11px; line-height: 19px;”>Prof. Dr. <a title=”Frank Harmsen on Linkedin” href=”http://nl.linkedin.com/pub/frank-harmsen/0/552/337″>Frank Harmsen</a> is an IT Strategy &amp; Governance Consultant and Professor at Maastricht University.  </span></p>

With an average tenure of 4.6 years, CIOs are under pressure to bring meaningful change and demonstrate to the board that they are impacting both the top and bottom line. Enterprise Portfolio Management (EPM) solutions allow CIOs to manage IT strategically, optimize IT in the context of the business, support goals by driving innovation and turn IT into a competitive advantage. So with all that pressure, why aren’t more CIOs saying yes and adopting EPM solutions? To help understand the answer to this question we’ve noted the three most common objections to adopting an EPM solution and tips for how CIOs can overcome these hurdles and gain unprecedented transparency and visibility they need to steer IT in the right direction.

We’re not mature enough as a company to adopt an EPM solution. Both large and small organizations may feel that they’re not ready to take on an EPM solution, yet acknowledge that they are spending a significant portion of their IT dollars in the wrong places. Continuing with ‘status quo’ can cost more than just hard dollars—an organization’s reputation can be damaged if CIOs aren’t managing IT strategically. The sooner CIOs start down the EPM path, the quicker they will be in strategic control of their IT assets. Industry experts have identified a set of 150 questions that—once answered—will provide a sufficient high-level view of the current state of your IT landscape in the context of the business. These questions can be prioritized based on business goals. Once CIOs get their arms around the current IT landscape, they can start to make fact-based decisions to determine which IT assets and investments are needed and which are not. And if an asset is not needed, CIOs will be able to develop a plan to remove it quickly and securely.

We haven’t got the data. Collecting data to give the CIO sufficient strategic IT visibility can feel like a monumental task, equivalent to ‘eating an elephant’ or ‘boiling the ocean.’ Organizations probably have more of the data than they realize, they just don’t know which of it is important and how good it is. Most companies haven’t successfully tackled the issue of data quality; and their enterprise data may not be in great shape, but it can be easily fixed. An EPM technology partner can help identify gaps, extract the data and get it into good shape before implementing a governance process around it to help steward and manage the information, keeping it up to date and accurate for continued program support. Sticking a head in the sand on this issue is not an option; this limited set of data is probably the most valuable data any enterprise could possibly collect and manage. It could save or repurpose a significant amount of an organizations IT budget, and an EPM solution provider can help get it under management quickly while helping you to fill in any data gaps.

How do I know that all this will benefit my organization? Having clear, fact-based strategic visibility over IT assets will always be a benefit to an organization, but CIOs need to assess whether an EPM solution will produce quantifiable benefits and therefore deliver value for money. An EPM solution provider will want to understand business goals and strategies, take a look at the state of the strategic IT management information flow as it exists today, and determine the quality of this information. It is not uncommon for an assessment to uncover an opportunity to repurpose as much as 30 percent of an organization current IT operations budget towards innovation.

An EPM solution delivers rich visualizations, analytics and reporting that show how IT can support corporate goals, strategies and core business processes. These insights will help CIOs develop a plan that can truly align IT with the rest of the business and effectively enhance the reputation of the IT department within your organization. The result is an IT department that can make decisions based on facts, and a CIO with strong career opportunities and a reputation that precedes them.

Here are some Rich Pictures that describe a way to apply the VPEC-T framework by focusing on problem solving, change planning and design.
Figure 1 explains the main three main elements of a ‘toolkit’: The framework, a canvas and question(s).
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