Governance: The Key to Agile Architecture Jason Bloomberg, President ZapThink, A Dovel Technologies Company About Jason Bloomberg President of ZapThink, a Dovel Technologies Company One of the original Managing Partners of ZapThink LLC Acquired by Dovel Technologies in August 2011 Global thought leader in the areas of Cloud Computing, EA, & SOA Created the Licensed ZapThink Architect (LZA) SOA course & associated credential Run LZA course & Cloud Computing for Architects course around the world Analyst for GigaOM and blogger for DevX New book, The Agile Architecture Revolution, is now available! 2 1
The Problem Technology alone doesn t make us more agile 3 Systems Engineering is an engineering discipline whose responsibility is creating and executing an interdisciplinary process to ensure that the customer and stakeholder's needs are satisfied in a high quality, trustworthy, cost efficient and schedule compliant manner throughout a system's entire life cycle. -- INCOSE Web Site Let s Start with (Traditional) Systems Engineering 4 2
In Other Words Build me [X] ( many steps removed ) Thanks! Here s [X]! 5 AKA Waterfall Software Project 6 3
In reality Build me [X] ( many steps removed ) Yuck! Here s [X]! 7 Enter Agile The Agile Manifesto Individuals & interactions over processes & tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan Build what the customer wants, right? 8 4
Iterative/Agile Software Project 9 Systems are inflexible! Impossible to replace! Difficult to upgrade! Hard to customize! Challenge to integrate! Expensive! But We Still Have Problems Instant Legacy! 10 5
Not-So-Agile Updates to Existing Software 11 What Agile Software Should Really Look Like 12 6
Today s Requirements are Different! Build me something agile! Huh? 13 Missing Link: Business Agility! Companies require Business Agility»Responding quickly and efficiently to change, and»leveraging change for competitive advantage Not just a technology problem! 14 7
Designing Beyond Use Cases Use cases describe current business requirements System design must also address the business agility requirement The requirement that requirements should change! The meta-requirement of agility 15 Where s My Agility? Not only in the technology Also depends upon the people The organization itself must exhibit business agility 16 8
Agility as Emergent Property Business agility is an emergent property of the enterprise Copyright 2013, 17 ZapThink a Do el What is an Emergent Property? A property of a system as a whole that isn t a property of any part of that system 18 Copyright 2013, ZapThink a Do el 9
Example of Emergent Properties Copyright 2013, 19 ZapThink a Do el Example of Emergent Properties 20 Copyright 2013, ZapThink a Do el 10
Example of Emergent Properties Copyright 2013, 21 ZapThink a Do el Example of Emergent Properties 22 Copyright 2013, ZapThink a Do el 11
Introducing Complex Systems Systems that exhibit emergent properties Complex systems are systems of systems Component systems could consist of technology or people or both! Copyright 2013, 23 ZapThink a Do el The Problem with Traditional Systems 24 Copyright 2013, ZapThink a Do el 12
Emergent Properties! Copyright 2013, 25 ZapThink a Do el When You Architect Technology/Human Systems 26 13
Architecting only the Technology is Insufficient 27 You Must Architect the People as Well! 28 14
Next Generation Governance 29 The Context for Governance How does executive management run a large organization efficiently? Best practice approach to running an organization Scale to the largest organizations Avoid management by politics The answer is governance 30 15
What is Governance? Creating, communicating & enforcing the policies that are important to the organization 31 Not just governance of technology Governance with technology Largely automated Proactive Inherently iterative Not your Parents Governance! Agile 32 16
The Cornerstone of IT Governance is Architecture Architecture provides the overall organizational guidelines for all of IT Architectural processes implement IT governance An architecture board should drive IT governance 33 Governance Leads to Empowerment The more powerful the tools, the more important it is that people know how to use them properly IT should empower the people in the organization 34 17
SOA Governance (Supposedly) Works this Way! SOA Policy Security Policies, Routing Policies, etc. Registry/ Repository ESB or other Policy Enforcement Point (PEP) Meta-policy Policies for handling governance in the reg/rep 35 Supporting Policy Changes How do you support changing policies? Represent policies as metadata Incorporate policy change into governance framework Place scope of policy change into proper context Remember, SOA means building for change 36 18
Meta Thinking Meta-requirement Requirement that applies to other requirements E.g., Business Agility requirement Meta-methodology Methodology for creating or modifying methodologies Following the Agile principle responding to change over following a plan even if the plan is to follow Agile Meta-policy Policy for how to perform governance 37 Dealing with Change Meta thinking doesn t look at something Meta thinking means looking at how something changes Meta thinking is typically manual Always includes people 38 19
Avoiding Hall of Mirrors Problem Meta-policy: how to we automate policy enforcement? Meta-meta-policy: how to we automate metapolicy enforcement? Answer: we don t (yet)! 39 Remember Business Agility is a Requirement Defined as part of your analysis Delivered as part of your deployment Tested as part of your quality assurance You must provide traceability of the agility requirement 40 20
The Agility Model (Change Cases) Determine desired variability / cost balance for each agility attribute Include variability in the SOA design Measure resulting agility Provide traceability to business agility requirement 41 The SOA Quality Star Need to maintain both agility & quality Quality takes time! 42 21
Best Effort Architecture Carrier grade quality takes time Business agility requires rapid iterations Complex systems require new way of thinking about quality! 43 Cloud shifts IT provisioning & management to the user Cloud automates previously manual tasks Greater risk of mucking things up How Cloud Changes the Equation Increased need for governance 44 22
Changing Attractors Without effective governance, enterprises fall into traditional bureaucratic, inflexible attractor Goal: shift to adaptive, innovation-centric attractor Effecting real change in the enterprise 45 The Missing Link 46 23
Agile Architecture Finally! 47 Book Giveaway! Jason Bloomberg President ZapThink, a Dovel Technologies Company jbloomberg@zapthink.com @theebizwizard 24