Todd Biske: Outside the Box

I’m checked out now, and in the closing session which is an open research panel with four Gartner panelists. They’re throwing up a statement and then debating it. The first prediction is “Through 2012, 40% of EA programs will be stopped due to poor execution.” The audience seemed to be in favor of the statement, although I wasn’t. Some of the audience comments had to do with lack of funding, lack of support, confusion with the value proposition for EA. I think it’s likely that 40% of the EA programs may change in how the company is attacking the problem (in fact, probably even more than that), but I’d be surprised if the program was abolished altogether.

The next statement is “By 2010, 70% of EA teams will be forced to spend as much time on information architecture as they currently spend on technical architecture.” About 70% of the audience agreed with this statement. I differ slightly. I definitely think the emphasis on information architecture will increase, but I also think some of the technical architecture may decrease. So, I would say that information architecture will probably receive equal treatment to technical architecture, but probably not as much as what technical architecture receives today. Interestingly, Nick Gall asked how many of us expect that Business Process Architecture will increase, more so than Information Architecture, in the next few years, and about 70% of us (myself included) agreed.

The final statement is “By 2010, the primary focus of technology architecture will shift from defining product standards to identifying and describing shared and repeatable technical services.” About 70% of the audience agreed with this. The key word that I disagree with on this one is the use of the term “technical services”. If your definition of this term includes “business services” exposed through technology, then I’d agree. If we’re talking about capabilities in the technical domains, like security, routing, etc., then I disagree. I think they are using the former definition, so I would agree with this one.

Time to head to the airport. I’d like to publicly thank the SOA Consortium and Pascal Winckel with Gartner for giving me the opportunity to be a speaker and for putting on two great summits. I especially enjoyed the EA Summit and hope to attend again.

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