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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
Open Text ProVision® (formerly known as Metastorm ProVision®) is an Enterprise Architecture (EA) solution allowing for effective planning and decision making throughout the enterprise. It enables an organization to have a central repository of information about the business, reducing organizational risks and better optimizing business resources.
Implemented well, it enables better and more actionable decisions exactly when you need them.This book combines theory and practice to provide a step- by- step guide to building a successful customer- centric model of your business. The approach is simple and down to earth, and along the way, with various real-world examples, you will learn how to make a business case, use a framework, and adopt a methodology with Open Text ProVision®. This book draws on the experience of ProVision® experts around the world. By combining theory with practice from the field you can avoid common mistakes and develop a successful customer centric strategy for implementing ProVision®. Each chapter builds on the previous one to give you the confidence to implement a central repository, dealing with both the technical and human issues that you might face.
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Seitenzahl: 337
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011
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Table of Contents
Open Text Metastorm ProVision® 6.2 Strategy Implementation
Open Text Metastorm ProVision® 6.2 Strategy Implementation
Copyright © 2011 Packt Publishing
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First published: March 2011
Production Reference: 1150311
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
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Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.
ISBN 978-1-849682-52-7
www.packtpub.com
Cover Image by Artie Ng (<[email protected]>)
Credits
Author
Bill Aronson
Reviewers
Tom Foster
Ted Lefkovitz
Acquisition Editor
Stephanie Moss
Development Editor
Alina Lewis
Technical Editor
Gaurav Datar
Indexer
Rekha Nair
Editorial Team Leader
Vinodhan Nair
Project Team Leader
Lata Basantani
Project Coordinator
Leena Purkait
Proofreader
Kelly Hutchinson
Graphics
Geetanjali Sawant
Production Coordinator
Alwin Roy
Cover Work
Alwin Roy
Foreword
Look around you. Everything that is made has been designed, with one exception: we don't design the very organizations that make the things you see, hear, feel, touch and taste. This is a very curious omission.
Now all this is changing. Visionary organizations have started to do just that—they are designing their companies, with amazing results. One of the tools used to do this is made by the company that I work for, and is called Open Text ProVision®. It's a complete platform for designing and modeling any business. Just as a new design of a building or jet is modeled inside a wind tunnel and simulated on a computer, so you too can now re-design a business and understand and foresee many of the impacts those designs have before the changes ever see the light of day. We are very proud of what we have achieved.
This book's purpose is to enable you to explain the benefits and give you a road map of how you might implement a well designed business. The author draws on the experience of existing users around the world to help you get the very best from the tool, understand some of the challenges you might face, and how to overcome them.
I recommend this book to all current and intending users of the toolset.
Ken Goerg
Open Text Inc.
Director, EA Product Management
Every organization is designed. However, most are designed unconsciously. It is beliefs which shape the way the business appears to the world.
"This is the right way to do things", perhaps?
"We have always done it like this", probably not.
Beliefs are necessary. They serve an important purpose and they add tremendous value. When an organization knows its beliefs, it can get on with the job confidently. However, the world is changing rapidly. From time to time we need to examine our beliefs and see if they need replacing or updating.
I am an enterprise designer based in the US. Enterprise design gives me a framework and methodology for classifying important business information. Then I use ProVision® to model organizations. The challenge I find is, not so much how to use the tool, but how to get everyone on the same page. This is what this book is all about. It's the first book ever published on ProVision® that focuses on how to design a strategy and get it implemented.
Using this book you will be able to design a "conscious" organization and get everyone involved. You will be able to hold company beliefs up to the light of day and see if they continue to serve the purpose for which they were intended.
Tom Foster
Owner, Business Views LLC
Good managers have four core capabilities. They consult, train, mentor and facilitate. Great managers have five: they coach their team. Once you add coaching to your kit bag of skills, you cross an invisible line and become a leader. Leaders coach and manage the team's energy, and hold the corporate vision.
ProVision® lets you visualize your business and ensure that everything you do aligns to that vision. It's an enabler. This book will fast track your ability to get the most from it, and I highly recommend it.
Andrew Mackenzie
CEO, Shirlaws Australia
www.shirlaws.com.au
My passion is designing businesses from the customer's point of view. I call this "outside-in". Inside the gates everyone has their own introspective view of the world. It is hard to see the organization the way the client does. We forget that processes start way before we know anything about them.
This book is a great contribution to changing that blinkered thinking. The author provides the Chief Information Architect with a blueprint for designing an organization that is truly customer centric.
Ray Brown
Founder, www.ClienteerHub.com
Business is emotional and rational, both an organism and mechanical. We cannot design an organization the same way that we design a car. Forget about the metaphors of engineering and architecture; a business is a community of people with dreams and hopes. Every one of us wants to live, to love, to learn and leave a legacy. We will only engage in our workplace if we care, and this engagement is a conversation around creating new meaning, not solving old problems.
When we care, we see new possibilities and opportunities, and we co -create a shared future together. The most successful organizations on the planet are those that are designed with this in mind and they are constructed to engage the critical emotional connections in organizations to continuously create a better world.
This book breaks new ground. It shows you how to design a business that will find and engage the critical connections in your organization to move beyond the "red ocean" of survival and into the "blue ocean" space of abundance and meaning.
Jeremy Scrivens
Founder, TheEmotionalEconomy.com
About the Author
Bill Aronson is a business coach with global coaching firm Shirlaws (www.Shirlaws.com.au). He lives with his wife and daughter in Tasmania, Australia, one of the most beautiful places on earth. His job is to help businesses gain clarity. He helps them increase revenue, get more time, and reduce stress.
Bill has been coaching, mentoring, training, and teaching for more than 35 years. Using modern technology, he works remotely with clients around the world.
Bill is recognized as a global expert on ProVision® and has written a number of technical books for users that have been published by www.Lulu.com.
Bill is the founder of www.EnterpriseDesigner.com, whose mission is to show organizations how to design their businesses to make better decisions now.
Bill is also the author of www.TurningUpForLife.com, his contribution to making the planet a little bit of a better place to live.
A number of people have contributed to the success of this book. First, I wish to thank all of the people who generously shared their wit and wisdom. Some cannot be named for reasons of confidentiality. Those who can, include Jeremy Scrivens of www.TheEmotionalEconomy.com, Gordon Lescinsky of www.Ioctane.com, and Ray Brown of www.ClienteerHub.com.
Next, I have been fortunate to have had a whole editorial team supporting me this time. My thanks to Stephanie Moss, Leena Purkait, Alina Lewis, and the unsung heroes at Packt Publishing. My thanks also to Tom Foster and Ted Lefkovitz, who took on the noble and thankless task of proofreading, and suggested many ideas for improvement.
I wish to acknowledge Darren Shirlaw for creating one of the best strategic thinking frameworks available, and for making an important contribution to the discipline of coaching.
As always thanks to Bob Farrell, Ken Goerg, Neil Hudspeth, Mike Cawsey, and all the people at Open Text Metastorm.
My special thanks to my wife Catherine and daughter Zoe, whom I love dearly. It's not easy living with a writer.
Finally, to you dear reader. I do hope you find this book valuable. If you do, then please contact me at <[email protected]> and start a conversation.
About the Reviewers
Tom Foster is a business consultant and managing member of Business Views LLC. He has extensive experience assisting customer organizations with business strategy, business requirements, process improvement, and end-user business readiness. He has provided services to the mortgage and commercial banking industries, as well as numerous public sector clients. Tom is an Enterprise Designer with the Enterprise Designer Institute, and is a ProVision® user. Additionally, he is a certified TOGAF 8 practitioner with the Open Group. Tom graduated from the University of Toledo with an MBA degree and a BBA degree in Finance.
Ted Lefkovitz uses his experience with some of the leading enterprise architecture and business process frameworks and modeling tools, in order to provide vendor-independent consulting and mentoring services. He is skilled in the definition of business rules, vocabularies, and taxonomies, and is capable of integrating a wide range of methodologies to design business improvement solutions that deliver bottom-line results.
Ted has served clients in a variety of industries in the US, the UK, and Canada including GM, GE, HP, Shell, JP Morgan Chase, ING, E*Trade, Ameritrade, Delta Air Lines, BellSouth, Export Development Canada, and many others. He keeps current with industry thought leadership and innovations through communities of practice such as Enterprise Designer, ARIS North America User Group, BPMN, and Rules World. As an early practitioner of object-oriented technology, Ted was a member of the Object Management Group (OMG) representing Coopers & Lybrand, and participated in the research captured in the book Patterns for Effective Use Cases (Addison Wesley, 2002).
Ted holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and an MBA with Organizational Design concentration from York University in Toronto. He currently lives in Atlanta and can be reached at <[email protected]> .
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Preface
I had a conversation the other day with the head of IT in a globally known organization. He was trying to justify the expense of buying ProVision®. He told me that the IT department really understood the point of it, but people in the business side were lukewarm. He asked me whether he should hold off buying the software until the business was supportive, or get started and wait for them to catch up. I told him that if he started without their support they would never catch up. If he waited for them to catch up he would be waiting for ever.
Then there was a third option.
I asked him, "What's the biggest issue in the business right now?" He said, "We never have enough time."
So then I asked him, "How long does it take to make a major decision?" He paused for a moment. "I suppose it takes at least six months, sometimes longer."
So then I said, "If there was a way to make the same decision in six weeks, perhaps even a better decision, how would that feel." His eyes lit up. "Oh, that would be fantastic. People get so frustrated by how long it takes to get decisions made. It would be wonderful."
So then I said, "What would you get if all the decisions you made took less than six weeks, rather than more than six months?" He thought about it awhile. I could see he was struggling. "I'm not sure what you mean", he said eventually.
"Well", I said, "You just told me that the biggest issue around here is the lack of time. What do you get more of if decisions take six weeks or less?" He smiled. "We would get more time."
We grinned at each other, "Exactly", I said. "The reason you don't have any time is that the decision-making process is sucking all the oxygen. So, how can you accelerate the decision-making process? First you have to give up the belief that a slow decision is a good decision and a fast decision is necessarily a bad one. It has nothing to do with speed. So let's examine why the decision making process is so slow."
"We are very concerned about our reputation. We want to do everything of the highest quality. We usually take years to plan some of the things that we do. There are a lot of people to consult."
"I am guessing. So you arrange a meeting and then it gets cancelled because a key person can't be there?"
"Oh yes, that happens all the time. And when a meeting gets cancelled it can take a month or two before everyone's diaries are free."
"When you make a decision, you need to have a shared understanding of what it is that you want to do. That is what all those meetings are about, trying to ensure that everyone is on the same page. To do this you construct models. The thing is that the models that you make are inside your head.
There are a few problems with this. Nobody can see your models. They are invisible to the world and as you get new information you change the models at a moment's notice and nobody will know.
When you are examining the models you may forget details or you may be distracted. As a result your models are incomplete and distorted.
In a large and complex organization you can't understand everything. You have your own unique perspective. So, even if you are operating at your best, your models are incomplete and inaccurate.
If you go on leave, or are away for some reason, then nobody has access to your models. If you quit the organization, the models walk out the door inside your head. Your successor has to start all over again constructing their models. While they may be able to recover the information they may never get the same insights. The process takes months, sometimes years. You don't have a choice about whether to make models or not. You have to use models to make decisions. There is no other way. Your only choice is whether you make those models visible or invisible, shared or individual.
What you call a meeting is a group of people sitting around trying to synchronize their mental models. Until this is done you can't begin to make a decision. What happens is that politics and psychology come into play. It is human nature. I try and persuade you that my mental model is better than yours. You get offended. You then try and coerce me to accept your model. And so it goes on. The whole human soap opera continues and in the meanwhile the decision gets delayed.
Now if you take all the key information and put it into a centrally-managed model, the game changes. Vital information that was scattered now becomes accessible. It doesn't replace mental models. However, everyone is responsible for synchronizing their mental models to the common shared model. When a decision needs to be made you print out the relevant models for everyone to see and discuss. If someone can't be there then it doesn't matter because their knowledge is embedded in the central model. If they want to attend the meeting but are away then they can participate remotely.
The trick is not to overload the central model. You need to put just enough information in to enable a better decision to be made than would have happened otherwise. The more information you add, the more you have to maintain. Too little, and the information is insufficient. Too much, and the information is too hard to manage and interpret."
He paused for a moment. This was a lot to take in.
Eventually he said, "So what you are saying is that I need to demonstrate that ProVision® can be used to save time. We need to treat the decision-making process like any other. We make a model of how it runs right now and then show how we can simplify and improve it."
"Yes."
"If the business sees the tool as some kind of technical thing then they will never show any interest. If they see it as part of a strategy to make better decisions now then they will see the point."
"That's about the size of it."
"So, how do you build the model?"
"That's up to you. If you use the Enterprise Designer framework, it can be done in two weeks."
"Are you serious?"
"Yes."
"Only two weeks?"
"Yes. After that you add detail one project at a time. When you do a project you have to spend time thinking up front anyway. It doesn't take any more effort to put it into the central repository. In fact it takes less."
Note
This conversation is reprinted from Turning up for Life—the lost manuscript by Bill Aronson.
About this book
This book is a practical guide for architects and CIOs working in large organizations, who want to get the most from ProVision®. It covers all the relevant broad areas—designing a strategy, creating a business case, using a framework, adopting a methodology, implementing effective governance, understanding the toolset, and obtaining buy-in. Taken together, these areas provide a comprehensive strategy to deploy ProVision® successfully.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Designing a Strategy, will show you a five-layer strategy framework. This framework has been developed by global business coaching company Shirlaws www.shirlaws.com.au. It can be applied to any business issue that you want to understand in greater detail.
Chapter 2, Making a Business Case, explains some general principles of modeling, and the key benefits of using the ProVision® modeling solution specifically.
This chapter explains the limitations of drawing, and why modeling is not only a best practice and essential to support a sustainable strategy, but also has a lower TCO (total cost of ownership). The reader can use this information to make their business case compelling and get the funds that they need to do the job properly.
Chapter 3, Using a Framework, explains what a business framework is. A business framework is not an enterprise architecture framework. The original idea of enterprise architecture was exactly that—to capture all of the information about the whole enterprise. However this has proven to be too hard for most businesses. A business framework is the highest level framework that provides a context for all other frameworks. It describes the organization's primary goals, who are the customers, what are the products and services, what are the key processes and major elements. ProVision® is designed to support industry standard enterprise architecture and business frameworks. The user can modify a framework or create their own. To do this they need to understand the key components of any framework and why it has been developed.
Chapter 4, Adopting a Methodology, shows you how to build a business framework. What parts of the organization must be modeled. What is the correct sequence? To what level of detail should the modeler go? There has to be a trade-off between too much detail and too little. This chapter proposes a sequence in which to build models and helps you define to what level of detail you need to go.
Chapter 5, Implementing Effective Governance, describes how to design a governance structure that will support the creation and maintenance of modeling. Too often modeling is seen as a technical function and is conducted in a vacuum. Getting the governance right is a key to successful strategy. By ensuring that all key stakeholders are involved, the models will reflect the higher needs of the business.
Chapter 6, Understanding the Toolset, provides a high-level view of the features and functionality of ProVision®. The purpose is to provide information that can be used to introduce the tool to modelers and explain what it can be used for. As this is not a technical book, this chapter is designed to explain to the people developing the strategy what the tool is capable of so that they have realistic expectations.
Chapter 7, Obtaining Buy-in, reminds us that business is emotional. The purpose of this chapter is to reinforce the message that a successful strategy depends on the buy-in of people across the whole organization. We will explore techniques that win hearts and minds, and ensure alignment between the commercial and cultural aspects of the business.
The appendix, References, contains website references where you may find more information.
Conclusion
So often an organization invests in a modeling tool for a specific project and then, when the project is complete, the team disperses and the tool gets forgotten. When a new project starts the team may favor another tool. Very quickly the work done on the previous project becomes out of date and impossible to integrate into the current initiative.
This is not because of any technical reason, as most tools have comprehensive import and export features. It is because the organization does not have a common strategy, a common framework for managing information, a consistent methodology for gathering information, and a governance structure that manages and motivates users.
By the end of this book you will have a simple and effective way to do things differently.
What you need for this book
Much of this book is intended to help you with your strategy. So, if you just wish to get a high-level understanding, a copy of the software is not strictly essential. If you intend to delve a little deeper, you will need a current Microsoft Windows platform with ProVision® Enterprise Edition 6.2 or later. Most modern computers will have sufficient memory and speed to run the application. If your organization has Knowledge Exchange® 6.2, that is a bonus but not essential to get value from the book. It is also useful to have Microsoft Excel.
Who this book is for
If you are a business architect or CIO in a large organization who wants to implement a successful strategy using ProVision®, then this book is for you. It will also be of interest if you are an enterprise designer or architect. It might be that you already have working knowledge of ProVision®, but do not yet have the skill to implement it in the right context; this book will help you get there.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "In the following example screenshot, the business class Medical Plan is an integral part of the Benefit Plan package:"
Note
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.
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Chapter 1. Designing a Strategy
Where do we start to build a strategy? Let's start with a working definition. A strategy is a plan to achieve a goal. Every situation may require different strategies and different plans. However, it is possible to apply a consistent way to design a strategy. The benefit of doing so is that everyone involved learns a consistent language.
In this first chapter I will show you a five-layer strategy framework, developed by global business coaching company Shirlaws (www.shirlaws.com.au). It can be applied to any business issue that you want to understand in greater detail. The five levels are:
Typically, organizations do not pay sufficient attention to the second level and jump straight from Level 1 (context) to Level 3 (implementation). Level 2 (strategy) requires the organization to slow down in order to speed up. As a result, they do not get the full benefits and are unable to leverage.
Why choose ProVision®
Before we examine the context level in detail, here is a quick summary of why organizations select ProVision®. You can read more about the application in Chapter 6, Understanding the Toolset.
The world is changing faster. Anecdotal evidence indicates that a key aspect of your environment will change every quarter. Within the business it might be a new product line, a new service offering, a change in a process or the departure of a key manager. Outside of the business it might be the entry of a new competitor, the release of disruptive technology or a change in legislation. Whatever it might be, it will impact your work and the ability to do your job. The environment in which you operate is not stable.
The larger or more diverse your organization is, the greater these changes will impact you. To know what to do, and how to respond, you need to know more. Some observers argue that the rate of change is increasing exponentially. Therefore the situation is not going to get any better.
How do we gather this information? We talk, we browse, we research, we request, we listen. From numerous sources, a picture forms. Our co-workers do the same. We compare notes, we gossip, we text, we e-mail, we meet, we argue, and we fight. A rough consensus emerges—very rough. If we are honest, we will see that the picture is not complete, accurate or current. It is a mental model. It resides inside our heads. Our memory plays tricks. We forget and we distort. So does everyone else.
Important information is written down in reports, memos, websites, minutes, proposals, manuals, e-mails, and numerous forms. Not everyone knows how to write. Not everyone knows how to read. Workplaces employ people from various cultures where English is not always their first language. Even if it were, English is a pastiche, with layer upon layer of meaning laid down over centuries, like bark rings.
Creating pictures and diagrams is a good way to supplement the written word. Pictures offer an alternative way to grasp a hierarchy, process or workflow. Pictures are a universal language.
However, as the rate of change increases exponentially, we need a way to manage and maintain pictures easily. The same object might need to appear on multiple diagrams. How will we remember where they all are? How will we update them all?
This is the problem that ProVision® solves.
One could argue that these points apply equally to other modeling suites. The key differences that separate ProVision® from the rest of the pack are:
ProVision® is a product aimed at the top of the market, designed to manage thousands of objects, used by many different modelers. It has been used in numerous industries across the world. This means that local support is likely to be available. You will probably be able to find people with relevant experience and expertise to help you on your journey. Because it is relatively easy to use, organizations can get started fairly easily.
Personal context
One might argue that the context of any set of actions is more significant than the content. Our day to day experience is content-based and so we tend to be unaware of the context of our actions. If the context is not articulated, then different people will have different contexts. When this happens, we perceive others as having hidden agendas. Our own context seems obvious to us, and we assume that it must be obvious to others.
Context simply means why? Why are you contemplating ProVision® or implementing it? It is a piece of software, albeit a very flexible one. It is easy to make the mistake that the tool itself will provide you with a strategy for its implementation. In fact, context precedes strategy and strategy precedes implementation. That is why this chapter does not provide any details of ProVision's features and functionality. There are three key contexts that affect how you approach ProVision®—time, responsibility, and scope.
Time
A lifecycle is characterized by three states—past, present, and future. Where are you in the lifecycle? What is your knowledge and experience?
Each of these user groups has a different context. The future users have a vision and perhaps little or no experience. Their expectations may not match what is realistic. Their vision is an idealized view of what the tool offers. The present users have experience and thus their expectations are different. They are better able to distinguish between the promise and the performance. The past users will have formed an opinion or judgment, either positive or negative. If they believed that the tool was a panacea, then they may have a jaundiced view.
Responsibility
The second context concerns your position within the company. In order for you to implement ProVision® effectively you need three things to be a part of your job description:
In my view, the true meaning of responsibility includes accountability and authority. Let's clarify what we mean by these in more detail. This doesn't just apply to implementing ProVision® of course. It applies to all work. If you understand the distinction then you will dramatically improve your ability to do your job. If you educate others within your business then you will dramatically improve the effectiveness of your organization.
Responsibility means that it is part of your job description to make this piece of work happen. Responsibility doesn't mean that you do the work, although you might. Responsibility means that you are the one who is ultimately meant to make it happen. Can you delegate responsibility? Yes.
What happens when you delegate responsibility? Does that mean that if something goes wrong then you can blame the person to whom you delegated? No. Let's see why not.
If you have responsibility for a piece of work it means that you are also accountable. Simply put, accountability means that there is a clear and objective test as to whether the piece of work has been done. By designing this test before the work is undertaken you can review whether it was done to the appropriate standard. What happens when you delegate responsibility for a piece of work? The delegate is now accountable. However, the accountability has not been passed from one person to the other. Rather, a new accountability has come into existence. You have created it out of nothing. You are 100% accountable, they are also 100% accountable.
