This week brought yet another good consulting gig, operating with old buddies and respected colleagues. The challenge driving the consultation was brainstorming a new service for their firm, and how most effective to obtain it into operation. The new service vision was quite fantastic. The service would fill a hole, or shortfall inside the business which would far better enable their clients to compete in markets each in the US and abroad. On the other hand the process of organizing and delivering this service, well, simply did not exist. The team's sense of urgency to provide the service was high, depending on a perception if they didn't move swiftly, then they would endure an opportunity loss even though competitors moved speedily to fill the service want themselves.

"We have terrific concepts from vendors, and are going to attempt and place with each other a quick pilot test as promptly as you can. We're attempting to collect several of our customers to participate appropriate now" stated a single with the team. "That just sounds like too a great deal function. If we need to go through all that, we'll never provide the service. Superior to just work using a couple vendors and get it around the street." I must note the service would touch a lot of, a lot of people in the target sector, that is quite tech-centric. Good results or failure with the service could possess a big impact around the achievement or failure of quite a few within the business.

Being a card-carrying member of the enterprise architecture cult, in addition to a proponent of other IT-related frameworks for example ITIL, COBIT, Open FAIR, along with other company modeling, you will discover definitely bound to be conflicts involving following an extremely structured approach to building company services, plus the want for agile creativity and innovation. In this case, asking the group to indulge me to get a few minutes whilst I mapped out a simple, structured approach to creating and delivering the envisioned service. By utilizing simplified version in the TOGAF Architecture Development Method (ADM), and adding several lines associated with standards and service development methodology, for example the vision AS-IS gap analysis options improvement model, it didn't take long for the team to reconsider their aggressive method.

When preparing a chart of timelines applying the "TOGAF Light," or EA framework, the timelines had been oddly equivalent to the aggressive approach. The key distinction becoming at the end from the EA strategy the service not simply followed an incredibly logical, disciplined, measurable, governable, and versatile service. Sounds a bit utopian, but in reality we have been in a position to get for the service delivery having a better solution, without sacrificing any innovation, agility, or market urgency. This is the future of IT. As we continue to move away in the frenzy of service deliveries from the Online Age, and commence focusing around the business nature, which includes role IT plays in vital worldwide infrastructures, the disciplines of following product and service development and delivery will continue to get value.