Tag Archives: Lean
Loose Coupling Nirvana – Canonical Techniques Part 2
To continue from my prior blog article on this topic, loose coupling between applications in an enterprise portfolio is an IT architect’s dream. If two or more applications are tightly coupled, then it becomes impossible to change or enhance one without impacting the other. Loosely coupled applications on the other hand can be enhanced independently with little or no impact on other systems. The net result is the ability to rapidly change the IT portfolio in response to business opportunities. In short, organizational agility becomes a competitive weapon. But is this dream achievable or is it only wishful thinking? (more…)
Keeping Your MDM Initiative Lean
Human behavior studies show that if you are offered a pizza menu with a number of combination offerings as well as “build it yourself” options, you will order more toppings than if presented with a menu that only presents build it yourself. The same thing for medical tests – if a doctor is presented with a pre-filled in menu of recommended clinical tests for specific diseases (and the option to strike out tests that are not needed) they order more tests than if presented with the same order form but with nothing checked in advance. So what is the relevance for Master Data Management (MDM)? (more…)
Four Canonical Techniques That Really Work (Or Not)
Several years ago I had the fortunate opportunity to participate in a post-mortem study of a $100 million dollar project failure. No one likes to be associated with a project failure, but in this case it was fortunate since the size of the write-off was large enough that it forced the team to take a very hard look at root causes and not just do a cursory analysis. As a result we finally got to the heart of a challenge that has been plaguing data architects and designers for 20 years – how to effectively use canonical data models. (more…)
Who’s Fault Is It If Your Integration Factory Is Not Performing?
The CIO of GT Inc. (the fictitious name of a real company) met with his middleware vendor rep to deliver some depressing news.
“We established an outsourced factory delivery model two years ago using the productivity tools that you sold us and we made it our enterprise standard. The factory results however, are discouraging use of your integration platform. Projects are not getting approved by the business because of high costs, or else project teams are working around the standard and building hand-coded solutions. Did I make a mistake in buying your software?” (more…)
Top 5 Benefits For Making Big Data Small
Lean Data Management is a new approach to managing your data growth. It uses the “Lean” concept that originated with Toyota car manufacturing in the 1990’s. The “Lean” concept is based on maximizing efficiency, eliminating waste and providing more value to the customer. (See Informatica’s lean integration solutions as well as John Schmidt’s 10Weeks to Lean Integration blog series.)
As technology has evolved, industries consolidated, and corporations have grown, these organizations are faced with explosive data volumes called “Big Data”. Big Data is all the different types of data that are supported by IT organizations. Applying the “Lean” concept to managing application data will help you reduce the size of your Big Data by archiving live production databases, subsetting non-production databases and archiving/retiring legacy and redundant applications. Informatica’s Lean Data Management approach to reducing Big Data is an effective, comprehensive approach to addressing the challenges created by Big Data. It’s time to Make Big Data Small with Lean Data Management.
Here are the top 5 benefits for Making Big Data Small: (more…)
Are Function Points Useful For Data Integration?
Why does one software project cost twice as much as another? Is it because it is developing twice as much functionality as the other? If you contract with two system integrators, how can you tell which one is more productive? In a multi-year outsourcing arrangement, is your supplier getting more or less efficient year over year?
An enduring challenge in the software industry is establishing a standard unit of measurement that expresses the amount of business functionality in a given information system so that questions like these can be addressed. Most organizations have not adopted a formal measure, but of those that have, the most widely accepted measure is function points which were defined by Allan Albrecht in 1979[1]. But are function points an effective metric for integration projects? (more…)
Is IT Ready for Self-Service?
In response to a recent post where I suggested that Integration is a good place to start your self-service journey, readers responded with questions about whether IT is ready. Here is one of the comments: “For self-service to be successful requires the company to have the correct level of maturity both on the business and IT side, the correct structure and governance in place and an entity dedicated to guiding and promoting the organizations integration efforts.” (more…)
Why Is Integration A Good Place To Begin Your IT Self Service Journey?
There is no question that self-service information technology is a growing trend. John Haddad made a compelling case for the inescapable trend in his article No More Waiting Thanks To Self Service Data Integration. So if IT self-service is a fait-accompli, what can you do to get started? I suggest that integration capabilities are the best place to start for three reasons. I’ll save the most compelling reason to the end. (more…)
Demand Management Is An Oxymoron
I was delivering a presentation recently to a group of IT executives and one of the CIOs asked “The Integration Factory sounds great, but how do you manage backlog?” My response was, “There is no backlog so there is nothing to manage.” In lean terminology, a backlog of projects or change requests are work-in-process inventory and are considered waste; essentially an inventory of unmet needs. A lean factory strives to minimize WIP by using just-in-time techniques. (more…)
Your Biggest IT Security Nightmare – Non-Production Data
Everyone is worried about data security and privacy as they should be; for data to be trusted, users and management need confidence in not just knowing that data is correct, but also in knowing that it is secure and that access is permitted only in controlled situations. There is no shortage of security disaster stories, but I’m not worried about production data since it is at the heart of application management disciplines which, while still not perfect, have had 50 years to mature. This perspective is stated succinctly by Ronald Reagan when he spoke about the economy and said “I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.” (more…)