Help Wanted: Governors

After combing through recent headlines and talking with senior executives at some of our customer sites, I've decided that one of the biggest factors holding back greater ROI in the information technology (IT) industry is the lack of good governance executed by strong governors.

After all, the right governor in place at the right time can bring great benefits to your constituents (customers, employees, etc.). However, not having a governor, if only for a few days, can wreak havoc on your infrastructure and may be detrimental to your long-term prosperity.

Like trying to drive a car without an engine, you can't possibly execute good governance without strong governors. After all, the governor is in place to uphold the key principles of governance -- transparency and risk mitigation at minimal expense to the communities that it supports.

Sure, everybody gives governance lip service by saying that they evaluated all possible options and selected the one that was most closely aligned with their goals. And when our governance product is doing well, we take a collective bow. Yet when poor governance is exposed, we're quick to point fingers.

As many people claim after the fact, they knew something was wrong with their governance choice but either didn't feel empowered to act or were told it wasn't their business. The time has come to impeach poor governance and put in place the type of governors that drive results.

Just look around and you'll see the signs calling for good governance. And you don't have to be living solely in the IT world to recognize that the lack of good governance can have long-term implications. In fact, if not handled properly, the role of the governor may cease to exist. I'd even wager that there are businesses all over the world and in places like New York, Illinois and South Carolina, for example that may be feeling the effects of poor governance.

This is why I've come to the conclusion that there is a very obvious and growing need for good governors that can properly execute governance. However, since there are variations on the role of the governor, I've outlined five of the key attributes. I'm hoping you'll weigh in on these attribute with the goal of providing a consistent job description across the IT industry so that we can all avoid any further confusion.

Key Attributes of a Successful Governor

Visibility: ensures that both business and IT staff are able to identify where and how the governor is acting and reacting within the infrastructure.

Transparency: provide status of all activities via an executive dashboard that outlines potential areas of risk and their implications.

Policy management: provide alerts when policies are being compromised or violated.

Fiscal responsibility: reuses existing resources and avoids unnecessary costs for maximum return on investments.

Risk Mitigation: eliminates exposure by ensuring that the infrastructure meets or exceeds established guidelines.


So if you have any additional attributes to add to the list of governor requirements, please send them my way as I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts.

The IMPACT on Architects and Developers

What an IMPACTful week. IBM certainly pulled out all the stops at their annual IMPACT SOA conference held this week in Las Vegas. In case you missed it, IBM highlighted a slew of new products.

What I find most interesting of the lot is the new WebSphere CloudBurst appliance for managing private clouds and the new products around rules, optimization and virtualization from last year's ILOG acquisition. Frankly, it's a challenge to keep track of the hundreds of products in the IBM middleware portfolio but what the IMPACT announcements really get at is the need for architects and developers to address the challenges associated with sustaining the infrastructure.

Speaking very clearly about the value of SOA, Joe McKendrick aptly reported on IBM's Steve Mills who laid down the gauntlet and challenged the audience to find him a company not interested in SOA principles.

Of course, when you attend a conference like IMPACT, you tend to expect announcements about new products, bold statements from the executives and shots from the competition (like the recent WebSphere challenge issued by Microsoft).

What I didn't expect to find among the sea of people were the lines of architects and developers waiting to take various certification tests. The lines were so deep you'd almost think Billy Crystal was administering the tests.

IBM offered certifications in WebSphere, SOA and XML and the folks over at ZapThink offered a SOA for Managers Certification Course. When you think about it, the interest makes sense. After all, these events really should be about the folks who actually use the technology to do their jobs.

Now you could argue that the lines are sign of the times as IT professionals beef up their resumes with additional certifications.

Though as I've mentioned before in this blog, regardless of the marketing term du jour (SOA, cloud, virtualization, etc.) IT professionals who have a mastery of the way that the architecture can reduce costs as well as the skills to execute on the strategy will always be in demand, regardless of the way the economy turns.

As for IMPACT 2010, there's already some buzz about it...

-Jeff

Gartner's SOA Governance MQ: Good Guidance on Guidance

Well, the long awaited Gartner Magic Quadrant on SOA Governance was released yesterday. As expected, the Gartner report delves into the current leaders, challengers, visionaries and niche players.

While Gartner has its copyright rules that I won't dare disturb, I would like to share the news that WebLayers has made its debut in the leaders quadrant of this annual Gartner MQ.

The official report title, "Magic Quadrant for Integrated SOA Governance Technology Sets" provides an interesting view on the rising importance of SOA governance and related technologies as the recession gets deeper and the need for cost optimization rises. I am sure Gartner's lawyers were in over drive prepublication as this appears to me an objective view...Kudos Frank Kenney, I am sure it ruffled some big feathers here and there.

From our view, what this means in the bigger picture actually underscores three key points about the business of governance that we've been saying all along.

1. Governance goes beyond the SOA realm. Sure, governance is a natural fit for a service oriented architecture yet that's not the only use for it as it can strengthen the entire software development lifecycle.
2. There's a yet untapped potential for governance when it comes to offshoring because it can identify and correct potential and costly mistakes in design and coding long before they're returned back to corporate headquarters.
3. Along the same vein as point number two, visibility is key when it comes to doing more with less. Without it, you’re relegated to making business decisions without all the facts. So visibility, as a result of "active policies" and automated guidance reduces I.T. risk - Bottom line.

So why is it that governance gets more traction when times are hard? Could be one of those silver linings that you find during the recession when we know we have to 'hunker down' and learn to be lean and mean.

Or it could be a matter of semantics if you ask me. Isn't it funny how people tend to wince when they hear the term governance yet feel a bit more at ease when you talk about guidance?

Jeff