A mixed mode dialog!

[Christopher Bird]

I posted the following http://businessanditarchitecture.blogspot.com/2009/01/architecture-and-web-companies.html on my blog today, and then promptly (and shamelessly) promoted it on Twitter.

Very solid piece of feedback from Nigel that have copied directly, below.

 

@seabird20 in your example there are 3 Value Systems (not IT systems) 1 for the Enterprise 1 for the Product and 1 for the Back office...

@seabird20 ... smudging across VS is always a problem - Policies don't apply & Trust tends to get damaged to name a couple of outcomes

 

I think therin lies the essence and a nice example of the power of the VPEC-T thinking model. These are obviously Value Systems, but management doesn't always see it that way and tends to focus on skills (programming) and not Values. Skills are not drivers or even part of the language of VPEC-T. Sure we need skilled people, but the skills must be approriate to the Values (and everything else). 

 

--
My kitchen blog
http://seabirdskitchen.blogspot.com

[Sally Bean]

 I think the old Cranfield Application Portfolio Grid  is a way of classifying applications (and the strategies for developing and managing them)  to address this problem.

 

If you're not familiar with it, it is basically the Boston Square oriented around IT. It maps applications on to a 2x2 according to rate of change and operational criticality. The Quality, Cost and Timetomarket values vary across the quadrants. I've listed them in priority order here:

 

High rate of change, low criticality - HIGH POTENTIAL (Time, Cost, Quality)

High, high - STRATEGIC (Time, Quality, Cost)

Low, High - KEY OPERATIONAL (Quality,  Cost,Time)

Low, Low - SUPPORT (Cost, Quality, Time)

 

It's all written up in John Ward's book on Strategic Information Systems Planning.

 

I wrote a customised version of it up in the BA Business Systems Planning guide, published in October 1993. (We had it externally reviewed by Hoskyns, actually - chap called Robert Mann), with recommendations for different project approaches in terms of justification, methodology and resourcing. I think most of the advice still stands, except that systems are more interdependent today, so even support systems could be quite critical.

 

Rob Lambert from Cranfield is going to be  doing a talk for us at the EAC Europe 2009, and he did mention the grid, so it's possible it may feature in his presentation. I will encourage him to do this, as I've always found it a very useful model.

 

Sally

 

 

 

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From: vpe...@googlegroups.com [mailto:vpe...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Christopher Bird
Sent: 28 January 2009 17:26
To: vpe...@googlegroups.com
Subject: VPEC-T A mixed mode dialog!