When to move out of your comfort zone

In the recent issue of HBR, Andy Molinsky has come with something really useful around when to move out of your comfort zone. There is lot of advice on moving out but this one really helps you prepare that. Here is a quick summary of what Andy recommends.

Leadership Capability Framework

Loved this model of Leadership Capability Framework published by Australia Public Service Commission.

Shapes strategic thinking

Inspires a sense of purpose and direction

• Personally contributes to, shapes and champions the organisation's vision and goals, relating these to government requirements. 
• Translates broad strategy into practical terms for others, and creates a shared understanding of what has to be achieved. 
• Within the overall strategic context, presents others with an integrated picture of the actions and priorities that will be required. 
• Provides them with a clear sense of direction and endeavours to unite understanding among all levels within the organisation.

Focuses strategically

• Develops advice to government on potential outcomes, and develops a long term perspective on organisational success. 
• Integrates a 'big picture' view of goals with how to achieve them. 
• Operates on the basis of a 'whole of government' framework and takes the broader context into account. 
• Ensures portfolio effort contributes to cross-government priorities. 
• Envisages what might be and how future possibilities balance with the 'here and now'.

Harnesses information and opportunities

• Seeks to acquire knowledge, and is open to new information and different perspectives. 
• Values finding out about Australian and global best practice (public and private sector) and considers the workings of the organisation within this context. 
• Demonstrates business acumen by thoroughly researching the market that the organisation operates in (and opportunities offered and constraints imposed) to yield greater efficiencies and improve quality of service. 
• Keeps abreast of major technological changes and their impacts.

Shows judgement, intelligence and commonsense

• Grasps complexity and identifies issues that tend to be overlooked by others. 
• Thinks through problems from various angles, and analyses them dispassionately and objectively. 
• Probes and critically evaluates information before applying both intellect and experience to final judgement. 
• Is willing and able to question traditional assumptions and practices rather than taking things as given. 
• Has the capacity to provide originality of thought and develop innovative solutions.

Achieves results

Builds organisational capability and responsiveness

• Initiates fluid and flexible resourcing options based on an appreciation of emerging requirements in a constantly changing environment. 
• Looks outside of organisational 'silos' to identify what resourcing combination will deliver the best results, rather than being bound by existing organisational structures and processes. 
• Responds flexibly to various stakeholder requirements and changing circumstances as they arise, varying deployment of resources within imposed constraints. 
• Exploits the advantages offered by information technology. 
• Takes action to ensure sustainability.

Marshals professional expertise

• Values specialist expertise and places emphasis upon creating an environment which facilitates the sharing and effective utilisation of professional knowledge and skills. 
• Ensures relevant professional input from others is obtained.

Steers and implements change and deals with uncertainty

• Develops and oversees the implementation of change initiatives in a sometimes uncertain environment. 
• Defines high level objectives and ensures translation into practical implementation strategies.
• Undertakes both long and short term planning phases and sets timescales for completion.

Ensures closure and delivers on intended results

• Engenders a culture of achievement, by ensuring ideas and intended actions become reality and that planned projects actually result in expected outputs. 
• Puts systems in place to establish and measure accountabilities.

Cultivates productive working relationships

Nurtures internal and external relationships

• Builds relationships with Ministers, within the organisation and with key people in external organisations. 
• Proactively creates a professional network and develops mutually beneficial relationships based on respect. 
• Shows commitment to customer service.

Facilitates cooperation and partnerships

• Puts effort into developing a work environment where people pull together and value collaboration and teamwork. 
• Creates a sense of 'interconnectedness' with other departments and agencies, ensuring opportunities to share views and ideas. 
• Personally manifests strong interpersonal relations by role-modelling 'team-player' behaviour, including a willingness to consult and listen.

Values individual differences and diversity

• Supports and respects the individuality of others and recognises the benefits of diversity of ideas and approaches. 
• Recognises different skill areas and levels of expertise. 
• Understands others and responds to them in an appropriate way.

Guides, mentors and develops people

• Inspires ongoing learning in others. 
• Gives timely recognition for good performance. 
• Motivates others with an enthusiasm to 'give their all' by setting challenging goals, as well as supporting and encouraging them when they need assistance to overcome problems. 
• Helps others to address areas of weakness by encouraging them to take an active role in their own development, and creating a climate with right opportunities to do so. 
• Understands when it is appropriate to confront issues and takes action to deal with difficult performance situations.

Exemplifies personal drive and integrity

Demonstrates public service professionalism and probity

• Adheres to and promotes the APS Values and ethical framework as set out in the APS Code of Conduct. 
• Serves the government of the day irrespective of personal preferences. 
• Implements policies and programs based on corporate decisions rather than personal views.

Engages with risk and shows personal courage

• Is prepared to be forthright and 'tell it like it is' (and not how people might like it to be). 
• Is independently minded and willing to challenge ideas and confront issues. 
• Is prepared to acknowledge when in the wrong, and learns from mistakes. 
• Is also prepared to ask for help and values advice from others.

Commits to action

• Is determined, highly motivated and action-oriented. 
• Takes personal responsibility for getting things done, and for the success of the organisation. 
• Handles issues proactively and tries to shape events. 
• Doesn't procrastinate. 
• Readily invests energy and initiative into progressing work.

Displays resilience

• Remains focused on the objectives even in difficult circumstances. 
• Bounces back after setbacks and remains positive. 
• Maintains energy and willingly invests extra effort when required.

Demonstrates self awareness and a commitment to personal development

• Shows strong commitment to continued learning. 
• Actively seeks feedback from a wide range of sources. 
• Takes responsibility for own development and for managing self in a way which enables sustained performance. 
• Looks for opportunities to enhance own skills. 
• Values continuing development.

Communicates with influence

Communicates clearly

• Produces user-friendly verbal and written communication that is clear and concise. 
• Ensures unambiguous delivery of the message, and checks that it has been understood as intended. 
• Keeps people up to date and fully informed of any changes to the original communication.

Listens, understands and adapts to audience

• Listens actively to ensure views and information are properly exchanged.
• Checks with others to ensure their views have been accurately understood. 
• Uses and adapts style as necessary to meet the requirements of the audience.
• Creates opportunities to listen to those whose input can add value.

Negotiates persuasively

• Establishes credibility and approaches negotiations persuasively. 
• Offers a convincing rationale which has been thought through in advance and carefully positioned with reference to desired organisational outcomes. 
• Allows for a genuine contest of ideas and pulls disparate views into a coherent position, and finds common ground to facilitate agreement and acceptance of mutually beneficial solutions. 
• Reaches negotiated positions, through compromise, which lead to the achievement of the required outcomes.

http://www.apsc.gov.au/publications-and-media/current-publications/senior-executive-leadership-capability-framework

IASA World Summit

IASA World Summit has been scheduled on Dec 6th and 7th.

Core Topics include following :

• Cloud Computing
• Enterprise Architecture
• Software Architecture
• Business Architecture
• Information Architecture
• Architecture Career
• Women in IT
• Best Practices
• Case Studies.

Get more information here :

http://www.iasaglobal.org/iasa/IWS.asp

Free Event : Delivering Enterprise Architecture with TOGAF and ArchiMate

 

Date and time:
Thursday, November 29, 2012 11:00 am
Eastern Standard Time (New York, GMT-05:00)

Panelist(s) Info:

Bas van Gils, PhD (EA Consultant, BiZZdesign)

Duration:
1 hour

Description:

The Open Group standards for enterprise architecture – TOGAF® and ArchiMate® – are increasingly adopted on a global scale. As these standards converge, more and more organizations use them in conjunction to build an effective EA practice. As with many things: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. In this webinar we will therefore zoom in on the value add of the combination of TOGAF and ArchiMate. In order to cater for a broad audience, we will start with a high-level overview of both standards and then show with practical examples how the standards can be used in conjunction to deliver business value.

https://opengroupevents.webex.com/ec0606l/eventcenter/enroll/join.do?confViewID=1003076185&theAction=detail&confId=1003076185&path=program_detail&siteurl=opengroupevents

Tweek : Jobs, Free eBook, TOGAF, Gartner, Big Data

 

Gartner ‏@Gartner_inc
Couldn’t make it to Barcelona for #GartnerSYM? Sign in or Sign up to access free keynotes and 3 session credits: http://gtnr.it/SFs0n3

The S&A Group ‏@thesandagroup
I'm hiring! Global Head of Enterprise Architecture at The Strategy & Architectur - United Kingdom #jobs http://lnkd.in/7rFe9S

Ovum ICT ‏@OvumICT
Mobile and social application integration is different in nature from cloud and enterprise application integration http://bit.ly/TwHVVi

CIO.com ‏@CIOonline
Gartner Upbeat on Big Data Jobs http://trib.al/XDtwXQ

Microsoft Enterprise ‏@MSFTenterprise
Personal branding advice and cautions for executives using Twitter and other social media outlets http://bit.ly/Vqj3Dc

TOGAF(R) ‏@togaf_r
Learn about TOGAF 9 Certification, now aligned with TOGAF 9.1. Practice tests, white papers, templates etc http://ow.ly/bX9TI  

StrategyArchitecture ‏@strategyarch
Free eBook - Windows 8 for dummies http://bit.ly/Zk568V

Career - Let the entrepreneurial spirit grow

TheNextWeb.com offers some tips on how to manage your time and efforts between your work and urge to work on new ideas. While the context of article is mainly about starting something of your own, its equally relevant in day to day work life where your interest in working on a topic is much higher than a task/topic you are supposed to work today. The more your work domain is different from your interest domain, the higher the challenges.

Here are the tips:

• Don’t stop thinking and writing down ideas.
• If you have set work hours, stick to them.
• If you don’t have set work hours, make them.
• Allot blocks of time dedicated only to coming up with, planning out, and developing your ideas.
• Let the entrepreneurial spirit grow.

Read tnw article here :

http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2012/11/10/are-new-entrepreneurial-ideas-keeping-you-from-getting-things-done-in-the-present/

Starbucks Experience and Productivity

Recently came across this interesting video on how to improve customer interaction experience by influencing the productivity on customer side also. The author in this video talks about how Starbucks took a disruptive approach which may not be as customer friendly but improves overall service experience for both sides.

After watching this I realized, how much I have been practicing the same approach for many years during my career with my clients. I as a consultant mostly work with large enterprises which have many people to spend lot of time on long calls which can be done quickly. So to improve mine and their productivity, I mostly end up influencing their work style. What is your experience ?

Video : http://blogs.hbr.org/video/2012/05/how-starbucks-trains-customers.html

Obama and Technology–The wish list

Now that Mr. Obama has been elected President for another 4 years, what is our wish list for him related to Technology ?

We have in 4 areas.

Education : Encourage and Promote STEM education.

Skills : Facilitate importing of skills which are in shortage.

Government : Create policies which facilitate technology adoption and let Government agencies be the leaders in adoption.

Research : Fund and Promote research in areas where Sustainability is the core interest.

IT and CIO : Journey and Future from Gartner

As part of its ongoing symposium, Gartner today published its point of view on what future holds for IT organizations and CIO. They have identified following four futures for CIOs.

• IT as a Global Service Provider
• IT as the Engine Room
• IT ‘is’ the Business
• Everyone’s IT

While Gartner sees them as four dominant futures, I see them more as four stages of their journey. My view goes like this:

Read more about Gartner’s press release here :

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=2229015

Free TOGAF 9.1 Documentation–Mobile friendly

Open Group has released TOGAF 9.1 web documentation which has been optimized for mobile and Tablet devices. The documentation is available free for public.

http://pubs.opengroup.org/architecture/togaf9-doc/m/

TOGAF for absolute beginners

TOGAF is an aid which assist in the field of Enterprise Architecture. It provides guidelines, templates, models, framework, tools, methods, processes, etc which cover the entire lifecycle for Enterprise Architecture, right from setting up EA practice or function within an organization to creating and maintaining Enterprise Architectures.

Lets start with some facts:

• TOGAF - The Open Group Architecture Framework
• TOGAF, an Open Group Standard, is a proven enterprise architecture methodology and framework.
• The most recent version is TOGAF 9.1 which was first published in December 2011.

• First developed in 1995, TOGAF was based on the US Department of Defense Technical Architecture Framework for Information Management (TAFIM)

TOGAF 9.1 can be used for developing a broad range of different enterprise architectures. TOGAF complements, and can be used in conjunction with, other frameworks that are more focused on specific deliverables for particular vertical sectors such as Government, Telecommunications, Manufacturing, Defense, and Finance.

TOGAF assists in creating all four major parts of any Enterprise Architecture:

1. Business Architecture
2. Data or Information Architecture
3. Application Architecture
4. Technology Architecture

Overall TOGAF documentation is divided into 6 parts which also indicate the ways it helps as shown in above figure:

1. Architecture Capability : Guides on how to setup EA practice or function within an organization and its roles & responsibilities.
2. Architecture Development Method (ADM) : This is a core part of TOGAF and provides a step-by-step approach to developing and enterprise architecture.
3. Guidelines & Techniques : Helps in adapting and customizing ADM based on needs.
4. Reference Models : provides two architectural reference models, namely the TOGAF Technical Reference Model (TRM), and the Integrated Information Infrastructure Reference Model (III-RM) as foundation.
5. Enterprise Continuum & Tools : discusses appropriate taxonomies and tools to categorize and store the outputs of architecture activity within an enterprise. The Enterprise Continuum provides a view of the Architecture Repository that shows the evolution of these related architectures from generic to specific, from abstract to concrete, and from logical to physical.
6. Architecture Content Framework : describes the TOGAF content framework, including a structured metamodel for architectural artifacts, the use of re-usable Architecture Building Blocks (ABBs), and an overview of typical architecture deliverables.

CIO vs Millennials : Blurring Corporate IT firewalls

I was going through Accenture’s research report on Millennials and the challenges they are bringing to CIOs. Its an interesting research which highlights some challenges which can be considered as one of the drivers for cloud adoption and mobility. Overall the trend it shows is called Consumerization of IT (CoIT).

Most of the new workforce entering corporate firewall belongs to Millennials generations and CIOs belong to one prior to that. Clearly, there is a generation gap. CIOs have mandate to protect the enterprise data and comply to regulatory and audit requirements while workforce wants following:

• While entering into workplace, they do want to feel as if they are entering a prison and still want full view to outside world. They want technology at workplace which is latest and unrestricted.
• While leaving workplace, they want to take it with them. They want flexibility to work from anywhere using any device.

Here are some interesting infographics from the report:

They feel technology is must to perform at workplace.

Here is the shocker .. technology available plays an important role in selection of employer.

CIOs must be prepared for all of this. While the above points highlight only internal challenges, soon similar kind of expectation will start coming from customer, partners, etc as they are also overtaken by Millennials.

Next is Strategies for Embracing Consumerization.

Open Group Conference, San Francisco

Gain the tools and knowledge you need to introduce meaningful Enterprise Transformation....

The Open Group Conference in San Francisco will focus on the role played by IT and EA within Enterprise Transformation. Through practical learning opportunities based on real-life experiences and case studies, attendees at the Conference will have the opportunity to gain a valuable insight into:

• The differences between EA and Enterprise Transformation, and how they relate to one another
• The use of EA to facilitate Enterprise Transformation
• How EA can be used to create a foundation for Enterprise Transformation that the board and business-line managers can understand and use to their advantage
• How EA facilitates transformation within IT, and how does such transformation support the transformation of the enterprise as whole
• How EA can help the enterprise successfully adapt to ‘disruptive technologies’ like Cloud Computing and ubiquitous mobile access.

These and other questions about Enterprise Transformation will be answered at The Open Group Conference in San Francisco.

http://www3.opengroup.org/sanfrancisco2012

Online Workshop on Enterprise Architecture

EACOE is conducting Enterprise Architect Certification workshops which includes distance learning workshop too.

Catch all the details here : http://eacoe.org/workshop_outline.shtml

Understanding ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011 : Standard for Architecture description

Approved on 10 Nov 2011, ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011, Systems and software engineering — Architecture description, is the latest edition of the original IEEE Std 1471:2000, Recommended Practice for Architectural Description of Software-intensive Systems.

This standard replaces IEEE 1471:2000. It is identical to the ISO standard approved in July. The new standard, designated ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011, Systems and software engineering — Architecture description, is available from IEEE and ISO.

In March 2006, IEEE 1471 was adopted as an ISO standard. It was published in July 2007 as ISO/IEC 42010:2007. Its text was identical to IEEE 1471:2000.ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011 replaces both ISO/IEC 42010:2007 and IEEE Std 1471:2000.

Here is the composite and simplified view of Architecture and its ecosystem.

The storyboard for reading this diagram goes like this:

1. System which belongs to an environment addresses concerns of its stakeholders.
2. Every system has architecture
3. Architecture is described using Architecture Description(AD)
4. Stakeholders use AD to understand architecture
5. AD is created using Architecture Frameworks (AF) and Architecture Description Languages (ADL)
6. AD includes following:
   • Stakeholders and their concerns
   • Architecture Viewpoints & Views
   • Architecture Model kinds & Models
   • Architecture Rationale & Decisions
   • Correspondence Rules and Correspondences
7. Architecture Viewpoints include Model Kinds
8. Architecture Views include Architecture Models
9. Views are governed by Viewpoints
10. Models are governed by Model Kinds
11. Architecture Rationale justifies Decisions
12. Correspondence Rules specify Correspondences

So, what does this Standard contains ?
This Standard defines & specifies conformance requirements on contents of following:

• Architecture Descriptions of systems
• Architecture Frameworks
• Architecture Description Languages
• Architecture Viewpoints

The Standard defines architecture this way:
fundamental concepts or properties of a system in its environment embodied in its elements, relationships, and in the principles of its design and evolution.
This post is first in the series where I will try to explain this standard. In next post I will try to go into details of various AD elements.

Part 2 : Communicating Architecture : Key Terms of 42010

Part 3 : Architecture Description confirming to ISO Standard

IASA : Architect Career Map

IASA – International Association of Software Architects has published a career roadmap for aspiring and experienced IT architects. They provide training and certification too.

Check out the details at http://www.iasaglobal.org/iasa/default.asp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.iasaglobal.org/iasa/Career_Path.asp