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Taking Aim

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Welcome to Talking Points (Q4, 2003).

Talking Points addresses topical developments to help you make your business more competitive.

In this issue, we look at the emergence of Web Services, and how this impacts on the Enterprise Architecture of an organisation through the adoption of "Service Oriented Architectures".

We also look at a new service developed by a partner organisation in the United States - Taras Consulting, called The Rapid Decision-Making Workshop (RDMW).

Utilising Web Services in Service Oriented Architectures

In April of this year, we produced a whitepaper on Web Services to introduce the concept of Web Services, explain the major components that make up Web Services, and to identify issues that Senior Executives should be aware of when reviewing the impact of Web Services in their organisations - Web Services - What Does it Really Mean.

Since that time, we have seen a number of significant advances in this area, with many companies now actively moving to implement Web Services solutions to integrate their application portfolios across the organisation, and also to collaborate with their customers, partners and suppliers.

Unlike earlier attempts to implement Service Oriented Architectures using technologies such as Microsoft's DCOM, or the Object Group's CORBA, Web Services do not require the same technology to be deployed at each end, but rather being standards based can communicate irregardless of whether the service being connected to is a Microsoft .NET service, a Java J2EE service, or indeed a mainframe CICS legacy application.

Implementing a Web Services based Service Oriented Architecture model offers the following benefits to an organisation:
  • Leverage existing legacy investments - wrapping existing applications with Web Services interfaces makes these applications available and discoverable across the network.
  • Significant reduction in the cost of integrating services - It is not uncommon for an IT department to spend upto 80% of its budget in maintaining legacy applications, and for the lion's share of that maintenance budget to be spent on updating interfaces. The use of Web Services eliminates the need for specific interfaces to be built between individual applications.
  • Agility in responding to changing business demands
    • - Since business processes are essentially sequences of actions and events, an organisation that has implemented a Service Oriented Architecture approach, whereby services are built to satisfy these particular events and actions, is able to respond rapidly to changing business demands by reordering the process steps and augmenting where necessary with new services.
The important point to recognise when implementing a Service Oriented Architecture approach, is that implementation can be done progressively. Over time as more services are connected, the benefits to the organisation will increase.

When looking at where to start, recognise that Web Services standards are still immature and evolving, and so identify those areas where you are comfortable you can manage the risk. Look also at legacy applications which are used by multiple systems. If you determine that you wish to start with a new application, look for a business process which has a number of manual steps which can benefit from automation.

If you would like to discuss this issue further, or share your Web Services experiences, then please click here.

The Rapid Decision-Making Workshop RDMWSM

RDMW was developed by Allen Shaheen of U.S. consulting company Taras Consulting. Allen founded the company based on his research at Harvard, his practical experience as a CEO for ArsDigita (sold to RedHat Corporation in 2002), and as a founder and senior executive at Cambridge Technology Partners (sold to Novell Corporation in 2001).

The Taras Consulting RDMW process and change implementation programs are highly effective in helping companies develop and implement new business and operating plans more rapidly after completing mergers, acquisitions, or significant restructurings.

The RDMW process has identified a number of basic principles which impact not only The Speed of Implementation, but also the Speed to Implementation - that is, the time taken for planning and decision making.

These basic principles are:
  • Clearly Stated Goals - Strategic and corporate goals as laid out by the sponsoring executive.are used to manage conflict and force decisions
  • Empowered Team - Choose the right people and authorise them to make decisions within a certain framework
  • Forcing Function - Rapid means forcing the issues, agendas, and challenging people to rise to the occasion
If you would like to discuss this topic further, or to explore whether RDMW is right for your organisation, then please click here.

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