Application Leadership, 2010

Susan Landry will talk about what needs to be done to respond to the business demands.


First the definition of an application is complex (where are the boundaries). For Andy Kyte, it is an "unit of management". The perspective is changing and the IT organization needs to go through a transition.

Landscape

Business executives perceive IT as a constraint (60%), foremost the IT department resources and the technology platforms. A large portion of the IT budget (39%) is spent on applications and almost half of resources are used on them.

The application leader: there is more than one, over business domains, application dsiciplines (e.g. testing & QA), software, platforms...

They use a common set of classic KPIs (on time, on budget, on function, on architecture...). They are still important but a new set of indicators gets more important: the business (performance) outcomes, solution results (not only what is being built), strategy alignment.

Business strategy impacts the application strategy: focus on what the (business) "management board" objectives are.

Megatrends

Application architecture is changing, with SOA, WOA, EDA (processes triggered by an event or a trend being detected)...

Sourcing and deployment options: especially in Europe where there is a deep culture of custom development, and it is changing, including with new options (cloud, SaaS...).

Demand and consumption: factor in what the user expects.

AD styles: for example, SOA and BPM brings change how applications are developed.

Some key initiatives (MDM, integration...) are long term but, at the same time, there is an increasing pressure to deliver quickly, incrementally.

How to change?

First analyze strengths and weaknesses (CMMI style), with maturity models (Gartner has a tool for this). The average level is 1.74 on a scale of 1 to 5 ("ad hoc", repeatable, defined, quantitatively managed, optimized). Broken among domains, architecture is extremely low (1.3 on average) on the same scale.

The business must actively engage in all the disciplines, except vendor management.

Recommendation: change the agenda for project selection meetings, have the business leader report on the business outcomes in the last quarters.

Multiple portfolios: application and project are obvious, but "portfolios" for people (skills, competencies....), finance, development tools and environments, methods and governance are useful too.

IT and business are blending: there is a need to enable and govern end-user technical activity (open source implementation, SaaS, or... the Excel spreadsheets). Define a policy (when it is permitted) and provide minimal methodology. Include the end-user solutions in the portfolios.

The financial approach is also changing: don't build isolated business cases (e.g. SOA...) and have a broader and longer term view.

Change management is a new required competency (or competency center).

New skills and domains

The application leader needs to work closely with vendors, EA, businesses, BPM CC... It requires a style of management by influence, taking time to exchanging with all stakeholders.

The "renaissance" professional must build skills across several domains. And they must become "business smarts" (get knowledge from the business side).

Action plan

• Stay current with fast-evolving trends.
• Assess the maturity of the application organization.
• Engage in delivering the business outcomes.
• Lobby the business and IT for mutual accountability.