Agile Enterprise Architecture Finally Crosses the Chasm

Executives seeking digital transformations of their organizations require a more agile approach to architecture than traditional EA has been able to offer. Instead, architects must treat the enterprise itself as a complex system, driving business agility as an emergent property of the organization as a whole.

Perhaps the best example of a company that has succeeded with this agile approach to architecture is Netflix. Netflix NFLX -0.87% is well-known in technology circles for its industry-leading use of Public Cloud, but how they build software and in particular, how they drive their overall architecture are perhaps the most paradigm-shifting aspects of their accomplishments.

Executives at traditional enterprises may look at the Netflix case study and chalk it up to the success of a Web Scale company that would never apply to a bank, a government agency, a manufacturer, or any other traditional enterprise. To help dispel this myth that what worked for Netflix won’t work for you, I interviewed Adrian Cockcroft.

Today Adrian Cockcroft serves as Technology Fellow at Battery Ventures, but until recently, he was Cloud Architect at Netflix, well known as a thought leader for the Netflix way of doing things. Our conversation wasn’t simply an opportunity to reminisce about the Netflix days, though. At Battery, he’s seeking and supporting technology companies “who are enabling the transformation of enterprise IT” – in essence, who are able to take a page from the Netflix playbook and apply it to the enterprise. The secret to Netflix’s success? A transformative set of practices I call Agile Architecture.

The Current Status of Enterprise Transformation

As a public figure in the Cloud and DevOps worlds, Cockcroft is a lightning rod, both for professionals with problems in this space as well as people with success stories to tell. As a result, he has a unique perspective on the leading edge of progress in enterprises around the world. What are they telling him? “Enterprises have hit a turning point,” according to Cockcroft. “A year ago they still weren’t convinced about Cloud. Now they’re comfortable with Cloud and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), and they’re trying to get DevOps to work.”

As a natural skeptic, I called him out on how enterprises are approaching DevOps: DevOps-as-buzzword, or as a true cultural shift? “People who talk about caricatures of DevOps won’t be successful,” Cockcroft explained. “DevOps is a reorganization and a cultural transformation. Many enterprises are in the middle of this transformation, and struggling.” In fact, DevOps doesn’t stand alone as a transformative force within such enterprises. “Cloud, continuous delivery, DevOps, and Agile software development are all tangled together and related,” according to Cockcroft.

In my experience, this drive toward transformation is a relatively new trend. As recently as 2013, most large enterprises were discussing digital transformation and taking early, toe-in-the-water steps, but had yet to jump in with both feet. “It does look like we’re crossing the chasm,” Cockcroft agreed, referring to Geoffrey Moore’s theory about the technology adoption lifecycle. “I’m seeing a few ahead, a lot in the middle, and a few laggards.” Perhaps the central characteristic of this chasm-crossing transition is the shift from early adopters as risk takers to the early majority who doesn’t want to be left behind. Cockcroft continued, “Enterprises face the threat of not doing such transformation – of their competitors running away from them.” As a result, “Enterprise IT has got to catch up quickly.”

In fact, this need to accelerate the business, and in particular, the development and rollout of new products and services, is a common driver across many organizations. “Enterprises want to make their OODA (observe, orient, decide, and act) loops for product development much faster,” Cockcroft said. “They want continuous learning via feedback loops and hypothesis testing for both SaaS and mobile apps.” As a result, the strategic business need for innovation at speed is percolating throughout the entire organization, and the IT shop is feeling the brunt. “Software development is the slowest thing they’re doing,” according to Cockcroft. “It has become the bottleneck.”

The Cost Optimization Paradox

On the one hand, accelerating the product development lifecycle helps the top line through improved time to market and increased market penetration, but it also reduces costs, because fewer person-hours are required between initial conception and launch. Ironically, to achieve such cost savings, organizations must bypass various policies and procedures that were intended to control costs. “Months of approvals cost more than the machine you asked for,” an example Cockcroft mentions as one reason why Cloud computing can save money. “When you optimize on cost, you slow things down, which increases costs elsewhere,” Cockcroft explains. “Externalities often aren’t taken into account.”

It is precisely those externalities that enterprises must focus on in order to achieve their digital transformation goals. Cockcroft likens such externalities to scar tissue. “Most companies are built out of scar tissue,” he posits. “Scar tissue includes processes, rules, the HR manual, the whole waterfall idea. Scar tissue prevents you from getting anything done. You need to clean stuff out, automate, streamline with fewer handoffs.”

This streamlining was one of the most important lessons Cockcroft learned at Netflix. “When you believe your process is good enough that nothing will go wrong, that’s when everything goes wrong. The process prevents the right product.” And DevOps was the key to solving this paradox. “DevOps combines externalities with core processes,” he explained. “The entire team moves at the speed of development, because they’re now one organization.”

Reinventing Architecture

Clearly, if traditional approaches to Enterprise Architecture rarely work in typical enterprises, then they certainly wouldn’t be effective at Netflix. Cockcroft agreed. “Monolithic apps that need rigid architecture with rigid architecture review boards that maintain central control” characterize the traditional enterprise approach to architecture, but Netflix was having none of it. Instead, “At Netflix, we had no central control” of the architecture, according to Cockcroft.  “If we did we’d always be behind because we’d stop innovating.”

Instead, “The goal of architecture was to create the right emergent behaviors,” Cockcroft explained. Emergent behaviors are the result of the self-organization that complex systems exhibit. To achieve the desired product innovation at Netflix, Cockcroft’s team would “relax control and let it be ‘chaotic,’ but in reality it would be ‘emergent.’ Set up feedback loops and change the management style.” In fact, the difference between chaotic and emergent behavior is central to the theory of complex systems – and as a result, the central challenge of Agile Architecture is taking steps to ensure that desirable emergent behaviors result instead of the normal chaos that large organizations are typically susceptible to. “Architecture meant making people do the right things without constraining what they built,” Cockcroft explained. “At Netflix, my role as architect was to document, encourage, and evangelize architecture. For example, how we handled availability, disaster recovery, and backups.”

As a result, many architects might not recognize Cockcroft’s style of architecture. “Our architecture was changing faster than you can draw it,” he pointed out. “As a result, it wasn’t useful to try to draw it.” Furthermore, Netflix never considered their architecture to be a prerequisite to building software. Cockcroft explained that “the architecture we created was an idealized version that we put out there to get feedback. The faster we learned, the better able we were to support efforts to transform the company.” Such feedback loops are the key to driving the business agility at the heart of Netflix’s product development strategy. “The agile approach means continuous course corrections,” he explained.

Lessons for Enterprises

The most important takeaway from both Adrian Cockcroft’s experience at Netflix as well as his work in the enterprise software space is that successful digital transformation requires a solidly agile approach to architecture. Organizations must pull together Cloud, mobile, Agile development, and DevOps to drive rapid product development across multiple teams, each of which is responsible for its own continuous delivery. Trying to control this apparently chaotic environment with traditional architectural artifacts, processes, and procedures will only slow the organization down, thus hampering innovation.

And yet, organizations still require a high level of overall design and coordination that supports the agility goals of the business without hindering them. Such architecture is inherently agile in approach. “The architectural patterns at Netflix were resilient and functional,” Cockcroft explained. “Optimized but not centrally managed.” Not traditional architecture to be sure, and perhaps not even recognizable as architecture by long-term practitioners of the craft. And yet, this Agile Architecture approach is absolutely essential to the success of any digital transformation initiative.

via Agile Enterprise Architecture Finally Crosses the Chasm.

Agile Enterprise Architecture Finally Crosses the Chasm

Why You Should Rethink Your Office No-Pet Policy

 

Catching a glimpse of a wagging tail skittering around the office isn’t just cute. It may just save your life and the lives of employees.

Allowing pets in the workplace has long been seen as key employee benefit, as well as an amusement (depending on whether you’re an animal lover). But for some employers, an open door policy toward pets–particularly, man’s best friend–has a raft of other business-enhancing benefits, which includes improved morale, reduced employee absenteeism and stress-related ailments like heart disease and diabetes.

In a 2012 study, employees who were around dogs in the workplace reported feeling less stressed than employees who have dogs but left them at home, according to researchers from Virginia Commonwealth University. The study also found that pets triggered workplace interactions that would not normally take place.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also cited similar stress-reducing benefits.

Not all dogs are exactly St. Bernard’s. Naturally, some animals might hew closer to Cujo than Fido and barking–even among the sweetest puppies can get annoying.

Still, the benefits of a lower-stress workplace are too attractive for some business owners to ignore. Here are some companies throwing caution to the wind and welcoming pets into the workplace and the benefits they’ve seen as a result:

Catharsis and better communication

Replacements, a dinnerware retailer based in Greensboro, North Carolina has been pro (well-behaved) puppies at the office for decades. The company’s pet policy started because its founder, Bob Page, didn’t want to leave his pet at home. But he always figured that having animals around was cathartic.

That suspicion was confirmed after the company participated in the VCU study. “The study proved what we always thought: Having dogs around leads to a more productive work environment, and people get to know each other through the pets,” says Lisa Conklin, Replacements public relations manager. “If you are in a position where something is stressful, seeing that wagging tail and puppy smile brightens the day–it can turn around the whole environment.”

The benefits of Replacements’ pet policy extend beyond employee health, says Conklin. Specifically, she reported improved interactions among staffers. “When I first took the job, I often learned the names of the pets before employees, and it helped me build a bond with everyone.” She added that some employees consider the peace of mind that comes from of having their pets within reach a key benefit. “It is a lot of fun to have dogs around the office,” says Conklin.

Dogs often offer a way for their owners to get up from their desks during the day and take a walk. Harvey, a boxer that can be found at Replacements, Ltd., ensures that employees get outside, even in the rain.

Exercise and convenience

We all know exercise can help reduce stress. But in lieu of going running with employees each day, Human Movement Management, a Louisville,Colorado active entertainment company, is banking on its pet policy to amp up employees’ workouts.

“We work long days and long hours,” says Jen Chappell, a customer service representative at Human Movement. “Having dogs around the office makes it fun, and makes us get out of the office and exercise.”

HMM president Jeff Suffolk, who’s Golden Retriever’s name is Brady, adds that employees also value the convenience of being able to take their furry friends out for their mid-day walk themselves rather than having to hire a dog walker.

“I always felt like if we had the conveniences of our homes, that we would never dread coming to the office,” Suffolk says.

Work/life balance and mental breaks

As a custom application development company, employees at Indianapolis’ Inverse-Square often work long hours. Bringing pets to work makes the time pass more happily, says Bob Baird, the company’s president and founder. “With dogs around, it is too hard to get bent out of shape.”

Tack on the benefits associated with taking breaks and the policy pays for itself, adds Baird. “Our job requires us to solve complicated problems, and it is amazing what a four block walk with a dog will do.” When someone is getting stressed, they will grab a leash and head outside with a dog. This mental break they may not have taken without a dog in tow allows employees to come back refreshed.

Comic relief and petting therapy

At the crafty marketplace Etsy, pets are welcome for a variety of reasons–not least of all for their comedic timing.

Sarah Starpoli, an employee experience manager, recalls a story when one tiny fur ball bit off more than he could chew. Once, she explains, a very small dog walked through a staff meeting dragging a stolen piece of pizza past the person who was speaking. The slice was same size as the dog, she adds.

The Brooklyn, New York-based company has found that bringing dogs to work helps to keep employees’ spirits high and adds to the sense of community and connection. At Etsy, however, even the dogs have a community. The company keeps a doggie database, which features more than 50 nearby office dogs that are registered to come in. On any given day, about 4 to 10 pups are present.

Starpoli adds that stress levels naturally fall when pets are around. It’s hard to be overwhelmed by work when a dog goes skittering by or comes over to say hello. And it’s not uncommon for folks to actively seek out their favorite pups when they need a break.

Culture benefits and setting the tone

At Huffington Post’s offices in New York City and Los Angeles, the pet policy has been in force since 2011 when AOL acquired the media company. Besides traditional stress relieving benefits, the pro-pet policy also sets the tone for the office: comfortable, open and flexible, says Lena Auerbuch, HuffPo’s manager of lifestyle communications and partnerships.

There’s an “understanding that everyone keeps their teeth to themselves and remembers where the fire hydrant is,” says senior writer Ann Brenoff.

via Why You Should Rethink Your Office No-Pet Policy | Inc.com.

Why You Should Rethink Your Office No-Pet Policy

Inside The Complicated Mess Of Discrimination And Diversity In Hiring

Recent studies show that we’re backsliding when it comes to inclusiveness. But the reasons might be more complicated than discrimination.

Got diversity? If you believe the headlines, not so much.

A spate of recent studies delivered some troubling findings related to how race, religion, sexual orientation, and even your name can determine whether you get that call for an interview or job offer.

A recent study by the Equal Rights Center (ERC) and Freedom to Work (FTW) found that fictitious applicants’ resumes which included a leadership role in an LGBT organization were 23% less likely to be called back for interviews.

Two studies by University of Connecticut researchers–one published in the December 2013 issue of Research in Social Stratification and Mobility and one published in the March 2014 issue of Social Currents–found that identification with some religions could be a setback, too. Overall, applicants who identified a religious organization on their resumes received 26% fewer calls and email responses from prospective employers. Muslim applicants received one-third fewer responses from prospective employers. The studies also showed that atheists, Catholics, and pagans faced discrimination as well.

A July 2012 study published in PNAS found that, in a randomized, double-blind study, students’ application materials for entry-level lab manager positions were randomly assigned male and female names. Female students were less likely to be hired because they were viewed as less competent.

And if your name gives you away, you could be in trouble, too. People with hard to pronounce names are less likely to get hired.

Was all of that diversity awareness and training for naught?

Not really, says Corecia J. Davis, J.D., director of legal compliance at Palmer Kazanjian, an employment law firm based in Sacramento, California. She says the people at her firm pore over employment data “all the time” to discover how they can help their clients be more diverse, she says. While you can’t entirely discount the study data–discrimination still exists, of course–the she says the results can be misleading.

“There are so many factors that you can’t judge accurately. Were you the first resume that came in or the 100th–that could affect your call-back chances? Were your skill sets viewed differently? You never know why people decide to call you in or not,” she says.

She says a more telling factor is whether a company actively resists recruiting people of color, LGBT employees, older workers, or people with disabilities. If you see a homogenous workforce and leaders, that’s more indicative of a bias issue than a study that may have many mitigating factors.

Recruiter Kenneth L. Johnson with Philadelphia-based East Coast Executives also cautions about reading too much into isolated studies, especially those based on small samples. He says the more frequent use of automated applicant tracking systems, which rank prospective employees based on factors like experience and education helps mitigate bias. In addition, employee resource groups are more prevalent and help attract people from various races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and with other attributes. However, there’s still less diversity as people rise through the ranks, he says.

“That’s where some candidates may be getting shot down because of bias at the higher levels,” he says.

Davis also makes a distinction between racism and other forms of malicious bias and people who are simply uncomfortable with people unlike themselves.

“There are fewer ‘racist’ hiring managers than people who just aren’t sure about how a person of different culture might fit into the workplace. Those are things, societally, that we need to work to improve,” she says.

via Inside The Complicated Mess Of Discrimination And Diversity In Hiring | Fast Company | Business + Innovation.

Inside The Complicated Mess Of Discrimination And Diversity In Hiring

Hiring: Why You Should Recruit Former Employees

LeBron James’ recent decision to return home to the Cleveland Cavaliers is a notable one–and not just for what it will mean for basketball season. There’s an important hiring principle here.

Returning employees often make the best hires, according to a new study conducted by Brad Harris, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois.

In the study, which appears in the summer issue of Personnel Psychology, Harris found these so-called “boomerang” employees are not only less risky, they’re more likely to commit to the company upon their return. That’s because “in addition to understanding the organizational culture,” writes Harris, “they have learned firsthand that the grass is not always greener on the other side.”

In studying countless accountants, infantry soldiers, and basketball players, among others, Harris found many of these workers chose to leave for personal reasons, not because of dissatisfaction with the job. A pregnancy, unexpected job offer, or spousal relocation was usually to blame. Meanwhile, the employer, who may not have wanted the employee to leave in the first place, typically recruited former colleagues–people who knew the company already–to avoid turnover, which can be costly.

Of course, “not all boomerangs are created equal,” warns Harris, who found re-employment performance was strongly tied to how things left off, and how well the employee performed the first time around. It also mattered how well the employee was performing in his or her current job.

Though Harris declined to make any Cavalier predictions, he did note employees who haven’t been gone very long tend to possess the most “desirable attributes.” The reason: Not only can they more accurately recall the organizational culture, they’ll know what’s expected of them.

via Hiring: Why You Should Recruit Former Employees | Inc.com.

Hiring: Why You Should Recruit Former Employees

5 ways to improve your tech evaluation process

Without careful planning, your technology can become more of a “ball and chain” than a means of growing your practice. Before you know it, you’ll have several very different applications, a web of data passing between systems and a list of impressively marketed features you don’t really need. You can handle this situation in a more effective, inexpensive way.

Having been a former business owner of a technology consulting company to large, fast-growing RIAs, I have insight into the industry that a typical technology manufacturer doesn’t. Technology is about solving problems and creating efficiency — not just about bells, whistles and integrations; those are the means to the end. My experience has been that each RIA is unique and has business requirements driven by numerous factors that were developed without consideration for the current technology landscape. The burden of selecting the correct technology for an RIA requires sorting the unique from the mundane, the efficiency creators from the web of complexity and the necessary from the unnecessary. Using the following steps can help ensure a successful technology selection:

1. Understand what makes your firm unique and create a specification.

You can include the firm’s business model, growth projections, samples of current reports, descriptions of processes, future goals, details on client services, billing methodology and attributes of historic data. You want to document your tech requirements in the same way a business analyst would document a development specification for a developer. Include how you would like to enhance current workflows, but keep them simple and don’t over-engineer new complex processes. The obvious advantage is the more you can provide in advance, the quicker you can accomplish the due diligence and arrive at a short list of solutions.

“In today’s market an RIA needs to think beyond the basic technology offerings.” – Nathan Berk, CEO of Interactive Advisory Software.

2. Select more than just a technology provider, but a long term business partner.

Favor a series of short conversations with open questions (or “scrums”) over an initial demo. The majority of modern sales professionals are demo pros and can knock your socks off if given an unstructured hour to tour their platform. Demos typically lead you to see and hear a lot of detail that is probably not relevant. A better approach is to start with your requirements and study how the technology provider internalizes your needs. Watch to see if the technology vendor dismisses your needs and races to have you fit their model. You’ll find that the more specific you are in providing requirements, the quicker the vendor will support your due diligence. This process also allows the technology vendor time to digest your requirements and develop the proof on how their technology will meet your unique needs.

3. Ask for a scripted demo which covers each area in your specification.

Ensure that the technology vendor focuses their demo on your requirements, not the bells and whistles of their software. It is easy to fall in love with cool software functionality and forget the requirements you were solving for initially. Give the vendor time at the end of the demo to show what their software can do, and what makes them unique from others. You should be leaving the demo with a complete understanding of how the technology will specifically work for you. Oftentimes, custom work is involved in a technology deployment, so have the expectation that the custom report you are requesting may be mocked up, rather than be in actual production, or a discussion to modify existing functionality may be required. Also, although it may cost a little more, don’t be afraid to ask for important software customizations.

4. Do your due diligence on the provider and understand how they can help meet your current and future goals.

There may be a time your firm will want to outsource routine tasks such as account onboarding, client reporting or billing. Can this technology support those services? Do they have the ability to support more complex services such as trading, client service request processing or access to money managers? In today’s market an RIA needs to think beyond the basic technology offerings. Evaluate the company’s customer support and ongoing account management. Ask for the phone number and randomly dial to see if anyone answers. Review the company’s technology roadmap. Ask where they are focusing their available development horse power. Understand what they have released in the way of new functionality in the previous six months, as that will be an indicator of expected future development.

5. Focus on your “production go live date.”

Be realistic about your firm’s investment, implementation and data conversion. The more energy invested here by your firm, the more success the implementation will enjoy. Make sure you are prepared to invest a significant amount of time in deployment and training while taking into consideration the timing of data conversions. As a consultant, it was helpful to shrink big projects through sequencing and prioritization. Meet the vendor’s implementation team, expect a project roll out plan, and work with them to refine the timing to be as realistic to your circumstances as possible. Finally, don’t dismiss a full data conversion. Having that data available in our overly-regulated environment will support audits and keep regulators satisfied

via 5 ways to improve your tech evaluation process.

5 ways to improve your tech evaluation process

This App Will Tell You Whether You"re A Good Cultural Fit At Any Company

With 2 million anonymous data points in its company culture database, a few quizzes can let you know the kind of place you should be working for maximum office happiness.

In the end, whether or not you decide to stay at a job long-term often has more to do with “culture fit” than with anything else. With one out of two people quitting before 18 months on the job, that’s clearly a hard thing to get right, and reviews on GlassDoor will only take you so far.

Good.Co, a platform that uses psychometric frameworks to help jobseekers and employees figure out their place in the cultural landscape, has released a new iOS app to make the process of figuring out culture fit a bit easier.

Good.Co released a first semi-private beta almost a year ago, with a web app that offered up an array of quizzes to help users evaluate their own personalities, compare scores with friends and colleagues, examine culture fit with companies and managers, and discover their work team’s personality. After over 8 million “FitScores” checked on the beta platform, Good.Co has decided to focus exclusively on mobile devices, armed with better data and a fresh understanding of what jobseekers are actually seeking.

“The value proposition is the same, but the product is re-architected to be more social, gamified. We don’t want to put it out as an a HR recruiting tool quite yet,” says co-founder Samar Birwadker. “We’re now adding more depth, more engagement opportunities back to the user.”

The quizzes–and there are many–have become more nuanced. The platform used to measure 15 personality traits, now it measures 45. Since so many people at different companies have played with the platform, Good.Co now has over 2 million data points for its company culture database. It says job opportunities within each company culture will be available soon.

Here’s what this looks like in practice. After taking the initial eight-question quiz, Good.Co tells me that I’m an Inventor–creative, curious, innovative–and that my ideal companies are Verizon and Amazon (not so sure about that). From there, I have the opportunity to take an array of other quizzes. As I take them, Good.Co offers up new insights (work/life balance is important to me, and I’m comfortable speaking up but know when to keep my mouth shut, apparently).

These personality quizzes are all entertaining, but they become extra-interesting once you start looking at company personality profiles, also known as organizational archetypes. From there, you can check your cultural fit with any company listed in the database, with information based on quizzes from anonymous employees.

Already, Good.Co is starting pilots with a handful of companies to figure out what they would want from the platform (while the consumer version will always remain free, the company version won’t). “We’re humanizing the job search process, the job matching process. We’re humanizing how you can build better relationships,” says Birwadker.

via 20 | This App Will Tell You Whether You’re A Good Cultural Fit At Any Company | Co.Exist | ideas + impact.

This App Will Tell You Whether You"re A Good Cultural Fit At Any Company

Hiring: Why You Should Recruit Former Employees

LeBron James’ recent decision to return home to the Cleveland Cavaliers is a notable one–and not just for what it will mean for basketball season. There’s an important hiring principle here.

Returning employees often make the best hires, according to a new study conducted by Brad Harris, a professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois.

In the study, which appears in the summer issue of Personnel Psychology, Harris found these so-called “boomerang” employees are not only less risky, they’re more likely to commit to the company upon their return. That’s because “in addition to understanding the organizational culture,” writes Harris, “they have learned firsthand that the grass is not always greener on the other side.”

In studying countless accountants, infantry soldiers, and basketball players, among others, Harris found many of these workers chose to leave for personal reasons, not because of dissatisfaction with the job. A pregnancy, unexpected job offer, or spousal relocation was usually to blame. Meanwhile, the employer, who may not have wanted the employee to leave in the first place, typically recruited former colleagues–people who knew the company already–to avoid turnover, which can be costly.

Of course, “not all boomerangs are created equal,” warns Harris, who found re-employment performance was strongly tied to how things left off, and how well the employee performed the first time around. It also mattered how well the employee was performing in his or her current job.

Though Harris declined to make any Cavalier predictions, he did note employees who haven’t been gone very long tend to possess the most “desirable attributes.” The reason: Not only can they more accurately recall the organizational culture, they’ll know what’s expected of them.

via Hiring: Why You Should Recruit Former Employees | Inc.com.

Hiring: Why You Should Recruit Former Employees