Play 2 – Anchor on Applications, Link to Technology, Bring in Business Elements
- Difficulty: Easy to moderate
- Target time: 6-10 weeks
- Maturity: 1 to 2 2 to 3
- A risk reduction drive
- An efficiency drive
- There is little visibility of IT
- EA want to build credibility
- A comprehensive list of applications, even if disparate and not 100% complete
- Accessible list of recent, if not up to date, technologies, e.g. in a CMDB
- Communication to relevant IT teams from senior leader
- A business contact with knowledge of the business
- Accessibility to disparate lists and CMDB(s)
- Publish an up to date application catalogue
- Get an application and a technology reference model created and linked to applications and products used
- Engage the CIO by using the reference models to identify duplication
- Engage the business, overlay the business perspective and identify where they have potential duplication and/or risk within their processes. Start with one business area and complete that first as a demonstrator
- Engage Support to show impact of a technology failure on the business, e.g. this server failing means this team in this business area cannot function
- Having a single accessible application list is always well received
- The CIO initiates detailed investigation into rationalisation or risk reduction, against the identified applications and technology – architecture credibility builds
- The business begin to understand where they have inefficiency and risk and initiate impact analysis initiatives
- CIO – key areas of concern
- Business Executive – Capability Model validation
- Business Analyst – Capability model creation and high-level processes
- Application Owners – application information
- Service Management Teams – application and technology information
- CMDB, e.g. ServiceNow, for data
- Engage and regular updates with the CIO and a ‘friendly’ business area executive
- Once the application catalogue has a reasonable set of applications, begin to communicate more widely
- If very high risk appears communicate early
- Engage other business areas once you have one done
- EA Team in place
- EA advocacy from across areas, inc. Support will begin
| Steps | A1.1 | A1.2 | T1.1 | T1.2 | T1.3 | A1.3 | B1.1 | B1.2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What | Capture the applications with basic details and services | Create the application reference model and map applications | Create the technology reference model | Capture the technology products against the reference model | Create technology nodes , with locations and attach technology instances to them | Map technology components and products to Applications | Create the business capability model with the BA, validate with Executive | Identify the high-level processes and map applications that use them |
| Usage | Have a list of applications used that can be the anchor for the rest of the work. Define strategic applications in line with your target state | Identify duplicate application candidates from an application perspective. Initial view, provides focus for the business work | Anchor for technology Products created | Identify duplicate and high risk technologies | Get clarity on what technology nodes exist, where and what technology sits on them. See the implications of, for example, a failure, a data centre move or a cloud-first strategy | Use to identify application technology risk and non strategic technologies used by applications | Will be the anchor for application duplication from a business perspective | Enables identification of duplicate application candidates in the business. |
| Interested Parties and expected response | Business & IT Interested but not excited | CIO Interested, keen to discover more | CIO Interested, but not excited | CIO Initiates activities based on duplicate technology or risk | CIO Has clarity on what exists where. Keen to know impact of strategic infrastructure initiatives | CIO Realignment of the portfolio based on risk and strategy. Business risk discussions begin | CIO Realignment of the portfolio based on risk and strategy. Business risk discussions begin | Business & CIO Interested, keen to discover more. Initiate cost review activities |
| Approach | By Business Unit/Area | By Business Unit/Area | Overall Enterprise | Overall Enterprise | By Business Areas (Target based on A1.2 output) | By Business Areas (Target based on A1.2 output) | Overall Enterprise | By Business Area |