On Friday February 19, 2010, I underwent laser eye surgery (Intralase Sub-Bowman’s Keratomileusis) to correct my short sightedness. I have worn glasses since I was 6 years old and contact lenses since I was 16. Over the past 15 years, I developed an allergic reaction to the protein buildup on the contact lenses and had to restrict my use to sports only.  This is a quantum leap forward for me and I am floored by the results – no more glasses!  Thank you to my surgeon, Dr. Suren Sanmugasunderam, FRCS (C) and his team at London Eye Centre.

The evolution from squinting to see, to having thick, then thin lens glasses to contact lenses and now to laser eye surgery led me to think more about several topics:

Problem Management – as described by IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL):

A `problem’ is an unknown underlying cause of one or more incidents, and a `known error’ is a problem that is successfully diagnosed and for which either a work-around or a permanent resolution has been identified.

As a child, I squinted because I did not know that I needed vision correction (unknown underlying cause).  My opthamologist successfully diagnosed that I was short sighted with astigmatism.  The workaround he prescribed were prescription glasses.  Now glasses helped modify the root cause of my vision problem but did not fix it.  Contact lenses were the next evolution of glasses but still did not address the root cause.  Finally, my laser eye surgery procedure modified my eyes by vapourizing microns of cornea cells to correct the root cause providing a permanent resolution.

How often do we consider a work around good enough? Once the work around is in place do we just get used to the added complexity without attacking the root cause?  Do we take the time to really look for a root cause and think of ways to permanently resolve it.  Enterprise Architecture and ITIL together provide the framework and processes for us to travel this road. Making time to review what we have done in the past is important so that we can move our enterprises forward with a solid foundation.

Manage Complexity – Complexity as described by Roger Sessions (@RSessions):

I use the word “complex” to mean an entity that has more “complexity” than needed to do what it is intended to do. By “complexity” I mean the number of internal states.  Read more...

I had a great phone call with Roger Sessions (@RSessions), CTO ObjectWatch a month ago about IT Complexity.  Over the past few weeks, I got a chance to read about Roger’s approach Simple Iterative Partitions (SIP) in a series of white papers:

• Controlling Complexity in Enterprise Architectures – Executive Summary
• Controlling Complexity in Enterprise Archtiectures – Mathematical Foundations
• Controlling Complexity in Enterprise Architectures – The SIP Methodology

Some key points that resonated with me:

1. Autonomous Business Capabilities (ABC)
2. Mathematical Basis for Understanding Complexity

Years ago, we used a simplified model to articulate why we needed to build our Enterprise Architecture practice.  The central premise of the argument was that as functionality increases so does complexity.  We proposed using IT Governance and Enterprise Architecture to manage complexity.  See the slides here.

Roger has published a new white paper – The IT Complexity Crisis: Danger and Opportunity on October 22, 2009.  The main sections of the paper are:

• The Coming IT Meltdown – calculating the costs
• Cause of Failure – measuring IT complexity
• Designing Simpler IT Systems
• Impediments to Simplicity
• Call to Action

Here is a part of the section on calculating the cost of IT failures from page 5 from Roger’s paper.

Calculating the Cost of IT Failure

To find the predicted cost of annual IT failure, we then multiply these numbers together: .0275 (fraction of GDP on IT) X .66 (fraction of IT at risk) X .65 (failure rate of at risk projects) X 7.5 (indirect costs) = .089. To predict the cost of IT failure on any country, multiply its GDP by .089.

The following table performs this calculation of various regions of the world.
Region                GDP*               Cost of Failure*
World                69,800.00           6,180.48
USA                    13,840.00           1,225.47
New Zealand            44.00                    3.90
UK                         2,260.00               200.11
Texas                   1,250.00                110.68
Canada                1.564.00                 125.00 <– I added Canada – my country

*USD Billions
Table 1. Predicted Annual Cost of IT Failure

Next, Roger explores reasons for IT failures.  Some suggested causes where poor communications between IT and the business and the increase on functionality but neither match the increase in IT failures. Roger introduces complexity as the issue and uses Glass’ Law which describes functionality as indirectly related to complexity.  A 25% increase in functionality results in a 100% increase in complexity.  Here are the 3 main points:  Read more...

I attended a half day seminar offered to IT leaders in Vancouver today by Microsoft Canada. Essentially, this was the launch of Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange Server 2010 to the Vancouver market. There were about 100 people in attendance.

Here is my Twitter stream from the session today … http://twitter.com/#search?q=leodesousa msft

The day began with an engaging keynote by Jim Carroll – Futurist, Trends & Innovation Expert.  Jim spoke laid out themes of :

• Run the business
• Grow the business
• Transform the business

Next, Jim provided examples from his consulting engagements to highlight the themes.  One of Jim’s quotes was “Success comes to those who evolve.” Another quote, “Many kids going to elementary school will have careers in fields that don’t exist today. Think about a “location intelligence” professional.” With the huge growth of spatially related data, there is a real need for people skilled in location intelligence.

Jim also talked about the “new economy” typified by:

1. A relentless focus on growth – changes in construction mgmt focused on green sustainable initiatives
   
2. Speed to change product lifecycles – auto makers who can retool production lines in 10 days vs 10 months
   
3. Ability to speed up business cycles - new video games maximize sales in the first 4-5 days

The rest of the morning was Microsoft folks building on Jim’s themes and relating them to the “New Efficiency” slogan.  Microsoft’s proposal is that the 3 following things make up the “new efficiency”.

1. Run the business = create cost savings
2. Grow the business = increase productivity
3. Transform the business = ability to innovate

Microsoft also played on the old saying of “Do more with less” by pushing “With less, do more”.  A bit too much marketing for me.

One last factoid that struck me was Microsoft’s investment in research.  Microsoft spends $9.5 billion USD on R&D annually – that is more than most company’s value!

My big ask would be that Microsoft fully adopt open standards and focus on reducing IT complexity in the technologies they provide the market.  Overall, a valuable morning with good information and a bonus that I got to catch up with my good friend @whitebill.