7 reasons it4 it is good news

© CC and C Solutions. All Rights Reserved. 1© CC and C Solutions. All Rights Reserved. 1
Why IT4IT is Good News for Architects
Dan Warfield
Senior Enterprise Architect, CC and C Americas
London, 25 April 2016
dan.warfield@ccandcsolutions.com

Some of Our Clients
Enterprise Architecture Start-up / Cloud / Big Data
TOGAF and Other Training
Who are CC and C Solutions?
• A global Enterprise Architecture
and IT Transformation
consultancy, and a global leader
in EA training.
• Gold member of The Open
Group and leaders in the IT4IT
forum.
• Our mission: to lead
development and growth of
Enterprise Architecture and IT
Capability:
o for the individual
o for the organization
o and for the industry

Disclaimers
• My conclusions are not scientific, but are based on more than 30
years of professional experience working to improve business
outcomes for enterprise IT.
• Past successes and (especially) failures have given me the context to
appreciate the value of IT4IT in recent practical work.
• Company-specific information on project work is not included here,
to respect confidentiality and because the focus is on generalizable
lessons.

Some Real-World Problem Statements
When I was running operations, you
IT people gave me all kinds of reports
so I knew what was happening
everywhere.
Now that I’ve been asked to look at
improving IT, I realize there’s no useful
information at all about what you’re
doing in your own house.
- European Supply Chain Executive
• Understand, anticipate and influence the business demand for services
• Drive the delivery teams to develop more effective methodologies and standards
• Oversee operation of IT services to ensure it aligns with business objectives
- IT Executive Job Spec, UK Retailer
IT Operations Management (ITOM) and IT Service
Management (ITSM) work has traditionally been
managed as a set of point solutions, supported by a
wide variety of unaligned processes, tools, metrics and
information models.
Friction among these discrete silos have bogged
down service delivery. Overlaps, gaps, red tape, manual
processes and inconsistent data increasingly create
extra cost, slower delivery and dissatisfied customers.
- EA Executive Report, US Fortune 100 Company

One Real-World Example
•Challenges
• Create an Enterprise IT Operating Model as a reference point for creating transformation roadmaps across the
whole scope of CIO responsibilities
• Create a functional model of IT as a Business, as a template for rationalization, alignment and future-state
planning for IT tooling
Dynamics
• All stakeholders need to be engaged – Infrastructure, Development, Audit, Finance, HR, and Executives
• Many previous attempts to work with a common view of “What is IT?”
• Well-defended silos everywhere – many understand the threat
Outcomes
• Starting with IT4IT and cross-functional team, extended model and localized presentation to achieve broad
acceptance
• Built transformation strategy heat map and now executing on highest-value targets
• Architecture and budget consolidated at IT4IT level – no more decisions in silos

6
Seven Reasons IT4IT Is Effective
.....
It is really about
service delivery
It requires a common
operational data model
It can be the lens for
strategic transformation
It demands standardized
APIs across diverse toolsets
People get it
It isn’t proprietary
It is based on value chains

People Get It

People get it
• The EA’s everyday challenge to make complex ideas understandable is
often an issue when talking to mainstream IT managers and practitioners.
• The IT4IT model has the distinction of making immediate sense to pretty
much everyone in the enterprise IT ecosystem. People can quickly find
themselves somewhere on the map.
• This instant recognition is in stark contrast to esoteric models like ITIL and
COBIT, which are robust, complex, very useful to experienced
practitioners – and incomprehensible to most people, including most IT
professionals.

Service
Portfolio
Component
Portfolio
Demand
Component
Proposal
Component
Policy
Component
Defect
Component
Requirement
Component
Project
Component
Test
Component
Build
Component
Source
Control
Component
Change
Control
Component
Problem
Component
Incident
Component
Event
Component
Diagnostics &
Remediation
Component
Usage
Component
Chargeback/
Showback
Component
Strategy to
Portfolio
Requirement to Deploy Request to Fulfill Detect to Correct
Offer Mgmt.
Component
Offer Consumption Component
Conceptual
Service
Blueprint
Concep-
tual
Service
Logical
Service
Blueprint
Service
Release
Desired
Service
Model
Service
Monitoring
Component
Catalog
Composition
Component
Enterprise
Architecture
Component
Service
Design
Component
Fulfillment
Execution
Component
Request
Rationalization
Component
Configuration
Management
Component
Release
Composition
Component
Service Level
Component
Actual
Service
CIs
Build
Package
Component
Service
Release
Blueprint
IT4IT Reference Architecture L1 V.2.0
People Can Find Themselves Here

Why Does This Matter?
•For change to get traction, all
stakeholders need to be
engaged and aligned –
Infrastructure, Development,
Audit, Finance, HR, and
Executives
Many previous attempts to
work with a common view of
“What is IT?” have fallen down
on semantic dissonance
With at worst a little light
translation, everyone who
matters seems to understand
Level 1. Now we can talk
about change from a common
starting point.

IT4IT isn’t proprietary

Some of the Options
Positives Negatives
COBIT
• Process oriented
• Complete
• Detailed
• Well-defined
• Skewed to the auditor’s perspective
• Very complex
• Steep learning curve
• Proprietary
ITIL
• Well-known
• Many practitioners
• Maps to many tools
• Lots of third-party information and resources
• Skewed to the infrastructure & operations
perspective
• Primarily narrative
• Waterfall-oriented
• Proprietary
IT4IT
• Function-oriented
• Covers the main end-to-end IT Value Chain
• Couched in familiar language (mostly)
• Methodology-neutral
• Defined information model
• Non-proprietary
• Immature
• Not well known
• Strategy and support functions mostly out
of scope

• Pressure from technology vendors
• Pressure from services vendors
• Unbalanced perspective from
professional bodies
Proprietary best practice IT models, valuable as they may
be, are skewed to commercial or professional agendas,
resulting in uneven depth and coverage.
At best they are designed for a narrower audience than the
CIO, and can often gloss over anything not deeply
interesting to their owners and / or target group.
As these models have matured, feedback loops have
sometimes built up between modeling committees and
practitioners that result in increasingly parochial content in
each model. There should be less risk of this problem in a
broader forum.

IT4IT is based on value chains

The IT4IT™ Value Chain Model
• IT4IT applies Porter’s thinking to the Business of IT. The IT4IT Value
Chain describes the IT Service Lifecycle, which is captured in four IT
Value Streams.
15
IT4IT fully describe
the four Value
Streams.
Supporting
Activities are
described only to
the extent they
directly interact with
the IT Value Chain

• Value chains are a tried and true model for business value creation.
• Value chains are familiar to every non-IT executive in a large
enterprise.
• It remains easy (if done correctly) for EAs to map these directly back
to enterprise strategy.
• If done correctly, we can know – and show – what we’re talking
about when we claim our IT investments have something to do with
the actual purpose of the enterprise (which is never making back-
office IT operations more elegant).

IT4IT is really about
service delivery

What Do We Mean By Service Delivery?
• The focus of the enterprise IT conversation shifts from point-
solution projects to business services that have an IT component.
• The model for IT delivery, management and charging is about
outcomes rather than activities.
• Services are much more than infrastructure examples like “provision
a server.” If that’s all we needed, we wouldn’t need service catalogs
or IT4IT – or architecture, for that matter.
• Everything consumed by IT customers can be seen as a service.
That’s the starting point. .

The IT4IT™ Service Model
• The Service Model – the
core IT4IT concept, starts
as an idea.
• It eventually becomes an
IT Service that can be
deployed, managed,
consumed and measured
throughout its life cycle
19
Conceptual
Service
Model
Logical
Service Model
Service
Catalo
g Entry
Realized
Service Model
Becomes…
Ordered
Published
in…
Released/Deploye
d!
• In a fully mature IT4IT environment, the Logical Service Model resides in a robust
Service Catalog, which contains all the information needed to order and deploy
manageable production instances (Realized Service Model) of the service.

The Service Model Backbone is at the
core of IT4IT.
In IT4IT the organization is built
around nurturing the Service at every
stage of its metamorphoses, and
keeping traceability throughout the
life cycle.
Service
Portfolio
Component
Conceptual
Service
Blueprint
Concep-
tual Service
Logical
Service
Blueprint
Service
Release
Desired
Service
Model
Service
Design
Component
Fulfillment
Execution
Component
Configuration
Management
Component
Release
Composition
Component
Actual
Service CIs
Service
Release
Blueprint

• Service Model-based IT operations have the core framework
needed to support end to end automation, traceability, metering
and pricing.
• The Value Chain as the mechanism for managing the Service Model
Portfolio, is a powerful conceptual structure that can define
orchestrated outcomes across a range of multisourced developers,
support staff and technology vendors.
• As a standard way of defining and managing Service Models
emerges, it will be possible to build a link connecting today’s siloed
tools for functions such as EA, PPM, APM, Deployment, Service
Delivery, Financial Management, ITSM and ITOM.

Service
Portfolio
Portfolio
Demand
Proposal
Policy
Defect
Requirement
Project
Test
BuildSource
Control
Release
Composition
Change
Control
Problem Incident
Event
Diagnostics &
Remediation
Usage
Chargeback/
Showback
Offer
Management
Offer Consumption
Service
Archi-
tecture
Policy
Require-
ment
Scope
Agree-
ment
IT
Initiative
Portfolio
Backlog
Item
Source
Conceptual
Service
Blueprint
Conceptual
Service
Logical
Service
Blueprint
Test
Case
Defect
Offer
Service
Release
Build
Service
Catalog
Entry
Desired
Service
Model
Usage
Record
Fulfillment
Request
Sub-
scription
Chargeback
Contract
Request
Problem/
Known
Error
Incident
Event
Service
Monitor
Run
Book
RFC
Service
Monitoring
Catalog
Composition
Shopping
Cart
Enterprise
Architecture
Service
Design
Fulfillment
Execution
Request
Rationalization
Configuration
Management
Service Level
Service
Contract
Actual
Service
CIs
Service
Release
Blueprint
Build
Package
Build
Package
IT4IT requires a common
operational data model

Key Data Object Example
Key Attributes
The Portfolio Backlog Item data object shall have the
following key data attributes:
DemandID: Unique identifier of the Portfolio Backlog
Item (demand request).
DemandDescription: Description/details of the
Portfolio Backlog Item (demand request).
Source: Where did the demand originate from (e.g.,
person/department)?
ITServiceID: Is demand related to a live service (e.g.,
enhancement requests)?
DemandFulfillmentStatus: Status information.
DecisionMaker: Information on who took the
decisions related to the demand.
Key Data Object Relationships
The Portfolio Backlog Item data object shall maintain the
following relationships:
Portfolio Backlog Item to Conceptual Service (n:1):
One Conceptual Service may be related to one or
more Portfolio Backlog Items.
Portfolio Backlog Item to Requirement (1:n): A
Portfolio Backlog Item is mapped to one or more
Requirements which will need to be delivered to
successfully fulfill the demand.
Portfolio Backlog Item to Scope Agreement (n:1):
One or more Portfolio Backlog Items may be included
in a Scope Agreement.
Portfolio Backlog Item (data object): Portfolio Backlog Items represent the repository of all incoming
demands including but not limited to new requests, enhancement requests, and defect fix requests.
Source: The Open Group IT4IT™ Reference Architecture, Version 2.0 55 © The Open Group

•Traceability from the production environment to business users
and their interests
A consistent horizontal semantics is critical to control of the end-
to-end Value Chain.
Enables the mechanics of effective, modern service delivery -- like
automated closed-loop defect management, DevOps, effective
metering and usage monitoring, real complexity management,
We can replace artistry, manual hand-offs and tribal knowledge
with consistent automated processes.

IT4IT demands standardized
APIs across diverse toolsets

Standards and APIs
• A common data model connecting a standard set of processes
across the IT landscape also means that a standard set of APIs must
emerge.
• This will impact tool vendors as well as in-house solutions and
integrations.
• As IT4IT API standards emerge, tool vendor certification will come
into the frame.

• Standards make operational life easier and cheaper for almost
everyone.
• Tool vendors will have an incentive and road map for shifting R&D
resource to non-commodity development where they can really be
different.
• The end-to-end tool Service Model management tool that IT4IT
implies is missing today – standards will make this possible,

IT4IT can be the lens for envisioning
strategic transformation

How This Works in the Real World
•Being
comprehensible to
almost everyone
engaged in IT
management
… makes it more likely that the outcome of heat
mapping exercises would make sense to people who
weren’t in the workshop.
Being derived in
the first instance
from a value-chain
way of looking at
business problems
… increases the probability that proposed IT
transformation investments will align with something
actually important to the shareholders.
Being non-
proprietary … reduces the chance that heat maps will be skewed
toward outcomes more favorable to salesmen than
to the enterprise.

•Every CIO (and every Chief
Architect) is expected to answer:
How do you provide value to the
enterprise? And how are you
dealing with the future?
CIOs lying awake are
wondering: How do I
transform the IT organization
soon enough, and in the right
way, and without breaking too
many things along the way?
It’s not good enough (and
sometimes fatal) to explain that
value delivery is indirect and so
too hard to prove.
A better response is to start
with an agreed model of value
traceability at a high level.
IT4IT speaks about business
value in a language the
organization can consume.

Learnings
• Starting as a skeptical practitioner comfortable with much more
formal models, I came to understand the power of IT4IT as a
communication tool that makes it much easier to explain
architecture and strategy work to a wide range of stakeholders.
• It was possible to retain consumable clarity while at the same time
deepening and broadening the incomplete reference architecture
into an enterprise-specific solution.
• In the hands of a skilled practitioner, IT4IT is a valuable addition to
any EA and IT transformation tool kit.

Remember, There Are No Silver Bullets
• A reference architecture is not the same as a cookbook: It is by
definition incomplete. Additional work needed for adapting IT4IT to
real-word scenarios may include:
•Adding more
detail to
currently
incomplete
support
components of
IT4IT (still on the
future agenda
for the IT4IT
Forum).
Adding some
strategic leadership
and support
components that
are outside the
current IT4IT
scope.
Mapping IT4IT to
the other formal
models used in
specialist areas
such as ITSM,
Audit, Process
Engineering and
Application
Development.
A bit of
renaming and
rearranging
to align with
the target
culture.

Thank You
Dan Warfield
dan.warfield@ccandcsolutions.com

ABOUT DAN
• Dan is an experienced entrepreneur, strategist, innovator and enterprise
architect. Recent experience includes creating the IT4IT-based Level Four
reference architecture for a Fortune 50 company, with deep cross-linking to
COBIT, ITIL and other best-practice models.
• In more than 30 years of Enterprise IT leadership experience, he has been a
solution executive, innovation leader and product manager for five global IT
software / services companies including IBM and CSC, and worked as an
independent marketing and strategy adviser to clients in the UK and US.
• In Fortune 100 corporate IT Dan held leadership roles in IT strategic
planning, corporate IT innovation, enterprise IT governance, and delivery of
large-scale solutions. As an entrepreneur, Dan owned two UK-based
companies providing business advisory and staffing services over a 15-year
period.
• He currently works as an adviser on IT strategy, enterprise architecture and
B2B marketing, and is the owner of Ajar Publishing, a micro-publishing
company focused on ensuring that the Systems Science publications of Dr.
John N. Warfield are available everywhere.

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