It is time for a Radical Transformation of IT. IT projects must be smaller, cheaper, and better aligned with the needs of the business. Simplicity must be a key design feature of every IT project. Projects must be delivered in months, not years. And in this new vision of a transformed IT, it is not IT's responsibility to tell the business what it can do, it is the business's responsibility to tell IT what it must do. Enterprise Architecture can be at the forefront of this vision, but only if it is revamped so that its purpose is no longer delivering useless paperwork, but facilitating high value IT projects. This transformation starts with a Snowman.

1. The Snowman Architecture
Roger Sessions
CTO, ObjectWatch, Inc.
roger@objectwatch.com
Twitter: @RSessions
Linked-In: Roger Sessions
Rodrigo Estrada
Architecture Director, Neoris
rodrigo.estrada@neoris.com
Twitter: @REstradaa
Linked-In: Rodrigo Estrada

2. roger@objectwatch.com
ObjectWatch/Roger Sessions
- The Father of IT Complexity Analytics
- Author of seven books and many highly influential
white papers, including
- IASA Fellow
The IT Complexity Crisis
The Mathematics of IT Simplification
Revamping Public Sector IT Procurement to
Favor Success and Small Business
- Keynote speaker at many conferences including two
Gartner Research Boards.
- Visiting Professor of IT Complexity Analytics at
University of the Andes.
Roger Sessions 2

3. Neoris
Roger Sessions 3

4. roger@objectwatch.com
Complexity: The Disease
Roger Sessions 4
• Blown Budgets
• Late Deliveries
• Missed Expectations
• Frequent Disruptions
• High Maintenance Costs
• Unacceptable Fraud Loss
• Inflexible Systems
• Inefficient Resource Usage

5. roger@objectwatch.com
SIP: The Cure
Roger Sessions 5
S imple
I terative
P artitions
• Grounded in the Mathematics of Complexity
• A radical way of thinking about IT Architecture
• A redefinition of Enterprise Architecture
• Granted broad patent protection

6. roger@objectwatch.com
The Four Faces of SIP
Roger Sessions 6
• A guiding principal that says complexity is the single
largest problem faced by IT.
• A formula for measuring the complexity of an IT
architecture : The Complexity Metric.
• A methodology for finding the simplest possible
architectural structure for a given problem:
Synergistic Partitioning.
• A proscriptive approach to IT architecture: the
Snowman Architecture.

7. Roger Sessions 7
The Philosophy

8. roger@objectwatch.com
The State of Large IT
- (Standish) 2009 Chaos report published by the Standish Group
- GAO Report 08-105IT.
- The IT Complexity Crisis by Roger Sessions
“An estimated 85% of government IT projects are late, over budget or both.”
- The Pew Center on the States, “Focus on Performance”, 2010
“Projects over $10M have a statistically zero chance of being
delivered on time, on budget, and with required functionality.”
“OMB and federal agencies have identified approximately 413 IT projects--
totaling at least $25.2 billion in expenditures for fiscal year 2008--as being
poorly planned, poorly performing, or both.”
“The world economy is losing over $500 Billion per month to IT failure.”
Roger Sessions 8

9. roger@objectwatch.com
Two Studies
Roger Sessions 9
Chance
of
Success 50
25
75
Size Standish (2009)$1.9M 10M+<$750Klabor cost
(USD)
(Standish) 2009 Chaos report published by the Standish Group
effort
(person months)
(Sauer) The Impact of Size and Volatility on IT Project Performance by Chris Sauer,
Andrew Gemino, and Blaize Horner Reich, Comms of the ACM Nov 07
Sauer
<= 24PM
($360K)
750PM
($11M)
1700PM
($25M)
2400+PM
($36M)

10. roger@objectwatch.com
Relationship Between Project Size and
Complexity
Roger Sessions 10
Complexity
of
Project
Size of Project

11. Roger Sessions 11
The Formula

12. roger@objectwatch.com
The Complexity Metric
Roger Sessions 12
We can measure the complexity of an existing system.
We can measure the complexity of a proposed
architecture.
We can compare the complexity of different solutions.

13. Roger Sessions 13
The Methodology

14. roger@objectwatch.com
SIP High Level
Project
Identification
DecompositionPreparation
Capability
Assignment
Sub-project
Spawning
Capability
Completion
Requirements
Message
Harness
Messaging
Determination
Dependency
Determination
Data
Architecture
Technical
Architecture
Business
Architecture
IntegrationImple-
mentation
Roger Sessions 14
SIP Preplanning Phase

15. Roger Sessions 15
The Prescriptive
Architecture

16. roger@objectwatch.com
A New Approach
Business Architecture
Technical Architecture
Service Architecture
Data Architecture
Vertically Aligned, Synergistically Partitioned Architecture
Roger Sessions 16
Smaller Systems Fewer Dependencies

17. roger@objectwatch.com
The Snowman Architecture
Business Architecture
Technical Architecture
Service Architecture
Data Architecture
Roger Sessions

18. roger@objectwatch.com
Putting Snowmen Together
Roger Sessions 18

19. roger@objectwatch.com
Getting the Head Right
Understand mathematics of equivalence relationships.
Understand functional dependencies.
Understand how the business contours project to lower layers.
Understand business capabilities.
Understand methodologies for early identification of synergies.
Understand tools to track synergistic relationships/dependencies.
Understand relationship between complexity and synergy.
SIP: Simple Iterative Partitions
Roger Sessions 19

20. roger@objectwatch.com
A Different Perspective on Enterprise
Architecture

21. B1 B2
P2
P3
P1
D2 D3D1
B3 B4
P5
P9
P4
D5D4
B7 B8
P7
P8
P6
D7 D8D6
B5 B6 B9
P10
D9 D10
S1 S2 S3
Snowman Business Functions Processes DataSets
Outgoing
Dependencies
Incoming
Dependencies
S1 B1 B2 P1 P2 P3 D1 D2 D3 S2
S2 B3 B4 B5 B6 P4 P5 D4 D5 S1 S3
S3 B7 B8 B9 P6 P7 P8 P9 P10 D6 D7 D8 D9 D10 S2

22. roger@objectwatch.com Roger Sessions 22
Okay, so what does this buy me?

23. Context
• Customer: largest private bank in Venezuela
• Lots of regulations
• Small margins
• The bank’s President asked us to
– Validate their technology evolution plan
– Establish complexity metrics
23

24. Current Problems
• Fraud and security issues
• Frequent outages that last too long
• Expensive to maintain
• Holding back their business
24

25. roger@objectwatch.com
Complexity
Roger Sessions 25
Complexity
of
Project
Size of Project
Zone of Death

26. roger@objectwatch.com
Business/IT Alignment
Business
IT
Enterprise
Architecture
Poor Alignment Excellent Alignment
Roger Sessions 26

27. roger@objectwatch.com
ROI
Example: $20M Project
Traditional Approach Snowman Approach
Net: $2M investment yields $69M return
Budgeted 20 M$
Average Overrun 228 %
Expected Overrun 45.6 M$
Lost Opp Costs 45.6 M$
Total Cost 91.2 M$
Budget 20 M$
Snowman Costs 2 M$
Average Overrun 0 %
Expected Overrun 0 M$
Lost Opp Costs 0 M$
Total Costs 22 M$
Savings 69.2 M$
Roger Sessions 27

28. roger@objectwatch.com
Auditing/Compliance
Very difficult to determine who
changed data and why.
Roger Sessions 28
Easy to determine who changed data
and why.

29. roger@objectwatch.com
Security
Roger Sessions 29
Hard to Configure Easy to Configure

30. roger@objectwatch.com
Flexibility
Hard to Change Easy to Change
Roger Sessions 30

31. roger@objectwatch.com
Time to Failure
Frequent Catastrophic Failures Infrequent Local Failures
Roger Sessions 31

32. roger@objectwatch.com
Time To Recovery
Primary
Snowman
Backup
Snowman
Slow Recovery Fast Recovery
Roger Sessions 32

33. roger@objectwatch.com
Cloud Effectiveness
$
$$
$
$$
$
$
$
Expensive Cheap
Roger Sessions 33

34. roger@objectwatch.com
Impact on Local Economy
Benefits Large Foreign Consulting
Companies - Negative Impact on
Local Economy.
Roger Sessions 34
Benefits Small Local Consulting
Companies - Strong Positive Impact
on Local Economy.

35. Benefits of the Snowman Architecture
• Great ROI
• Lower Complexity
• Better Business/IT Alignment
• More Secure
• More Flexible
• Easing Spinning off business units
• More Reliable
• Better for the Cloud
• Easier to audit and comply
• Local Economy Impact
• And more…

36. roger@objectwatch.com
Summary
- Complexity is the biggest obstacle to effective IT.
- SIP address complexity three ways:
- This is a tremendous value proposition for Enterprise
Architecture with high ROI for business.
A metric for comparing complexity
A methodology for eliminating complexity
An architectural approach that embraces simplicity
- These ideas can radically transform IT.
Roger Sessions 36

37. roger@objectwatch.com
Suggested Readings
A Fundamental Metric for Predicting IT Success by Roger Sessions (White Paper) at
http://www.objectwatch.com/white_papers.htm#metric
The IT Complexity Crisis (White Paper) by Roger Sessions at
http://www.objectwatch.com/white_papers.htm#ITComplexity
Radical IT Transformation (blog) by Roger Sessions
at http://simplearchitectures.blogspot.com/2012/08/radical-it-transformation_14.html
Simple Architectures for Complex Enterprises (Book) by Roger Sessions.
The Mathematics of IT Simplification by Roger Sessions (White Paper) at
http://www.objectwatch.com/white_papers.htm#Math
The Equation Every Enterprise Architect Should Memorize (blog) by Roger Sessions at
http://simplearchitectures.blogspot.com/2012/03/equation-every-enterprise-architect.html
SIP: A Project Optimization Methodology (webshort) by Roger Sessions at
http://simplearchitectures.blogspot.com/2012/01/web-short-sip-methodology-for-project.html
The Relationship Between IT Project Size and IT Failure Rate (webshort) by Roger Sessions at
http://simplearchitectures.blogspot.com/2012/01/web-short-relationship-between-it.html
Roger Sessions 37

38. roger@objectwatch.com
Acknowledgements
The snowmen photos are all licensed under Creative Commons and
taken from Flickr. They photographers are, in order of appearance:
- chris.corwin
- The Year of Mud
- Jason Alley
- jcarwash31
Roger Sessions 38