Chapter Summary

The project chapters are laid out using a project lifecycle with 6 stages. Each chapter in the book consists of three parts which include a description of the activities in the project life-cycle, the historical case study, and  best practices.

Chapters 1 and 2 The first two chapters focus on defining the problem domain, whether it is Britain's need to understand its enemy's strengths and weaknesses in order to mount a successful defense, or the needs of each modern business to understand the competitive landscape. The author sets up each challenge and begins drawing parallels right away, raising interesting questions to be answered later. In the second chapter, the concept of a solution is explained as a critical bit of infrastructure as important in the 1940s as it is today. The business lessons drawn are extremely important, as today's business need to unify disparate organizational units and bring together IT and business managers. Chapters 3 and 4 The next two chapters focus on developing and refining a solution architecture. Chapter 3 introduces some of the technical design aspects of a solution architecture, derived from business requirements and driving a macro-level design. A five-step process is enumerated that takes these requirements and helps the organization begin to build an overall architecture to the point of embarking on pilot projects. Business processes are modeled as actions within the organization and between suppliers and customers. In drawing from historical parallels, Kozak-Holland describes the organizational challenges faced by Churchill. The British prime minister correctly decided, among few options, that only through air superiority could Britain withstand the German assault. Therefore, many diverse organizations had to adopt their business processes to interconnect in order to meet this objective. Chapter 4 in particular focuses on further refining this design work through further iterations and through collaboration among all interested parties. This "micro design" includes important work for user interfaces, content management models, federations, and workflows. The primary point of consensus is centered on the technical prototype discussed in the previous chapter. This stage is extremely important; the true nature of the complexity of solutions may be discovered, warranting changes in design or in expected outcomes. The case study, discusses in much more detail the technical solutions put forth by the British in order to build and operate an air defense system. Broken down into useful best practices, the case study serves as an interesting and illuminating example of how to develop an adaptive enterprise around an emerging technology infrastructure for your company. Chapters 5 and 6 Continuing with its business recommendations, the next two chapters discuss important best practices for project management, release management, testing, and deployment. A truly fascinating amount of historical detail is put forth, describing how simulations and testing were used to develop the real-time processes that would be used during wartime. A memorable example is the use of attack simulations to test radar and reporting simulations, with unsuspecting operators unaware that these raids were by "friendlies" to test the overall system. In today's environment, after the initial solution deployment, a company must manage how increasing numbers of business units leverage the solution. The use of independent acceptance teams and contract-based guarantees is described. Chapter 7 This chapter examines a frequently overlooked phase within the development and deployment of integration architectures: how do you measure project success, describe business impact, and formulate a return on investment (ROI)? The book distinguishes itself further in this area, making concrete recommendations for measuring the success of integration projects by accounting for a combination of hard and soft benefits. Businesses must focus on project reviews, outcome statements, customer feedback, and impact assessments in order to answer the question: Was the integration project considered a technical and business success? Here in the book the historical perspective becomes an important illustration of the derivation of ROI, as Churchill must analyze the steps that led to an air victory over the Germans in October 1940. These lessons would prove critical for future operations at Normandy and beyond. History records that Britain's Royal Air Force was only 24 hours from total defeat in the Battle of Britain, but through superior intelligence and decision-making, the British were able to inflict losses at a 3:1 ratio until the Germans finally retreated. The next year, all plans by the Germans for an invasion of the British Isles were put on hold for good - a far cry from the conventional wisdom a year earlier at the near-disaster at Dunkirk. Chapter 8 The last chapter wraps up the book with a review of the four major challenges (and also potential benefits) of a solution architecture: sensing and responding to business events through informed decision making, achieving organizational buy-in to company-wide integration projects and technology recommendations, ensuring that business problems are being addressed to the satisfaction of the user community, and encouraging the centralization of an entire company's business practices around a federated solution framework. Through the best practices described in the book, the book has led the reader through the entire management life cycle for the discrete stages of design, development, and deployment of solution integration frameworks.

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This page last updated on June11, 2006.

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