Enterprisey-Ness Unbound
The Enterprisey theory of development is still very prevalent in the industry - witness Robert McIlree's take on development:
The underlying theme behind the anti-EA, and moreover, the "Web 2.0-Saves-Humanity-As-We-Know-It" crusade is this: you, the user, can have it better, cheaper, and faster if you [ fill-in-the-programming language-or-kewl-technology blank here]. Most of us who have been around the information technology business for a substantial length of time know that, eventually, this mode of thinking reinforces a number of serious and detrimental issues, particularly in the complex corporate and government environments where most of us ply our trade.
Here's the thing: Most applications just aren't that complicated. The propeller heads would like you to think they are - too many analysts want you to think they are - and too many vendors want you to think they are. As Chris Petrilli said today, an 80% solution delivered quickly is far more valuable than the Enterprisey solution that takes years and millions of dollars. The (supposedly) highly scalable, buzzword compliant solution doesn't help anyone while it's busy being late.
Reminds me of a situation related by a friend of mine awhile back. He was learning about various development projects that were ongoing at his new firm, which does consulting to a government agency. He was hearing about one project, that had set itself up to use a three tier architecture, Oracle as the DB, Enterprise Java Beans to connect to that, and a browser on the front end. He asked about the number of end users, and the answer - at the height of deployment - was "fewer than 20". He suggested that they just implement a simple Access front end to the data and be done with it. They branded him a heretic and sent him on his way.
I get the impression that McIlree would have been excited about the buzzword compliant enterprise architecture - even though it was going to take well over a year to build. Had they taken my friend's advice, they could have had a working 80% solution within a couple of weeks. But hey - it wasn't enterprisey enough, so down the garden path they went, led by people like McIlree.
There's another problem too - the large development job that takes N years to deliver is probably outdated by the time it does manage to get delivered. Those are the real wages of Enterprisey-ness - late solutions that cost tons of cash, and end up being outmoded to boot. Heck, this next bit from McIlree is more or less proud of that:
We work in environments where IT budgets are in the tens of millions, and in a number of cases, hundreds of millions of dollars. While there will always be some wasted money and failures financed by budgets in that range, part of our role is to insure that the systems designed and deployed with those monies provide value and cost control to the organization beyond the scope of any individual system or project. As JT notes, "Every architect and customer must understand the REAL business problem and functionality we are solving for." Not only is that true, but I would add that a message like this must be clearly communicated to executive management, both line and IT. If you do not have the complete support of your CIO, for starters, you're working with a minimum of one hand tied behind your back.
Translation: "You bozos have no understanding of the really important (expensive) job we're doing here. Leave us (and our large army of favored consultants) alone so that we can deliver a scalable enterprise (extremely costly and immediately obsolete) solution"
The real answer: you don't want any of that enterprise stuff on your fingers. Deliver the 80% solution now, so that the actual business of your company can move forward. What McIlree - and too many IT people, to be honest - forget is that they are just plumbers. Important, yes - no one likes clogged pipes. An actual center of profit? No. IT enables profit, but it doesn't actually create any of it.
Comments
To paraphrase Jerry McGuire...
[Rajesh Jayaprakash] April 14, 2006 2:45:54.921
You lost me at "with those monies"
:-)
[James] April 14, 2006 6:48:42.344
You are onto something with your phrase "favored consultants". You should expand on this thought? Curious though if your pain against EAs is that you work for some dinky no-name basement insulting firm that doesn't matter in the big picture...
Let them go their merry way
[ Troy Brumley] April 14, 2006 9:03:05.398
Comment by Troy Brumley
Shhh! Don't save the dinosaurs :)
Enterprisey for me conjurs up all the bad connotations of baroqueness with none of the positive artistic connotations.
I believe there is enough work around for us non-enterprisey developers to keep busy and make money. And, if we're right, the businesses who buy the non-enterprisey solutions should begin to see competative benefits giving them an advantage over the businesses doing the enterprisey thing.
The business world is very Darwinian, let natural selection do its thing.
Please stop blogging, you have another wife to beat and a dog to kick
[Bob McIlree] April 14, 2006 10:11:17.977
Feel free to give James or me a call after the crap you obviously develop leaks data to some identify theif or has various state attorney generals crawlingf through your systems before they hand what's left of your carcass back to the trial lawyers.
I do have to thank your content-free rants for one thign though, it drove a lot of traffic to my site. With luck, these folks probably have a few more brain cells then you do.
LOL
[ James Robertson] April 14, 2006 10:23:28.021
Comment by James Robertson
I've been deploying live applications on the web since 2002, and it hasn't happened to me yet. You don't need to use heavyweight methods in order to be secure.
Evidence
[Patrick Logan] April 14, 2006 11:09:29.659
One of my favorite recent examples of enterpriseyness is this book I came across...
It is called "Service-orient or be doomed" or somesuch. Heavens, as if there were no way to develop good, maintainable systems 20 years ago.
Wow
[feh] April 14, 2006 15:22:37.717
Looks like the enterprisey folks can't handle a little insight. Shouldn't be surprised though. Been there, done that, got the lousy t-shirt.
The 80% solutions.
[JohnC] April 14, 2006 15:26:29.047
Okay then.
Next time you go to the doctor your claim will be denied because it was in the 20% that failed to process due to the 80% solution. It's hard to imagine the complexities of certain things when you don't deal with them everyday.
That's why these catch phrases are so popular. They all sound so simple.. but reality is a pain in the %$%#$.
but not all problems need that level of solution
[ Troy Brumley] April 14, 2006 16:47:55.288
Comment by Troy Brumley
JohnC, I can't speak for Jim, but I imagine that he understands that some problems do require a "more complete, more complex" solution. The point is that not all problems do, and that we as IT professionals need to be honest with ourselves and our customers about which problems are which.
In my career I have seen too many overdeveloped systems with high buzzword and/or process compliance for no business reason.
Avionics and medical treatment/imaging software require that full 100% solution, which may or may not need to be buzzword compliant. Corporate web sites and many back office systems do not.
I know that and U know that but..
[JohnC] April 14, 2006 17:28:58.976
I imagine that he understands that some problems do require a "more complete, more complex" solution.
See that's the problem, most of the people railing against "Enterprisey" people don't really say that! They make these statements that sound like "Design Up Font" has no value in this world. That's the fun of technology some people want to "make a cool website that does XYZ". Others enjoy trying to figure out how to process 100K medical claims in an hour. It takes both skill sets to make the world compute!!
Re: Enterprisey-Ness Unbound
[ James Robertson] April 14, 2006 18:35:12.703
Comment by James Robertson
What little I hear about medical software indicates that it's chock full of enterprisey-ness.
Avionics and Medical Devices
[Patrick Logan] April 14, 2006 20:16:58.616
I should hope these are built as simply as possible, the opposite of enterprisey.
Real life claims
[Alan Shutko] April 14, 2006 20:23:06.511
I work for a pharmacy benefits company, and we actually adjudicate claims. Some don't adjudicate for one reason or another. That's life. No matter how robust you make a system, there will be things that don't go through. Because we recognize this, we have backup processes and people monitoring the situation. Wouldn't you rather have 80% of those claims processed NOW rather than none of them?
But we rarely make changes to the claims process. Most of the development I do is to help capture opportunities where yes, it's a lot better to deliver 80% now, even if that means that in certain cases, someone is sitting on a phone with a notepad and a pocket calculator. Because it means that 80% of the time, they don't have to do that. That 80% can mean the difference between the business being able to do something, and it being completely infeasible.