I was very pleased to hear recently that one of the VPEC-T design patterns that we originally developed for Criminal Justice has been put to further good use: A group in UK government have been reviewing the activities and information sharing needs of the various agencies involved in protecting "Children at Risk" (driven by the infamous 'Baby P.' case) - it seems the solution might be the "Events-as-proxies-for-content" pattern. This pattern emerged out of considering all 5 aspects of VPEC-T in the design. The result is a simple method of creating shared visibility of event histories and rules-based at-risk alerting without getting tangled-up in the inter-agency information (detailed case-note content) privacy policies and avoiding pan-agency value-clashes and trust-issues.

I did get some feedback from a VPEC-T practitioner, that the attendees at a VPEC-T training session had seen how it can be applied to Analysis (and probably Synthesis NG?) but struggled to see how VPEC-T helps with design. I hope this helps demonstrate how it is directly applicable to design. I do find that 90% of the VPEC-T-led design work I've done results in an essentially 'Event Centric' pattern - then that may just be me! We mention the Events-as-proxies-for-content design pattern briefly in 'Lost In Translation: A handbook for Information Systems in the 21st Century" - Chapter 3.

Nigel Green
5Di Ltd.
Mobile: +44 (0)7818 53 22 43
Web: www.5dinnovation.com
Sent from my iPad

Here are the slides I presented at last Monday's ScIO session:

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Nigel Green
5Di Limited
mail: nigel.green@5dinnovation.com
mob: +44 (0)7818 53 22 43
web: www.5dinnovation.com
twitter: 5Di

 

 

• VPEC-T'ing the 5Di website

• Values

• Added 'First Engagement' wording up-front to demonstrate we align Values of the CIO and Chief Architect
• More focus on What we do than How we do it!
• Greater consideration for Management Theory X-thinkers
• Added Outcome examples to convey Value delivered
• Made tablet friendly - many use an iPad or similar as their default web access device

Policies

• Added Creative Commons License
• Convey a greater sense of our Policy-drafting skills
• Added 'Policy' related wording in the FAQ - soft policy - 'light constraint'

Events

• Added wording to convey a sense of pace and iterative working style (Transformative Events)
• Added taotwit Twitter feed to add to sense of unfolding discussions
• Added wording around our expertise in Event Processing with a link to an example of our design patterns in action

Content

• Made less busy
• Improved graphics to help convey our design thinking and focus on simplified communication
• Added location map
• Made slightly more 'active'
• Give a sense of 'pace' by addition of a slide show on the Homepage

Trust

• Confidence

• Added example outcomes up-front
• Added explicit link to VPEC-T Wikipedia entry
• Addressing issues that CIOs are Concerned about - more pace and pragmatics in the messaging
• Updated client and partner graphics

Relationships

• Added Associates & Advisors
• Added taotwit Twitter feed for a more personal engagement
• Added photos - cartoon style fun but could give the impression of 'hiding'

Nigel Green

5Di Ltd.

Mobile: +44 (0)7818  53 22 43

Web: www.5dinnovation.com

Sent from my iPad

... is it less important, or even unhelpful? Some say the EAs goal is to 'simplifiy' the IT solutions to the business requirements, but there's a catch with that mantra - some solutions may add 'useful complexity'. There are situations, for example, where adding a 'Complex Event Processing' system will definitely create more complexity in the IT estate *but* the levels of business visibility that make the investment in added complexity worth it. Likewise, the IT used in the FMS of an aircraft is, by any definition, complicated, and attempts to simplify will only go so far - it is the domain of an Expert. Moreover, the 'simplify' mantra doesn't seem to fit with the messy and chaotic world of the Web and unbounded Social Networks - a major area of focus for many businesses today. Its a brave EA who trys to simplify the Web!

Don't we need to be more precise about the solution 'System type' before we can say that 'simplicity', in and of itself, is a crtical goal? However, I do agree, that if most of your businesses IT falls in the bottom left quad, the EA should find rich-pickings for lots of unwanted and uneeded complexity.

Nigel Green
5Di Ltd.
Mobile: +44 (0)7818 53 22 43
Web: www.5dinnovation.com
Sent from my iPad

Nigel Green
5Di Ltd.
Mobile: +44 (0)7818 53 22 43
Web: www.5dinnovation.com
Sent from my iPad

Export from Stash for iPad

Nigel Green
5Di Ltd.
Mobile: +44 (0)7818 53 22 43
Web: www.5dinnovation.com
Sent from my iPad

Sent from my iPhone

The top half focuses on flexibility and the bottom robustness. The four corners are from the Cynefin system typology. The each box is labeled by the essential characteristic of a 'System' - the idea is you can map chunks of business capability/function/service or IT application/package/component or Biz/IT blend to each quad. 

I've been noodling around with this, thinking about the different VPEC-T profiles against each quadrant and have come up with some interesting degrees of emphasis on each V,P,E and C dimension depending on its position on the grid. Interestingly Trust (-T) seems equally important in each quad but has a different modifier: 

 

• Connector Systems: Trust is explored (dating agency)
• Adapter Systems: Trust is developed (relationship builder)
• Organiser Systems: Trust is expected (trustworthy and reliable)
• Expert Systems: Trust is mandated (trusted advisor)

I've started playing around with mapping different IT application/platform types to the model. It seems most businesses BAU apps today fall into Organiser and Expert, with a smattering of Connecter ( driven by Social Media) - it's the Adaptor space that appears most vacant - systems that are design from the beginning with change in mind. Could we say the same of Organizational Models and Business Processes models - I think so!

Thanks to Dave Snowden for Cynefin inspiration. 

Nigel Green
5Di Ltd.
Mobile: +44 (0)7818 53 22 43
Web: www.5dinnovation.com
Sent from my iPad

 

I recently developed and presented this table to a group of EAs and IT execs. It has generated a fair bit of useful discussion so far, so I thought I'd share it more widely . Builds and observations most welcome.