Conformance & Expection Problems

Conformance problems consist of situations where system performance (process, inputs or outputs) does not match user expectations. In this context I refer to ‘system’ loosely as being any set of systems or organizational processes working in unison. I think that IT is perhaps the most problematic arena for dealing with conformance related issues. The reason for this is due to the tendency for user or sponsor expectations to become radically divergent from system capability or development outputs.

The critical factors surrounding why IT suffers more in this respect than other industry sectors includes but is not limited to:

• The pace of technological change
• The increasing level of complexity in IT solutions
• The increasing number of variables (or supporting data)
• The trend towards geographical distribution of workforce
• The expectations for interoperability across radically different segments of IT

The example that comes to mind immediately is the set of conformance disappointments and expectations surrounding Services Oriented Architecture (SOA). There are many aspects of SOA viewed as a facilitating mechanism for enterprise integration that simply haven’t been worked out yet by anyone, yet leadership in many organizations seem to think that the solutions are mature and are surprised that their SOA initiatives aren’t producing the anticipated results. Some of this can be attributed to the typical technology ‘Hype Cycle.’ However, more it has to do with the ability to exploit new capabilities in existing IT environments.

The way I address these situations is the same or at least very similar to most other efforts I support in IT. I view it as a problem-solving exercise, and as such try to first diagnose what went wrong and work forward from there. What we’ve discovered in these types of investigations regarding SOA is that the definitions of interoperability built into the standards and vendors stacks don’t yet map to the interoperability expectations of most complex enterprises. The question is whether to build the remaining bridge between those expectations in any one enterprise or wait for industry to bridge that gap.

Copyright 2008, Semantech Inc.