Cloud Computing - Promise and Reality

Sean Rhody at Cap Gemini has posited that "(cloud computing) provides great flexibility, but it also accentuates a new perspective – we don’t have to stick to services that no longer meet our needs, because our sunk cost is negligible."

I'm not convinced that clouds really make sunk cost go away - perhaps for stateless services like payment providers - but for anything non-trivial - what about the data?

If you're outsourcing your CRM, email, workflow, whatever, your data is locked up in the cloud. Now you've decided you want to switch providers - they raised their prices by 50%, aren't giving you the service you need, or can't scale to meet future growth - you need that data to come with you.

You're still facing the pain and risk attached to any significant migration program. Of course, this is not something to be taken lightly, and not something you would choose to do on a regular basis.

There's also going to be a non-trivial sunk cost associated with taking on any new provider - requirements mapping, system configuration and test, user training, integration with other enterprise systems, be they cloudy or otherwise.

These are the hard problems - not the issue of having to buy new boxes, arrange support and monitoring, and all the other background provisioning + support activity.

Cloud computing doesn't make any of the usual hard problems go away.

Maybe there's a sweet spot for simple, non-data intensive, non-integrated systems - but if that's the case, then the 'promise' of cloud computing would appear to be greatly over-hyped.

The Folder

As Adrian Campbell points out, communication is 40% of the job in enterprise architecture. I suspect that's low ball compared to anyone in management, for example, but certainly up there for someone who (traditionally) has a technical background.

One of the most effective ways to communicate architecture, or any other complex subject, is through pictures. In my experience, you often need to 'do' this communication when you're not in front of a computer.. in project meetings, management briefings, audit reviews etc.

Ok, sure you might have a laptop with you, but I really dislike having a computer on when I'm trying to talk to someone; it is:

• Distracting to you (oh look, a new email..)
  
• A physical barrier between you and those you're talking to
• Harder to maintain eye contact with your 'audience'
• Harder to 'share' with those around you - I would say impractical when you've more than 2 other people.

Digital projectors aren't the answer - still distracting and still a foil for looking at people (and for them looking at you) as you talk to them.

So, my simple answer is - good old fashioned A4 (my rule of thumb - if the diagram can't be read on A4, you've overcooked it)

However I can't count the number of times I've been stuck somewhere without that particular diagram or document. You end up going back to your desk and emailing it on, but by then the moment is lost and who's really going to bother to open up and review yet another email?!

So these days, I carry a ring binder with plastic inserts that always contains paper material that may come in handy:

• High level time-lines for whatever big programmes of work are going on in the company
• A copy of the IT strategy 'slide deck' (subject of another post)
• Simplified current state, transition and future state architecture pictures
• Solution architecture overviews for projects on the go
• Slide decks for strategies you are working on or recently delivered
• Architectural principles
  
• Generic methodology or framework content to act as 'memory joggers'
• So on and so forth
  

Keep several copies of the really useful ones, ready to hand out. Just don't make a big ceremony out of the folder, or it can turn into a weapon of intimidation! Leave it off to the side, don't plonk it down and have it open whenever you're talking to someone.

So - how's that for an insight? Print stuff out, carry it around with you! Sounds silly, but I found it liberating to give up the technology and to revert to paper. I think too many people with a technology background are quick to devalue or forget the advantages of the non-electronic world.

Death by PowerPoint? Not really.

How I learned to stop worrying and love the PowerPoint

Something that's increasingly rare in my day-to-day work are the times I actually sit down to write a traditional document.

Rather, I find myself throwing together a deck of slides to get the information across. I know PowerPoint gets a bad wrap, but I find it a better alternative for a number of reasons:

• Communicating in such a condensed form actually forces you to focus and simplify your message. This is, to my mind, the biggest benefit;


• Your audience probably doesn't have time or patience to trawl through whatever document you spent days and days crafting to perfection. Even if it's a small document, there is just something psychologically off-putting about being given a whole page of text to read;


• Equally likely, they don't give a crap about the details. As when designing software, choosing an appropriate level of abstraction for your message is a key factor;


• Even if they do read it, they may well have missed a key point you're trying to get across as it was lost in the noise;


• Slides are much easier and more natural to 'talk to' in meetings - no more of this "now turn to page 26, section 5.3.5..";


• You don't waste time building tables of contents, headers, footers and other busywork associated with producing a standard corporate document;


• Many execs pretty much only ever read slide decks - anything looking like a document is delegated for review;


• SmartArt is awesome. Bullet points on crack, someone called it.

These slide decks don't get 'presented' in the traditional sense; they just take the place of traditional documents.

There are traps, however:

• Oversimplifying carries its own risks - mis-interpretation, trivialization of important subjects, lack of context;


• Replacing a 50 page document with a 50 slide deck. Absolute limit should be 12, most decks should be 3-5 slides, many can actually be a single slide!


• Likewise, treating a slide like a page of a document. Keep it to 3-5 single-sentence bullet points, if you're putting in a diagram, don't add bullet points;


• Using stupid animations etc - by using these slides as a printed document, it's impossible to fall into that trap

This is not to say there isn't a place for traditional documents - I just don't see them as effective tools for everyday communication.

I still produce documents, but typically the audience is going to be auditors, customers, vendors and other external parties where a certain level of formalism is more appropriate.