[ieee 2013 international conference on technological advances in electrical, electronics and...

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An Agile Approach for Converting Enterise Architectures .. . 1 .. 2 . 3 Okke� Emin BALIEK ,Mcahit GDEBAHAR ,Sinan EKEREKLI . Information Technologies 1,2,3 Kuveyt Trk Participation Bank 1,2,3 Istanbul, Turkey 1,2,3 [email protected] 1 , [email protected] 2 , [email protected] 3 Abstract-Enterprise Architecture includes IT infrastructures, business processes and whole computer applications in an enterprise. Since such enterprise architecture is the backbone of corporates operating model and business processes, enterprise architecture conversions are very strategic projects. The general tendency for enterprise architecture conversion is big bang approach that is hard to be supported by executives as the results are very late for new architecture to prove. Because of complexity and trade-off between costs and risk, this paper suggests simple solution that starts the project with small core team. First task will be developing coexistence methodology between two systems in data level. By this solution the whole system is able to redesign smaller business projects step by step. It continues developing a prototype on simple business scenario that contains most common behavior of all enterprise architecture. The prototype's aim is to prove new design. The key success factor of this model is agility while managing divided projects and good management skill of the core team while developing new core business processes and system architecture. Keywords-agile; enterprise architecture; corebanking conversion; project management; NTRODUCTION Responding to economic, suctural as well as the radical changes of business environment and technological shiſts, companies needs to change their business processes, computer soſtware applications and IT inasuctures periodically. If coorates need big transfoation on particular core items such as people, process, coorate culture or technology, they need a methodology to accomplish this conversion. The general tendency for enterise architecture conversion (EAC) is aditional "big-bang approach" which is a commonly used technique for corporates to meet this demand. The coorates start huge project for these conversions. This kind of projects need very crowded and complex project team and they consist of analyzing all systems and business processes, redesigning them, matching with new technologies, and lastly developing new inastructure with business requirements. At the end of the conversion, corporates have to shut down old system and start up new one at the same time. It also includes high scale of project implementation and adoption risks. That is why, big bang approach contains high rate of failure risk. As it is a very comprehensive ansition, there might be system ISBN: 978-1-4673-5613-8©2013 IEEE failure that affects business processes, service quality and sales. All these anticipated problems make executives reluctant to support these projects since the results are very late for new architecture to prove. Due to the problems and difficulties mentioned above, this study suggests "an agile approach" as a solution. Executives, board and other departments as customers will have high level of satisfaction because of the customer oriented nature of agile approach rather than system approach. Another benefit of agile approach is that implementation of new system architecture is quite easier, compared to other approaches. What is more, as agile approach starts with proof of concept projects and progresses with small divided projects thanks to the coexistence methodology, it includes zero rate of failure risk compared to other rival approaches. The balance between technology and business is the conibution of this approach to the system. The rest of paper organize as follows, section 2 gives detail infoation about the Enterprise Architecture Conversion Projects. Section 3 details our contribution and solution for executing huge Enterise Architecture conversion projects. Section 4 shows experimental results of our approach implementation in a bank which has 300 branches in Turkey. II.ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE CONVERSION PROJECTS A. The Concept OfEnterprise Architecture The IEEE Standard for Architectural Description of Soſtware-Intensive Systems (IEEE P1471/DS.3) defines architecture as: "the ndamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles goveing its design and evolution". Peter [1] defines enterise architecture (EA) as the organizing logic for business processes and IT inasucture reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the company's operating model. According to him, the operating model is a design which aims at having an ideal state of business process integration and business process standardization to deliver goods and services to the customers. MIT, on the other hand, considers enterise architecture as a 380

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Page 1: [IEEE 2013 International Conference on Technological Advances in Electrical, Electronics and Computer Engineering (TAEECE) - Konya, Turkey (2013.05.9-2013.05.11)] 2013 The International

An Agile Approach for Converting Enterprise

Architectures

.. . 1 .. 2 . 3 Okke� Emin BAL<;I<;EK ,Mticahit GUNDEBAHAR ,Sinan <;EKEREKLI .

Information Technologies 1,2,3

Kuveyt Tilrk Participation Bank 1,2,3

Istanbul, Turkey 1,2,3

[email protected] 1, [email protected] 2

, [email protected] 3

Abstract-Enterprise Architecture includes IT

infrastructures, business processes and whole computer

applications in an enterprise. Since such enterprise architecture

is the backbone of corporates operating model and business

processes, enterprise architecture conversions are very strategic

projects. The general tendency for enterprise architecture

conversion is big bang approach that is hard to be supported by

executives as the results are very late for new architecture to

prove. Because of complexity and trade-off between costs and

risk, this paper suggests simple solution that starts the project

with small core team. First task will be developing coexistence

methodology between two systems in data level. By this solution

the whole system is able to redesign smaller business projects step

by step. It continues developing a prototype on simple business

scenario that contains most common behavior of all enterprise

architecture. The prototype's aim is to prove new design. The key

success factor of this model is agility while managing divided

projects and good management skill of the core team while

developing new core business processes and system architecture.

Keywords-agile; enterprise architecture; corebanking conversion; project management;

LINTRODUCTION

Responding to economic, structural as well as the radical changes of business environment and technological shifts, companies needs to change their business processes, computer software applications and IT infrastructures periodically. If corporates need big transformation on particular core items such as people, process, corporate culture or technology, they need a methodology to accomplish this conversion.

The general tendency for enterprise architecture conversion (EAC) is traditional "big-bang approach" which is a commonly used technique for corporates to meet this demand. The corporates start huge project for these conversions. This kind of projects need very crowded and complex project team and they consist of analyzing all systems and business processes, redesigning them, matching with new technologies, and lastly developing new infrastructure with business requirements. At the end of the conversion, corporates have to shut down old system and start up new one at the same time. It also includes high scale of project implementation and adoption risks. That is why, big bang approach contains high rate of failure risk. As it is a very comprehensive transition, there might be system

ISBN: 978-1-4673-5613-8©2013 IEEE

failure that affects business processes, service quality and sales. All these anticipated problems make executives reluctant to support these projects since the results are very late for new architecture to prove.

Due to the problems and difficulties mentioned above, this study suggests "an agile approach" as a solution. Executives, board and other departments as customers will have high level of satisfaction because of the customer oriented nature of agile approach rather than system approach. Another benefit of agile approach is that implementation of new system architecture is quite easier, compared to other approaches. What is more, as agile approach starts with proof of concept projects and progresses with small divided projects thanks to the coexistence methodology, it includes zero rate of failure risk compared to other rival approaches. The balance between technology and business is the contribution of this approach to the system.

The rest of paper organize as follows, section 2 gives detail information about the Enterprise Architecture Conversion Projects. Section 3 details our contribution and solution for executing huge Enterprise Architecture conversion projects. Section 4 shows experimental results of our approach implementation in a bank which has 300 branches in Turkey.

II.ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE CONVERSION PROJECTS

A. The Concept Of Enterprise Architecture

The IEEE Standard for Architectural Description of Software-Intensive Systems (IEEE P1471/DS.3) defines architecture as: "the fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and evolution".

Peter [1] defines enterprise architecture (EA) as the organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the company's operating model. According to him, the operating model is a design which aims at having an ideal state of business process integration and business process standardization to deliver goods and services to the customers. MIT, on the other hand, considers enterprise architecture as a

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critical tool for unifying IT and business strategy and as a driving business value from IT.

In this paper, the operational definition of enterprise architecture is a concept which establishes the corporates integrated business processes and infonnation technologies to achieve a corporates' mission through optimal performance of its core business processes within an efficient infonnation technology (IT) environment.

B. EA Conversion Projects

Companies face the challenge of business processes and IT infrastructures change due to the driving forces of globalization, technology explosion, and rapid growth on organizational structure. As a result, they increasingly need to consider and pursue fundamental change - transformation - to maintain or gain competitive advantage [2]. Implementing and managing fundamental change for companies is particularly challenging due to a number of institutional factors, huge and complex business processes, bureaucratic procedures, hierarchical structures and established organizational culture [2]. Consequently, companies have to start enterprise architecture conversion (EAC) projects to implement these fundamental changes.

C. Conversion Methodologies

There are four main conversion methodologies that the companies resort to realize fundamental system changes [3] [4]. They are named as direct cut-over conversion (known as the big bang conversion), parallel conversion, phased conversion and pilot conversion. These conversion methodologies mainly differ from each other in the way that they realize the implementation. In the following sections, big bang conversion and parallel conversion are compared. The first one is the most widely used method by companies while converting EA and the second one constitutes the rationale behind suggested approach: agile approach.

1) Big Bang Conversion The general tendency for EAC is the traditional "big-bang

approach" which depends on big bang conversion method. It is a commonly used technique for corporates to satisfy EAC demands. According to Eason [5] big bang is the adoption type of the instant changeover as the entire organization stops using the old system and starts using the fully functioning new system at the same time. That is why, this method is also called "direct cut-over" conversion. Everybody starts to use the new system at the same date and the old system will not be used anymore from that moment on.

The conversion needs very crowded and complex project team and it consists of analyzing all system and business processes, redesigning them, matching with new technologies, and developing new infrastructure with business requirements [6].

The tendency for corporates to use big bang conversion as EAC stems from two main reasons. First reason is that one doesn't have to struggle with the difficulties and ill-structured of legacy system. To implement best design to new enterprise architecture independently without taking the old system into

ISBN: 978-1-4673-5613-8©2013 IEEE

consideration. Second reason is that there is no risk to the legacy system during EAC. The fact that training of the staff is only needed for the new method not also for the changeover period and the clearness of the changeover date for everyone favors big bang conversion for corporates.

Nevertheless, big bang conversion is treated as the riskiest method in the literature [4] [6]. First of all, 'fall back'-plans are hard to develop and become more impossible when the big bang has taken place. There can also a need for catch up period (initial dip phenomenon) to deal with particular problems and difficulties. Furthennore, it is also hard to be supported by executives as the results are very late for new architecture to prove. It includes high scale of project implementation and adaptation risks. It is hard to become familiar with new system for the end users soon. As it is a very comprehensive transition, there might be system failure that affects business processes, service quality and sales.

2) Parallel Conversion

To minimize conversion risks met during the transitions, parallel conversion is an alternative method for transferring between previous systems to target system in an organization. With coexistence methodology in data level, two systems can be run simultaneously for some period of time. When the requirements for the new system are met, the old system is shut down [4]. Although the process requires careful planning and control as well as a significant investment in labor hours, it is favored as it minimizes risk compared to the other conversion methodologies. Lee [6] also states his preference for parallel conversion as follows: "When the organization demands heavily on the old (legacy) system to be changed, the trade-off between extra involved costs for a less risky parallel approach, should be in favor of those extra costs".

IILAN AGILE APPROACH FOR ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE CONVERSIONS

This study suggests simple, agile, business oriented and risk-free solution for enterprise architecture conversions projects. CIO.com cites a Dynamic Markets survey of 800 IT managers, reporting that 62 percent of IT projects fail to meet their schedules and 25 percent of IT projects get canceled before completion [7].

The success of conversion project relies on the right balance of business and technology. According to Juan Porter [8] successful change management requires equal attention to these four components: process, technology, people and corporate culture.

Agile approach depends on parallel conversion method and it not only focus on technology and techniques but also people. So, the approach should be business oriented technology while developing our new system. Agile approach works iteratively and incrementally and targets at the whole picture while executing conversion projects. It is a customer-oriented approach as it makes EA attractive for them. It includes high level of human interaction instead of virtual communication during the project to generate significant performance. Every business process and system artifact design in agile approach must also be as simple as possible. Porter [8] states that

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conversion manager should ensure that all stakeholders - from the top executives to end users - are equipped to maximize companies' new solution. The motto of the approach is: stated in Ambler [9] as "Think at enterprise level but act locally".

We can deduce from the above discussion, in agile approach, EAC should start with small core team. First task will be developing coexistence methodology between two systems to gain parallel adoption. By this way two systems is able to live in coexistence and the whole system is able to redesign smaller business projects step by step. With developing coexistence system in the data level system can run parallel and projects can be agile now. Federated authorized department should be created for managing all conversion projects. This department should include two types of team. One of them is core team which has determined numbers of experts and another one is conversion team which can be increased or decreased according to scale of the ongoing projects. Finished steps affects the other small projects in good way.

Define Current EA

Define Target EA

Create Conversion Roadmap (Proj ect Plan)

Make EA Project Estimation

Start EA Con versi on Proj ect

Create Federated EA Department

Form Core EA Team

Define EA Prototype of Core Module

hnplement and Prove EA through Prototype

Produce and Run Core Module

Run Core Module with old System Simultaneously by Coexistence Methodology

Divide EA Project into Small Managable Agile Proj ects

Form Conversion Team For Each Proj ect

hnplement Each Small Project

Adopt Smal.l Projects with Paral.lel Conversion

Finish EA Conversion Project

Fig. 1. Chronological order for EAC projects

ISBN: 978-1-4673-5613-8©2013 IEEE

The schema above can be defined as the project management steps in a chronological order for accomplishing EAC projects which are huge, complicated and risky within the agile point of view. The flow like nature of the schema reveals the ease of agile approach in any conversion projects. As can be seen, the agile approach starts with proof of concept projects and progress with small divided projects thanks to the coexistence methodology. Compared to other rival approaches, there is a great emphasis on customer satisfaction due to its customer oriented nature which can be easily seen in the relevant steps. Overall, this system is also preferable due to its contribution to the balance between technology and business and the choice of paper title "An Agile Approach for Converting Enterprise Architectures" is based on this logic.

A. Roadmap for EAC

Roadmap is a plan of master project to summarize the company's current situation and it contains chosen technology, project management approach, and new architecture design and implementation steps. [t also contains new business and new technology architecture. It is executed as small IT projects to implement the whole scope.

A manager should choose one of the most common EAF as a tool to simplity conversion project. EAC needs current business and technology diagram and goal diagram to define roadmap. Managers should draw current EAF and target EAF before beginning conversion projects. EAF also provides organizations with the ability to understand and analyze weaknesses or inconsistencies to be identified and addressed. As a result, EAF help company to see big picture while defining roadmap for EAC.

While developing the roadmap, the manager should bring the core business and technology implementation forward and prioritize it in first and most important small project. It is a proof of concept project. This paper offers the following roadmap for EAC;

• Defining Current Architecture

• Determining EAC Goals

• Choosing Technology

• Implementing Coexistence Model

• Using Agile Approach

• New Architecture Design

o Business Processes Design

o System Architecture Design

o Prototyping and Proving

o User Interface Design

B. EACGoals

EAC goals may differ according to company's current EA situation. As a result, a company's current technology and business infrastructure should be well defmed. As enterprise level companies mostly have complex and high uncertain environment. That means, the rules and behaviors of the organization determines the target EA which in turn determines EAC goals. Because of the company's vision for 5 years, target projection must be considered while determining EAC goals.

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Manager should mind the numbers of target customers, target service/production process and target service point. One more point that needs to be considered for determining EAC's goal is the company's target service type that may be 7/24 or in business hours. Target service type affects new architecture intensely.

After stating the company's based goals, the common best practice specifications of EA should be added to the goals. Suggested specifications are as follows:

• Well defmed and standardized business processes as negotiated

• Central system structure includes software and hardware

• High-performance communication technology between application layers

• Powerful information engine which can use either system alerts and business alerts

• Smooth and fast application deployment

• Data integrity from database to user interface level

• Enough level security not anymore.

• Open to new technology adaptation

• Ability to other application integration easily

• International standardization

• High availability and sustainability

• Usability and high satisfaction on User Interfaces

• Customer oriented approach on every EA process

• Agile software development life cycle (SDLC)

c. Project Management

1) Project Management Approach While managing EAC projects, companies need a

management approach to accomplish project successfully. There are two known approaches while managing projects; one of them is traditional approach the other one is agile project management approach. Traditional approach is published by Project Management Institute (PMI) underlying the PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) in 2009 [10]. The second one uses agile practices from Agile Manifesto [11].

While planning all EAC project as a program, traditional project management, which is defined by PMI, is used. However, in divided projects of EAC which are small building blocks of the whole program management, agile project management is used. According to Daniel and John Fernandez [12] this type of management is called as "Hybrid Approach". Although our suggested solution use two project management approach and it seems as hybrid, agile project management is dominating all conversion projects because of the divided nature of the projects.

After determining project approach, establishing roadmap and generating project plan, companies need to make projection estimation in order to determine resource, time and budget for EAC.

ISBN: 978-1-4673-5613-8©2013 IEEE

2) Project Estimation Technique According PMI (2008), there are 5 types of project

estimating techniques which are: analogous estimating (Top­down), bottom-up estimating, parametric estimating, three points estimating and what-if analysis.

In this approach, a manager should mix top-down, bottom­up estimation techniques to obtain the best estimation. Not only top-down but also bottom-up estimation should be considered about time and budget in projection. Top-down estimation should be done first. Validity of top-down duration estimates depends on historical information, similarity of the historical projects and expert judgment. After that, to do bottom-up estimation, every single project should be inspected in detail. All tasks identified in work break down structure and estimation should be done. Duration time should be calculated in person-day unit to understand clear and simple employee allocation. After determining person-day of all projects, budget can be calculated. This result should be compared with top­down estimation. Top-down and bottom-up estimation should be approximate to gain good estimation. While estimating each task, analogous estimating method should be used by using expert judgment. After this step, project plan may be updated.

A manager of EAC project has to prove this project estimation to the board for project approval. Cross check time and budget projection with trusted advisory company is a cogent evidence for approving EAC projection.

D) Organization Model During Conversion In agile approach, human management is more significant

than business and technology development. In this section, how to achieve this management issue successfully is discussed.

1) Creating Federated Department As EAC influences every department in organization, all

department tend to be in project implementation. All departments at issue want to be in decision process. In tum, there are too many heads and competing departments which make the process slow down. It cause to chaos and lead in losing control. In order to execute, conversion Project Company needs to create fully authorized federated department. Due to the enterprise architecture notion, the name of the department should be Enterprise Architecture Department (EAD). This department should be under the head of Information Technology.

2) Matrix Structure EAC project comprises of small IT projects. IT projects

need different roles of people such as business domain expert, software architect, software developer, system analyst, project manager, test engineer, deployment expert. It is hard to consolidate these roles in just one department.

It is important to position key employees for project: software architect, software developer, system analyst and test engineer in the EA department to maximize efficiency and gain rapid output during project implementation. They should change their position to the EA department if it is possible. For another resources especially business domain experts, company should choose strong matrix organization structure to manage human resources in EAC projects.

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E) Human Resource Management During Conversion Despite the fact that EAC projects are business oriented, IT

task items are more than business task items. IT projects are knowledge base projects and they are highly depended on personal knowledge and skills.

Employment of conversion project team is a very critical issue and this team should be recruited by technical person who is independent of human resource department. Another important issue is training these people. Management of this team is core competence for the process of agile approach.

Two types of organization group are offered. One of them is core team which has determined numbers of experts and another one is conversion team which can be increased or decreased according to scale of the ongoing projects. The key success factor of this model is agility while managing divided projects and good management skill the core team while developing new core business processes and system architecture. Core team has to include Enterprise Architects, who are minimum 2 business domain experts with minimum 7 years' experience and high level skills on software architecture design and implementation. Enterprise architect count should be determined according to EAC project size.

Depending on their experiences on big EAC projects, the recruitment of project team should comprised of outsource and in-house employees. Because of parallel adoption method and coexistence system, conversion project can run step by step. During EAC, the numbers of divided projects that are already running may be increased or decreased according to next business process and technology implementation. Therefore, the numbers of conversion project members may change dynamically and the numbers become uncertain. Hereby company should outsource some part of project to manage this uncertainty.

F) CoExistence Model Because of high rate of IT projects failure, companies

should prefer parallel adoption while implementing EAC projects. Parallel adoption leads companies to more agile during conversion projects. For implementing parallel adoption, the company needs to develop coexistence model. It is only way to implement coexistence model at data level for abstracting business processes. Coexistence model may be synchronous or asynchronous. If the old and new system is the same database software, synchronous would be used; otherwise it would be asynchronous [13]. According to Ozer and Glindebahar [13] Coexistence system can be preferred as it only adds just 2% performances overhead to the system. So it is possible to gain advantage with spending low system resource to simplify EAC.

G) Agile Methodology EAC project includes lots of divided IT projects. Every

project includes business and technology goals and a team. Efficiency and team management bring into front. Agile practices expert on this two items. Therefore, manager should use agile project management practices because of achieving target efficiently in small projects. John D. Fernandez and Daniel J. Fernandez [12] explain set of agile project management practices including the following: simplicity, hug the changes, fmish and focus on next job, incrementally

ISBN: 978-1-4673-5613-8©2013 IEEE

change, maxImIze value of every task, govern with a goal, query every single task, fast feedback from all stakeholders, high quality output, deliverable, create documentation just to gain value.

Consequently, because of huge amount of small projects, agile project management dominates the EAC project. Hence, company needs to learn and implement these agile practices while developing new enterprise architecture.

1) Focus On People, Not Technology Or Techniques Using EAFs as a tool and high level of technology and

techniques are necessary but not sufficient factors for making conversion projects a success. The key success factor, however, is focusing on people (project team, customers, end­users, executive boards) and human management as well as the balance between technology and business. Fred Brooks [14] states that the success of a project depends more on the quality of the people on a project, and their organization and management than the tools corporates use or the technical approaches they take. So, a successful conversion project should direct its attention to the organization and management of human resources. One shouldn't forget that EA model is useless unless the project team cannot take advantage of it no matter how perfect it is.

Ambler [9] follows Fred Brooks' notion and claim that manager of EAC would realize that it needs to make their work attractive to their customers (software developers, system analyst, business stakeholders, IT & senior business executives and end users) including their services. If customers perceive that you have value to add, your enterprise architecture efforts will aid them in their jobs. In turn, they are much more likely to work with you. If, on the other hand, they think that you're wasting their time, they won't work with you. They'll find ways to avoid you, to cancel or postpone meetings with you. They want to avoid using your new system which is a big challenge for the success of projects.

What Brooks [14] and Ambler [9] have in common is that a company should support the new EA system until it proves itself. It is very important to build customer representative team to support new EA. Customer representative team consists of senior business experts who are trained by project team on new EA and user interfaces. The function of this team is informing the system users to solve the problems that occur in parallel run of the system. The end-users believe that the new architecture is fully supported by management thanks to this representative team.

2) The Building Blocks Of Agile Approach Amber [9] points out that there are critical points in agile

approach which make it effective and superior to its rivals. First critical point in agile is the concept of simplicity. One should keep enterprise architecture artifacts as simple as possible since it will increase the chances that audience will understand them. The project team will actually read them and you will be able to keep them up to date over time. The idea is that a simple model that project teams actually use is more valuable than detailed documents. So, each phase during conversion should comprise simple steps.

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The second significant competence of agile is its being iterative and incremental since it is easier to implement and manage. In this way, every level of corporate culture can understand this simplified implementation methodology. While converting to new EA, company should execute projects step by step to gain agility.

Lastly, prototyping and proving are pros of agile approach. That is, new EA contains new technology and new business process design as well as the integration of these two critical items. New design needs to prove itself to build all EA on it. So, company must develop simple prototype over a small business scenario which encloses most common and core case of all EA. If prototype proves itself, project goes on this prototype but if not prototype has to be redesigned. So, company is saved from spending much time to build wrong design and spending more human resource.

In line with Amber [9] we can add one more building block for agile approach. That is, the success of change management relies on the right balance between business and technology. So, the approach should be business oriented technology while developing our new system and conversion manager ensures that all stakeholders - from the top executives to end users - are equipped to maximize companies' new solution.

IV.EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

The proposed model has been used for a large scaled enterprise architecture conversion project which started in July 2009 and is being expected to finish in 2013, in a bank which has 300 branches in Turkey. In this project the whole IT infrastructures and computer application modules have been renewed to adapt new technologies and convert to new business processes. With this new system, the bank has been a technology pioneer instead of being a technology follower. Besides, eighteen site visits have been taken place from well­known banks and enterprises. These institutions have been informed about the proposed model and conversion projects that are mentioned in this article.

The bank has been transformed into 3 tier application server architecture from 2 tier in this conversion. A powerful enterprise architecture framework (EAF), which was donated by standards and procedures, has been built to be used in large scaled application development. Thanks to this EAF, a software production line is formed so that an XTM software package which is comprised of 200 user interfaces & 20 sub modules, a core banking application that has 2200 user interfaces & 120 sub modules and internet banking application with 287 user interfaces & 18 sub modules were implemented. Conversion project has cost 68000 man day and 36 million USD in total.

During the project, a team of Enterprise Architects with the number of twelve has been available. Yet, the number of project team that has implemented the small dividend business projects, has varied between five and eighty depending on the number and the size of the ongoing projects. This particular team has been related to Enterprise Architecture Department which is federated and fully authorized for the conversion project. Thanks to matured EAF, outsource and in-house employees can easily be assigned to ongoing business projects.

ISBN: 978-1-4673-5613-8©2013 IEEE

A team has been constituted to support the modules which are produced and put into use so that the conversion can be easily accepted and involved by end users. That is, a user oriented approach is adopted. An in-service training has been given to the end users. Required training documents and videos have been prepared and deployed on the software applications.

Along with the academic references given above, a questionnaire has been conducted to IT Department of a bank which has 300 branches in Turkey with the aim of verifying the simplicity, dynamicity and practicality of the proposed model. In this questionnaire, two EACs, one of which has at least four year experience with the budget of 60 million dollar has been compared by thirty IT managers and eight enterprise architects.

The results showed that the proposed model has proved its acceptability by showing the fact that while 76% of the subjects stated that the acceptance hasn't been given easily by the senior management in traditional approach, the situation is just the opposite in agile approach thanks to the prototype model. Another advantage of the proposed model is its being a risk free system which can be easily observed in the results of "The risk of the project being failed is highly probable" and "The success of the project termination is high" questions for each approach. Due to the parallel run and step by step module development and deployment, agile approach is favored by the subjects in the item: "The implementation of EAC with agile/traditional approach is easier". Lastly, 100% of the subjects have stated that they will prefer agile approach over traditional approach in prospective conversions.

TABLE I. Evaluation of Traditional (Big-bang) Approach

Traditional Definitely Partly Don't Definitely

Approach Agree Agree Agree Agree Don't Agree

Acceptance of 1 1,76 64,7 1

senior management 5,88% 5,88% % %

1 1,76% is easily taken The risk of the

1 1,76 project being failed 58,82% 29,4% 0,00% 0,00% is highly probable

%

The success of the 17,65 47,06

project termination 0,00% 5,88% 29,41% is high

% %

The pleasure of the 0,00% 0,00%

17,65 4 1, 18 4 1, 18%

end user is high % % The outsource

0,00% 5,88% 23,53 52,94

17,65% usage is easy % % Hybrid (PMI + Agile) approach has

4 1, 18 35,29 simplified the 5,88% 5,88%

% % 1 1,76%

project management The cost of EAC

1 1,76 with traditional 35,29% 47,0% 5,88% 0,00% approach is higher

%

The implementation of EAC with

0,00% 5,88% 17,65 29,41

47,06% traditional approach % % IS easier I would keep on

4 1, 18 working with 0,00% 0,00% 5,88%

% 52,94%

traditional approach

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TABLE [I. Evaluation of Agile Approach

Agile Definitely Partly Don't Definitely Agree Don't Approach Agree Agree Agree Agree

Acceptance of senior

17,65% 58,82% 17,65% 5,88% 0,00% management is easily taken The risk of the project being

0,00% 1 1,76% 23,53% 58,82% 5,88% failed is highly probable The success of the project

23,53% 70,59% 5,88% 0,00% 0,00% termination is high The pleasure of the end user is 23,53% 47,06% 23,53% 5,88% 0,00% high The outsource

0,00% 58,82% 23,53% 17,65% 0,00% usage is easy Hybrid (PMI + Agile) approach has simplified 35,29% 29,41% 29,41% 17,65% 0,00% the project management The cost of EAC with agile

5,88% 5,88% 17,65% 47,06% 23,53% approach is higher The implementation of EAC with 47,06% 52,94% 0,00% 0,00% 0,00% agile approach IS easier I would keep on working with 70,59% 23,53% 5,88% 0,00% 0,00% agile approach

The only unexpected result for us is the fact that the cost of the agile approach is higher than the traditional approach. Prior to the survey, we expected the cost of traditional approach lesser due to the academic references. For detailed investigation, the cost of the two projects has been asked from the company. The information has proved the subject's answers. We speculate that this may stem from the management of large scale conversions' being difficult due to the continuous feedback which necessitates regular interruptions.

V.CONCLUS[ON

The Enterprise Architecture conversion is a big challenge for companies and organizations throughout the world. [n Turkey, for example, there are big companies which are challenged by these conversion processes. This stems from the complexity of the [T infrastructures, computer applications and internal business processes. These companies try to convert their EA via traditional project approaches. That is, the majority of them use big bang approach in their conversions which add to the complexity of the process as well as maximizing the failure of adoption to the new system.

[n this study, however, a simple, iterative and customer oriented approach is suggested for enterprise architecture

ISBN: 978-1-4673-5613-8©2013 IEEE

conversIOn projects to eliminate or at least minimize the complexity as well as the risk factors. A questionnaire has conducted. The items in the questionnaire are related to these criteria in order to compare traditional big bang approach with proposed agile approach. The empirical also proved our thesis. The key elements of this approach like EA roadmap, using enterprise architecture frameworks, hybrid project management, agile methodology, organizational management, business oriented approach, customer centricity, parallel adoption and user experienced design are investigated and explained in detail in an order.

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