SOA, Enterprise Architecture & IT Strategy Seminars

Places are still available for the following seminars.  Register soon to avoid disappointment.

Zachman Enterprise Architecture MasterClass™ Part 1: Framework Fundamentals

6-7 October 2009, London

This two day seminar, presented by John Zachman himself, Father of Enterprise Architecture, is designed for enterprise professionals of every discipline including non-information disciplines as well as information disciplines.  Seminar topics include Business Drivers for Enterprise Architecture; The Zachman Framework™; Architecture versus Implementation; Enterprise Architecture Implementation Practicalities; Four Frameworks for Knowledge Management; Simplifying the Enterprise; Reducing I/S ‘Time-to-Market’; Federated Architecture.  

Delegates will learn:

• A sense of urgency for aggressively pursuing Enterprise Architecture
• A comprehensive definition (description) of Enterprise Architecture
• A "language" (that is, a Framework) for improving enterprise communications about architecture issues
• An understanding of basic Enterprise "physics" - laws of nature that govern Enterprise implementations
• Differentiation of Enterprise Architecture from Systems Implementation
• A strategy for reducing "time-to-market" for systems implementations to virtually zero
• Some pragmatic approaches for implementing Enterprise-wide strategies
• Strategy for integration beyond jurisdiction (Interoperability)
• Architectural Principles for meeting enterprise requirements
• A list of resources to facilitate architectural work

Zachman Enterprise Architecture MasterClass™ Part 2: Enterprise Implementation Strategy Examples

8-9 October 2009, London

This seminar will show you how to strategically implement Enterprise Architecture in your organization.  It will explain how the underlying constructs of the Zachman Framework™ support business agility and demonstrate this with real world examples of what to do and not to do when architecting an Enterprise. 

Delegates will learn:

• To enable the participant to use the framework as a tool for thinking about business and technology
• To consider framework implications for integration when making enterprise design decisions
• To understand the underlying framework constructs of fractals and other frameworks
• To be able to select appropriate implementation strategies for the delegate’s organisation and explain the rationale for them
• To understand how implementation composites can be assembled from primitive cell elements
• To review framework implementations in business, not for profit and government situations

SOA in Business

26-27 February 2009, London

Experience shows that a successful solution must be based on the needs and requirements of the business and not be driven by IT systems. If you succeed with the deployment of a successful SOA you have created the best opportunity for the future of your business.   This seminar will take you through how you master the journey from the business to the solution. The result will be a number of services which will support the activities in your critical business processes. We teach you a practical and proven architectural process based on your enterprise architecture in order to create a SOA plan with business benefits both in the short and the long term.

Delegates will learn:

• Spread the knowledge of how SOA is implemented based on business requirements
• Optimize the number of services
• Make sure that information is captured in only ONE service and then reused
• Focus on the processes which are critical in the business
• Orchestrate your business critical processes for each customer or for each product
• Explain what SOA means for your business

SOA: Technology, Products & Best Practices for Designing SOAs

2-3 March 2009, London

Due to mergers, new regulations and market changes, companies are looking at what SOA could mean for them. For some, SOA will be the basis for the automation of business processes. Others see it as a means to gradually remove their legacy systems, and others see it as a means to transform their organisation into an agile organisation – one that can adapt quicker to market changes and opportunities.  This seminar presents an in-depth overview of the products and the technologies that are available today to develop SOA.  It will also describe the crucial guidelines when designing SOA.  The seminar is based on experiences gained at several SOA projects.

Delegates will learn:

· Learn how an organisation could benefit from SOA

· Learn how different technologies are needed to develop SOA

· Understand what the differences are between SOA-related technologies and other older integrations solutions

· Learn how an Enterprise Service Bus speeds up the development of SOA Avoid well known pitfalls

· Avoid well known pitfalls

· Learn from real life experiences and understand the best practices for designing services and interfaces

· Learn about the different service layers that make up a loosely coupled SOA

Designing the Enterprise for Rapid Change: A One Day Strategic Briefing by the ‘3 Amigos’

John Zachman, Roger Burlton and Ron Ross on today’s most urgent business and IT issues

15 May 2009, London

If you are involved in where your company's business processes and IT architecture are going, you don't want to miss this one-day event on Enterprise Architecture Planning, Enterprise Business Process Management and Enterprise Decision Management and Business Rules.  Presented by 3 of the world’s most renowned experts on IT, find out what you need to know about designing the enterprise for rapid change. 

Spend a day with the world-class thought leaders on business innovation through business architecture and business-driven requirements and planning. Find out what 'doing the right things in the right way' really means. Find out how your company can put the "business" back in "business processes", "business rules," and "business architecture".   Find out how your business can ...

· Regain control of its planning, development, and transformation practices.

· Architect and engineer itself for maximum agility.

· Make the most of its strategic investment in IT.

The winners in today's world are the ones who can plan and craft for rapid change in the face of huge complexity. Your business simply can't afford not to shift gears - and soon!

Principles of Business Process Management: An Introduction

27-28 January 2009, London

Presented by Roger Burlton, a BPM Pioneer, and a global industry leader in process and organizational change, this seminar and workshop provides the foundation for all classes in Business Process Management .  It provides an overview and discussion of the principles, concepts and techniques required to transform your business from a traditional, functional organization to a process-centric organization. The seminar introduces a systematic approach for planning, monitoring, measuring and managing your company’s business process performance and for redesigning and improving specific processes. It provides a solid basis for anyone dealing with processes, from managers to change practitioners.

Delegates will learn:

· The value and benefits of process-centric approach

· The principles of business process management and when and how to apply them

· BPM best practices, methodologies and techniques

· The respective roles of stakeholder management, process architecture, process analysis, process redesign, process improvement, process automation, and process governance – and how to make them work together.

· Understand basic BPM management and measurement techniques

Enterprise Level Business Process Management

9-10 March 2009

This seminar, presented by Roger Burlton, a BPM Pioneer, provides a comprehensive examination of the state of the art in Enterprise-level Business Process Management (BPM). It addresses innovations in ways of managing processes as assets of the enterprise. It focuses on maintaining the critical role that processes play in the alignment of the strategic objectives of the organization with what people do every day. It is geared to those with or without process experience seeking to learn a set of pragmatic practices packaged into a reusable BPM way of working strategically and tactically. The facilitated workshop sessions are highly interactive and ensure experience-sharing with other delegates. Built on lessons learnt, both good and bad, from real companies, this seminar and workshop provides you practices to deal with the real and tough challenges you will face. Delegates will benefit from the experience and wisdom of the world leader on the topic. Roger Burlton’s book, Business Process Management: Profiting from Success will also be provided to all who attend.

Delegates will learn:

· Understand what’s new in BPM practices and how these may work for you strategically

· Be able to apply enterprise and process level techniques that are practical

· How to set up an internal pragmatic BPM Centre of Expertise

· Learn how to sell the Enterprise BPM value proposition and gain cross-organization acceptance

· Be able to develop a process architecture that is the foundation for planning, budgeting, organization design, compliance, change management, SOA and the introduction of breakthrough BPMS technologies

· See how to institute day-today process management and governance for continued progress

Business Process Modelling, Analysis and Design

11-13 March 2009, 2-4 December 2009, London

This workshop oriented session is like no other session of its type offered anywhere in the world. This course is unique in that it is built around a case study developed by the participants in team workshops. Consequently, participants leave with real world knowledge that can be used for accelerating their own projects. It is the longest running session on process modeling, analysis and design in the world. It specifically addresses the tactical aspects of process improvement project work.     Topics include Introduction to Business Process Management; Define Process Project; Capturing Process Knowledge; Modelling Current Process; Measuring Processes; Analyzing Processes; Creating New Processes; Designing New Processes; Validating New Processes; Selection of Tools.  Workshop  will  be featured throughout the course.

Delegates will learn:

• The importance of properly managing the "people" aspect of process redesign
• Critical Success Factors for process improvement
• Practical process modeling and analysis and design techniques
• How to avoid creeping project scope and analysis paralysis
• The recommended tools currently available
• Tips and Techniques for avoiding common pitfalls in process improvement projects

Mastering the Requirements Process

15-17 September 2009, London

Requirements are the most misunderstood part of systems development, and yet the most crucial. Requirements must be correct if the rest of the development effort is to succeed. This workshop presents a complete process for eliciting the real requirements, testing them for correctness, and recording them clearly, comprehensibly and unambiguously. 

Delegates will learn:

· Determine your client's needs—exactly

· Write requirements that are complete, traceable, and testable

· Precisely define the scope of the project

· Discover all the stakeholders—and keep them involved

· Use up-to-date techniques such as storyboarding and e-collaboration

· Get the requirements quickly, and incrementally

· Make use of the popular Volere Requirements template, process and techniques for discovering requirements

The Corporate Strategy for IT

23-24 March 2009, 24-25 November 2009, London

This seminar and workshop provides a framework for deeply integrating IT with corporate and business strategies, and explores its impact on the organisation’s people, investments, operating costs, Enterprise Architecture, and sourcing decisions.  It harnesses the energy of business-led strategies for exploiting IT, to create maximum total value. It also makes transparent the linkages between business decisions and IT costs – often with some very surprising results.

Delegates will learn:

· From the experiences of other companies

· Rapidly formulate the Corporate Strategy for IT in collaboration with business leaders

· Integrate IT with corporate and business strategies, and keep it that way

· Transform IT costs and budgets into a portfolio of investments in business change

· Maximise the contribution and influence of IT expertise at all stages of the investment process

Finance for IT Decision Makers

4-5 March 2009, London

Non-financial people often have to make or influence decisions about investing in IT. Embarking on an IT investment without being sure whether it has a sound financial basis, especially in turbulent times, is a bit like embarking on a voyage without a compass. The purpose of this practical seminar is to facilitate the making of financially sound decisions about IT.

Delegates will learn:

· How to construct an IT cost/benefit financial case from given data

· Evaluate an IT cost/benefit case financially

· Use various methods for financing IT

· Explain various other IT-relevant aspects of finance

· Interpret the Accounts of an organisation and explain how IT services, software and hardware are dealt with therein

· Explain some key financial ratios and their relevance in an IT context

· Understand those elements of financial jargon that are inescapable

Working with the Business: Consulting Skills for IT Professionals

1-2 April 2009, London

Being right isn’t enough. One of the major challenges – often the greatest challenge – is engaging the client: understanding their requirements, winning their support, and meeting their expectations. Yet most IT professionals give far less attention to these consulting skills than they give to their technical expertise. If you are an experienced professional who has not previously studied consulting skills, this workshop is likely to be more valuable in improving your effectiveness than any technical course.

In this highly-interactive workshop, Graeme Simsion shares principles, techniques, and tips learned from 25 years of managing an internal data management function, establishing and managing a successful consultancy and working as an independent consultant. 

Delegates will learn:

• A deeper understanding of consulting relationships – and how to make them work
• Practical techniques for establishing expectations – checklists and questions
• A set of practices to keep assignments on track
• Techniques for dealing with problems and difficult clients
• Practical approaches to writing reports and delivering presentations

DW 2.0: Next Generation of Data Warehousing

30-31 March 2009, London

In the two decades that data warehousing has been around, there has been much change.  Today, there are many different renditions of what a data warehouse is and there is no integrity in the definition of what a data warehouse is.  Now there is DW 2.0 which is the definition of data warehouse architecture for the future of data warehousing.  In this 2 day seminar, Bill Inmon, the Father of Data Warehouse, describes what DW 2.0 is and addresses what data warehousing for the future will look like. 

Delegates will learn:

· What the architecture for the future of data warehousing looks like

· How metadata fits into DW 2.0

· The levels of data of DW 2.0 – interactive, integrated, near line, archival

· How unstructured data can be gathered and integrated into a data warehouse

· The flow of data from outside of DW 2.0, into DW 2.0 and out of DW 2.0

· Why data warehouses do not have to cost a huge amount of money, even when they contain a lot of data and have lots of users

· The fundamental transformation of data that takes place as data passes through ETL processing

· The role of new data warehouse technologies such as Talend, Dataupia, SeaTab, Kalido, and others

· The migration path from existing 1st generation data warehouses to DW 2.0

· The issues of data base design in different parts of the DW 2.0 environment

· The issues of building a data warehouse on a fluid foundation that can be changed as business requirements change

Data Modelling Fundamentals

22-23 September 2009, London

This seminar and workshop contains a complete explanation of data modelling concepts and terminology, along with techniques for producing solid relational and dimensional data models. This course is designed to give you a practical understanding of data modelling that can be applied to your current projects.  It is for anyone who needs formal data modelling training. This includes those new to data modelling or in need of a refresher who need to be able to understand, build, or implement data models as part of their job.

Delegates will learn:

· Data modelling concepts and terminology

· How to read a data model

· Steps to building a subject area model

· Logical data modelling techniques of normalization, abstraction, and dimensionality

· Physical data modelling techniques of denormalization, partitioning, views, and indexing

Data Modelling Masterclass

24-25 September 2009, London

This interactive seminar and workshop is for anyone who already knows modelling fundamentals and is seeking more advanced techniques.  In this Masterclass, delegates will first apply a best practices approach to building and validating data models through the Data Model Scorecard™, a tool for validating data model quality. Delegates will then focus on a collection of intermediate and advanced modelling techniques, including advanced normalization and enterprise data modelling. The final section contains guidelines used to gain consistency across data models in areas such as in abstraction and whether to star schema or snowflake.

Delegates will learn:

· How to apply the Data Model Scorecard™

· Advanced normalization rules and limitations of the logical data model

· A value-driven approach to building the enterprise data model

· Techniques for converting the logical into an physical design

· Factors to consider in deciding whether to Star Schema or Snowflake

· Three key questions to ask yourself before you abstract

· When to use a surrogate key

Information Quality Improvement

16-18 March 2009, London

Poor information quality costs organizations 10-20% of operating revenue in process failure and “information scrap and rework” in direct costs with missed opportunity costs often greater.

This seminar, presented by Larry English, Father of Information Quality, describes quality principles applied to business and systems processes in order to achieve effective business performance. It provides guidelines for implementing an effective IQ environment

Delegates will learn:

· How to define information quality and its three components

· Describe categories of information quality tools and how to use them

· Describe how to measure information definition and content quality

· Describe how to measure costs of non quality information

· Describe how to re-engineer and correct data and implement audits and control for data movement

· Conduct an information quality process improvement initiative

· Describe how to organize and manage an information quality environment

Master Data Management Summit Europe 2009

20-22 April 2009, London             

4^th Annual Conference

This 4th Annual MDM Summit Europe 2009 is Europe’s premier event dedicated specifically to MDM, CDI, PIM and Data Governance.  This imperative event includes 3 pre-conference workshops and 2 conference days with 3 conference tracks on CDI, PIM Hub and Data Governance & Data Quality.

·         Discover how to increase your company’s ability to accelerate its rebound out of the financial crisis

·         Understand the key decisions and tasks required for you to get started with one or more of these scenarios in your own organisation – customer data integration (CDI), product information management (PIM), or data governance

·         Recognise what is driving business interest in MDM, CDI, PIM, and Data Governance solutions

·         Establish what are the better architectures and vendors … and how these solutions differ from data warehouse and CRM initiatives

·         Learn how the market and key technologies evolve … and who the leading vendors will be

·         Confirm how an IT organisation gets started … and how IT sells MDM to the business

·         Create an action plan to establish a Data Governance programme

·         Determine the most successful best practices for creating a "single customer view"…  and how  to decide to build, buy, or extend an MDM solution?

Enterprise Architecture Conference Europe 2009

8-10 June 2009, London

10^th Annual Conference

Explore what it takes to be a responsive business with agile processes, systems and technologies.  This 10^th Annual Enterprise Architecture Conference will evaluate what works best in different business environments, and what doesn’t, through practical case studies and examples from Global 2000 companies and major public services.  Delegates can choose from 7 pre-conference seminars and 4 conference tracks.   Keynote and featured speaker includes John Zachman, Father of Enterprise Architecture.

Business Process Management Conference Europe 2009

28-30 September 2009, London

This conference will discuss what it takes to align strategy, processes and services.  The emphasis will be on the practical aspects of making BPM work, on both initiating and sustaining BPM.  The conference will consist of pre-conference workshops and 3 conference tracks.  There will be novice and advanced practitioner sessions.

Data Management & Information Quality Conference Europe 2009

2-5 November 2009, London

11^th Annual Conference

This 11^th Annual Conference will consist of 3 co-located conferences on Information Quality, Meta Data and Data Management plus a Data Warehouse/Business Intelligence track.   There will be 7 conference tracks, pre-conference and post conference tutorials.