Friday, October 22, 2010

Happy Third Birthday to Innowix – Future Plans

This is the third installment of "Celebrating Innowix's 3rd Birthday" blog entries. We are making some of our plans public and invite comments, feedback and even expect to collaborate a bit with some of you.

Plans for 2011

  1. Hire at least 2 (two) architects in the company as partners

    To be achieved by Q2-2011

    Even though I have people working for me, I am looking for those key confidants who can come along and join the adventure. There are always risks in running a company but the rewards and fun outweigh the risks. I have been talking to few folks whom I respect very much and have invited them to join. I am very hopeful that some of them will see the benefits and come over (Mr. AP, AM, VP, PV, NP, DD, VC, NG and PB – are you reading this?).

  2. Sign-on two new clients

    To be achieved by Q2-2011

    Even though Innowix has been doing well so far, we are dependent on one or two clients. This has to change to reduce the risks and dependency on one client. Hopefully this will materialize by early 2011.

  3. Delivery of at least one project as prime (preferably leveraging the case management framework)

    To be achieved by Q4-2011

    This one is a tricky one and little difficult to achieve! However, without a successful implementation, a framework is no good. It will be very sad to say "There are no case studies for the Case Management framework"! Hopefully that will not be the case.

  4. Achieve certifications in the area of Project Management Professional (PMP), The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) (http://www.opengroup.org/togaf9/cert/index.tpl) and IT Architecture Certification (http://www.opengroup.org/itac/).

    To be achieved by Q1-2011

    These are obvious and should have done few years back but I guess the timing is right now.

  5. Work on few "Hobby" projects which may turn into new service offerings in future

    Throughout 2011 (not having a specific target may not be such a good idea! Let's see how this goes through 2011.)

    These are exciting times in the technology industry. New consumer technology platforms are emerging as giants in the IT industry and before we know it, they will be invading the Business IT. Apple and Google are classic examples. Some of the Business IT solutions are now trying to find their foothold in the consumer area. Then there are some who are trying to "cross-pollinate" technologies and solutions in various domains and we would love to be one of those key players. Innowix has been playing with quite a few ideas (some of them are good and some are lame – at least from my perspective) and one or two look promising.

    These projects include developing applications on Windows 7 & Windows Mobile 7 and Android, iOS (including Apple TV!). The applications we are focusing on will be business centric and less consumer centric. However, if an idea comes up which makes sense then consumer facing application will also be a good starting point.

    Building something like this alone may not be feasible which we are trying to manage the cash flow and future growth. So, I may be looking for partners who have similar interests. If anybody is interested in investing some funding, we are all open for it!

  6. Offer Architecture Workshops to potential clients

    By Q1-2011

    Again, Innowix is partnering with couple of key partners who have been very supportive of us in our past endeavors. To drive further projects for Innowix and our partners, Innowix will offer a one day Architecture workshop free of cost to our clients where we will come in and review their IT processes and practices (Enterprise Architecture, Governance, IT Strategies, Technology Platforms, related implementation strategies and governance, Solution delivery methodologies and practices, Future trends and adoption approaches etc.) and provide high-level guidance on where they should focus. Obviously one day is not sufficient for us to gather and assess everything thoroughly but we are confident that we should be able to hit few high-level points effectively. Innowix also stands to gain an understanding of our client's industry and their IT practices to enrich and validate our IT architecture approaches. Our Innowix Architecture Framework will serve as a Solution Accelerator for such a workshop.

Conclusion and answer to question – "What does Innowix do"?

As I had mentioned in my previous blog post "Envisioning and Pragmatic execution - Two faces of progress" (http://bloginnowix.blogspot.com/2010/07/envisioning-and-pragmatic-execution-two.html), we have to maintain our balance while looking forward and running. Our future plans are driven by this philosophy. Few items are strictly for the "balancing and running" and few are wishes for "forward looking" projects and plans.

In general, Innowix is in the business of innovative application of information technology to solve business problems and improve business efficiencies. The focus has always been on IT architecture as streamlined IT architecture has the most positive impact on the application of information technology.

Your comments, feedback, inputs and pointers will be highly appreciated. Of course, if you wish to collaborate with us on any of these, please drop us a note via Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.

Happy Third Birthday to Innowix – Tasks and Projects in Progress

This is the second blog entry celebrating Innowix's 3rd Birthday where we describe some of the work-in-progress projects and tasks.


 

Work-in-progress (To be completed in next 2 to 3 months)

  1. Helping a bank in Asia Pacific with setting up a Business Process Management (BPM) Center of Excellence (CoE)

    This is a very interesting project where I am utilizing some of the Innowix training material around BPM and validating the approaches and recommended practices. For any large organization such as this Bank's, the technology is not an issue but the application of technology within the constraints and frameworks of the organization becomes bigger challenge.

    [Sidebar thoughts] The interesting thing is that the bank's BPM platform is FileNet P8 BPM. The issue I have is whether that is a long-term viable BPM platform for an organization when IBM has WebSphere Process Server (also being utilized at the Bank for system workflow) and Lombardi. Next few months will tell us how things are going to work out. I would love to see IBM's roadmap which should depict Lombardi forming a process modeling and Business Architecture tool with quite a few traits from Telelogic's Rational System Architect (creating that Social BPM framework), FileNet's Process Engine capabilities merging within WebSphere Process Server Platform with tight integration capabilities with FileNet's Content Engine and Cognos providing business monitoring capabilities (this last part as I understand is already happening). Let's see what IBM say at their Information on Demand 2010 conference and at Impact 2011 conference.

  2. Respond to RFPs and deliver projects in partnership with couple of key players for State Govt clients in Health and Human Services (HIE, Child Support, Child Welfare (SACWIS) etc.), DMV, Education, Unemployment Insurance (UI), Transportation and other domains

    Innowix has been very fortunate to have large consulting houses as our clients. We are tier-1 vendor for one of top five consulting giants in the State and Local Government business. However, from the growth perspective, Innowix has to look at and partner with other players as well who are emerging in this market. We are currently working with couple of such partners who play in different areas within State and Local Government space. Here's hoping to win and deliver couple of good projects together.

  3. Working on building out a flexible framework for Case Management and few other foundation tools to augment technology in the market

    I have been toying with this idea for some time now. More and more I look around and the need for such a case management framework is becoming more evident. However, I am planning to put something together which need not be a complete product which can be simply deployed and being used on day one but rather a set of components which can be integrated into a large line-of-business application which can rely on this framework. This framework will have key integration points for security, document imaging and management, reporting and customer management etc. More on this in future blog entries. The platform of choice is also open. Of course, putting something in the cloud will be the most attractive given the shape of IT industry. However, the architecture is flexible to leverage cloud computing platforms for all or portions of the framework.

  4. Working on maturing training for SOA and Business Process Management (BPM) targeting Executives, Sr. and Mid-level managers, Architects and Designers & Developers

    SOA is now so 2005 buzzword. However, there are still efficiencies to be gained from the adoption of such an approach. Innowix training material serves as an Introduction to SOA and goes into details about adoption approaches, best practices and governance aspects.

    BPM is still a technology which will take next couple of years to mature. SOA forms the underpinning (plumbing approaches) of BPM (business centric application). Executing a BPM project or adopting BPM within an organization requires special attention to defining how businesses can leverage it to become more efficient. BPM is an easier concept for business folks to understand and adopt than SOA.


     

Next, review our future plans.

Happy Third Birthday to Innowix - Achievements

Well folks, it has been three years since I started in this venture and so far it has been an exciting journey. It is not all smooth sailing as we had few ups and downs (mostly positives!). I am enjoying the lifestyle where I know my constraints and limits and what I can do with those limited means. No complaints or regrets whatsoever.

On this third anniversary, I thought of writing down the achievements, work-in-progress items and most importantly future plans.

Achievements

  1. Definition and application of Innowix Architecture Framework and related Solution Accelerators

    I have blogged about Innowix Architecture Framework before here. I had a chance to apply it to my second engagement for defining IT Strategy for one of the southern states. The framework helped define clear context for each branch of the organization and define their goals, processes, deliverables and transformation roadmap.

  2. IT Strategy for a southern state

    This project was completed back in 2009 where we helped the CIO of the Transportation Cabinet of this state define an IT Strategy for effective IT services delivery.

  3. Architecture assessment and Performance Engineering for an Electronic Health Records (EHR) system for a healthcare provided in Detroit area

    This project was completed back in 2008 where Innowix helped setup a Performance Engineering approach for a large EHR project running on Microsoft .NET platform.

  4. DMV Solution for an eastern state

    Engaged on a large project and led the architecture definition for technology platform and help arrive at application architecture. This is for a state government in the doming of Motor vehicles.

    The project itself is an enterprise-wide system modernization and implementation project encompassing business processes for most of the agency and their field offices. We are utilizing IBM WebSphere suite of products.

    Innowix led and completed the formal deliverables for the technology platform definition. Innowix was also responsible for planning out the functionality for first release of the project which went into Pilot this month and is being deployed around the state. This release consists of document scanning and management for specific business process based on EMC Captiva and IBM FileNet products.

    We are now engaged in system design and development specifically in the area of implementing business processes on IBM WebSphere Process Server and SOA and Interfaces implementation using WebSphere Message Broker.

This has been a very exciting project where I have met tons of talent and a great customer team. Traveling to the location was a little downside but in an all it has been a fantastic experience.


 

Next up, check out what are we working on.