COVID-19 = IT(x) @ Work + IoT?

Rick LapennaInsights, Trends, Uncategorized Leave a Comment

The impact of the Coronavirus has been dramatic and disruptive. Information Technology (IT) impacts have been mixed. Many sectors have experienced drastic reductions while others have experienced significant growth. Streaming media for example experienced growth, while others such as travel took a beating. This trend will continue for several months but it will be interesting to see the downstream results ...

SmartHome (IoT) Capabilities

Rick LapennaInsights, My World Leave a Comment

Getting an Amazon Echo last Father's Day started a journey towards home automation which continues to amaze everyone in the house everyday. In many ways, this evolution has its foundation in Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology. The original use case for Echo (Alexa) was for the family, providing an ability to "Ask The Internet", similar to an interactive Google Voice Response capability ...

Application Delivery Strategies

Rick LapennaInsights Leave a Comment

Understanding how to align applications into an EA framework can be complex. Examination of any application landscape within an organization may reveal silos in which specific technologies were targeted to meet specific business requirements without considering the potential synergies across applications and solutions. This constraint limits the delivery channels open to the business; diminishing IT's ability to meet the demands ...

The Future of Web Application Delivery

Rick LapennaInsights Leave a Comment

A good Business Analyst (BA), with a keen Subject Matter Expert (SME), can rapidly iterate on Web Applications (User Interfaces, Processes and Integrations), provided they have a "great" Developer - right? While this has always been the "plan" in theory, the reality is often very different. There are numerous obstacles that surface which impact that perspective. The availability of your best BA can be an issue, leading ...

Planning and Executing on OpXcel?

Rick LapennaInsights, Trends Leave a Comment

Operational eXcelence (OpXcel), is a concept which has been around in one form or another for many years. The roots for this term could be viewed from a Six Sigma context - namely DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control). The key word here is to "improve", but how? Most organizations struggle with attempting to roadmap OpXcel. There is a ...

Applying EA Frameworks

Rick LapennaInsights Leave a Comment

Lately, I have been in several meetings surrounding the future state of Enterprise Architecture, therefore I wanted to take a moment and re-group and discuss the basics around tackling "Strategic Thinking".   In my view, to be successful when planning for a "future state" of any mission-critical application it is essential to consider the long-term implications of the overall objectives ...

App Monitors on Steroids!

Rick LapennaInsights Leave a Comment

In August of this year I attended VMWare's SpringOne 2GX conference. It was good, but I was more interested in looking for "operational" advancements in support of cloud-centric applications - like those running virtualized in cloud-fabric like EC2 and the like. While there I stopped by a booth called "AppDynamics". These guys were exiles from CA for the most part ...

Six Sigma – Deployment

Rick LapennaInsights, Six Sigma Leave a Comment

From a practical viewpoint, it is very essential to generate a master deployment plan as a road map throughout the Six Sigma implementation cycle. The master plan can be developed and divided into four phases: measure, analyze, improve, and control phases. The detailed steps for each phase are described as follows: Define Phase Measure Phase Analyze Phase Improve Phase Control …

Six Sigma – Metrics

Rick LapennaInsights, Six Sigma Leave a Comment

In modern day scenario, it is very important to track down the simple metrics, manipulate and improve numbers. The concept of Six Sigma and other methodologies not only measures site activity but also strive to understand the factors affecting the metrics. Six Sigma is referred as a business-driven, multi-faceted approach, which focuses primarily on process improvement, reduced costs, and increased …

Six Sigma – History

Rick LapennaInsights, Six Sigma Leave a Comment

The History of Six Sigma can be traced back to the time of Carl Frederick Gauss (1777-1855). He is said to have introduced the concept of the normal curve. Perhaps as a standard of measurement in product variation, Walter Shewhart in 1920’s showed that a process needed correction whenever it reached a point where three sigma were produced from the …