Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

Barry M. O’Reilly calls on us to rise above the hype, myth, and storytelling that have created the concept we call “digital architecture.” He proposes that the concept is part of an ongoing storytelling process that we as humans use to understand and navigate our world; digital architecture isn’t a real thing, it’s just part of a story to help us find our path. O’Reilly cautions against adherence to dogma and the slavish belief that copy-and-paste frameworks can solve our problems. He counsels that we should recognize that we are in an infinitely repeating cycle of hype.

Simon Field integrates business capability modeling into SARM, a formal method for developing and evaluating competing designs for solution architectures. In this article, he shows how this technique can be used to build competing designs for “digital services.” SARM focuses on architecturally significant requirements, as these are most likely to be difficult (and expensive) to change once enshrined in the architecture. The framework uses business capabilities as a way of expressing functional suitability, which introduces a layer of abstraction difficult to achieve through other means.

John Murphy proposes some practical steps to resolve the communication difficulties that still plague transformation programs. He proposes business capability modeling as a way to create shared understanding and bridge the worlds of business, process, and technology information encapsulated in business capabilities.

There appears to be a new school emerging when it comes to digital architecture; one that embraces the complex and the uncertain. Some of our authors in this issue of CBTJ would certainly identify with that school. Proponents of this new school are building in areas of common concern — systemic resil­ience, critical thinking, and mental models — and are introducing variety, design tooling, and governance models. Each is attacking a systemic issue via experimentation, letting reality be the judge of what’s useful and what should survive.

In this Advisor, the authors examine prevailing concepts of trust in the context of AI applications and human-computer interaction. They emphasize that trust building is a dynamic proc­ess and outline how to build initial trust in AI systems.

In this issue, you'll discover why it's survival of the fittest in the digital game, why software delivery talent is so hard to find, how to meet the challenges of the skills shortage, and more!

To incorporate a software delivery capability, your team should thrive on adopting new technology, practices, and processes. There are three primary ways companies can do this effectively, as we explore in this Advisor.

While the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) are incredibly useful and offer business and government the opportunity to solve knotty problems, a common question is, “Does this capability pose threats to humans?” Are the sci-fi scenarios of malevolent robots or killer software pro­grams a real concern?