The second day of the conference was pretty much a bust in terms of the sessions. It was a lot of Gartner pushing their view of the world and pushing the proprietary EA framework. An EA framework not openly developed by a community or evolved by a community is hard to buy into.
The highlight of the day was the vendor showcase during lunch. I’ve been working on a model in my head and to see some of the EA tool out there really crystallized a number of facets of the approach in my head. Now all I have to do is get that approach out of my head and in a document of some sort. I strongly believe that EA efforts begin to deliver quantifiable business value when you get begin to short impact, cash flow, and predictability in your application portfolio. Reuse and other aspects of SOA, EA, etc. are very hard to quantify but drive many quantifiable impacts on a portfolio that can be handed to and consumed by your business counterpart. For me, my model starts with standards – all types of standards – and ends with cash flow. I need to be able to show a clear connection between the two and everything in between. Much easier said than done.