The Business Architecture Summit

Speakers & Descriptions | 2019

Keynote Speakers

William Ulrich

Envisioning the Business of the Future: The Cognitive Enterprise

Envisioning the Business of the Future: The Cognitive Enterprise

What will your organization look like in the future? Will it evolve through happenstance, based on a series of reactive responses to market fluctuations, quarterly reports, technology trends, and executive mandates? Or will it evolve to become a highly adaptive enterprise that is increasingly efficient, effective, and responsive to customer demands? The “cognitive enterprise” is an organization that learns and adapts on an evolutionary basis, based on a deep and expansive understanding of the business ecosystem in which it operates. The cognitive enterprise relies on a business knowledgebase, framed by its business architecture, and increasingly powerful cognitive computing technologies. This keynote session will outline the cognitive enterprise vision, the formalisms that underpin that vision, the benefits to be accrued under that vision, and steps organizations can take to begin their journey towards that vision, achieving incremental value at each step along the way.

William Ulrich is President of TSG, Inc., President of the Business Architecture Guild®, Partner at Business Architecture Associates, and a Cutter Fellow. As a thought leader in business and IT transformation, Mr. Ulrich has worked with large corporations and government agencies across the globe and continues to serve as senior advisor to organizations across multiple industries. He is an active contributor to the international standards community, runs industry workshops, and has trained thousands of industry professionals in business architecture and business-driven, IT transformation. He is coauthor of “Business Architecture: The Art and Practice of Business Transformation” and “Information Systems Transformation: Architecture-Driven Modernization Case Studies”, contributing author to “The Business Architecture Quick Guide”, and originating contributor of “A Guide to the Business Architecture Body of Knowledge®”. As a Business Architecture Guild® cofounder, Mr. Ulrich contributed significantly to the formation of the Guild’s business architecture framework and played a major role in defining the now de facto approach to business architecture used worldwide. Prior to founding TSG in 1990, Mr. Ulrich served in management positions at KPMG’s Advance Technology group, where he pioneered and applied formal IT transformation approaches.

Mike Rosen

Title: 2021 – A Business Architecture Odyssey

2021 – A Business Architecture Odyssey

It’s been 50 years since we landed men on the moon and brought them home safely. It’s been 51 years since the iconic film 2001 – A Space Odyssey set Cinemascope screens alive with invention. So, what will business architecture be like in 50 years? Okay, we don’t actually try to address that, but how about in 2 years? What will provide the connection between the past and the future? How can we help to drive that future? What are the new opportunities? What new ideas must we embrace as business architects? This session will explore these questions to set us all on a path to the future.

Mike Rosen a founding member and Vice President of the Business Architects Guild. He is also Chief Scientist at Wilton Consulting Group which provides expert consulting in Digital Transformation Strategy, Business Architecture, Enterprise Architecture, and Enterprise Solutions. Prior to returning to consulting, Mr. Rosen was Global Research VP for Strategic Architecture at IDC, providing research to IT and business leaders on strategic architecture and digital transformation. Mr. Rosen has years of experience in the architecture and design of solutions for global corporations and 20+ years of product development experience. He is an internationally recognized speaker and author of several books and hundreds of articles.

Leading with Models

Architecting 4 Good with Hope 4 Youth | Mary Auer, Cheryl Evans, and John Mumma, TCBAF: A4G,
Cheryl Jensen and Jayne Dejong, Hope4Youth
HOPE 4 Youth, a non-profit creating pathways to end youth homelessness, is embracing Business Architecture.  This past year TCBAF community members donated their time to introduce HOPE 4 Youth to Business Architecture.  The team helped them clearly articulate their strategy, define the value proposition and begin building a common language.  The HOPE 4 Youth organization is already seeing value.  In this session we will discuss the models created and the value HOPE 4 Youth is receiving along with the lessons learned from our first Architecting 4 Good engagement. 

 Mary Auer is a Business Analyst Consultant with AIM currently work at Land O’ Lakes SUSTAIN, is TCBAF board secretary and coordinator for Achitechting 4 Good.  Mary has over 25 years experience in systems design and implementation. Working as a process owner she worked across teams to provide visibility and alignment of the deployment process.  

John Mumma is a Principal Business Analyst with Hennepin County working in their Health & Human Services line of business. John has 18 years of experience leading the development and implementation of IT solutions at the enterprise level and has been leveraging Business Architecture principals to manage the demand from their business partners and bridge the gap between strategy and execution.  He has worked in Financial Services, Government, Healthcare and Claims & Benefits Administration. John also serves as the Co-Chair for the MNGOV TCBAF CoP.

Cheryl Evans is a Business Solution Architect with Optum.  Cheryl is a problem solver with over 30 years of experience designing, building, migrating, integrating and deploying systems and processes. Her experience includes start-ups, medium-sized, and very large corporations, health care, manufacturing and the service industry.  She is currently working on a multi-year complex large scale enterprise system transformation leveraging some of the Business Architecture principals. She had the unique opportunity to work in both business and IT allowing her to live both sides.

12 Steps to Business Outcome Driven Enterprise Architecture | Vernon Smith, FIOS Insight and
Alison Smith, SunTrust Bank
Business Outcome Driven EA leverages Business and Technical Architecture concepts. This session will walk through the concepts and stages of a Business Outcome Driven EA journey from Corporate Strategy to Operating Models, focused on the Models that support these activities and present a practical example of how a large bank combined two merging companies into a unified organization.

Vernon is a highly experienced Enterprise Architect, with full-lifecycle experience gained over 30 years. He has built and delivered entire architectural practices for major organizations and was responsible for creating the Architecture Profession at one of the world’s largest global companies.

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Alison is currently a Business Architect at SunTrust Banks, based in Atlanta, Georgia. She has a MBA from Edinburgh Napier University and attributes her MBA as one of the triggers to becoming a business architect.

Alison has been practicing, applying and evangelizing business architecture across different industries and geographies for almost 15 years. A love of language and structure, nurtured by her first degree in linguistics at Edinburgh University, morphed into a love of the structure, information and connectivity of businesses. Business Analysis in the late 90s provided the perfect place to hone the skills that were to become the skills of a business architect. Alison, the business analyst, didn’t just think about one solution, but about the big picture and how it touched the enterprise. She became a business architect and still is.
Although business architects require industry knowledge to immediately gain traction and respect, Alison maintains that the skills of a business architect can be applied in any industry and any organization. One of the pertinent skills of a business architect is to be able to consume the essentials of a business in just the right amounts and to always be eager and willing to learn more.

Business Design – Fusing Business Architecture with Human Centered Design | Columbus Brown, FromHereOn
Like the well-intentioned Dr. Frankenstein, ambitious practitioners combining incongruent frameworks often creates a scary transformation monster whose confusing jargon and appearance strikes panic and fear in stakeholders. FromHereon’s Business Design Method™ enables navigation through complexity to frame and influence better decisions along the transformation journey to realize business value.

Columbus is Principal Consultant -US Region at FromHereOn, an international business design and architecture consultancy. Columbus is a CBA with 16+ years of expertise driving transformation at Fortune 500 companies. He develops simple solutions to complex client challenges using business architecture and design thinking. Columbus holds a BSME and a MBA in Finance from LeTourneau University.

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Leveraging Business Architecture Models for Agile Transformation | David Walters and Reese Puckett, Prime Therapeutics
The need to respond quickly to market and consumer demands is driving many organizations to adopt Agile delivery models across their IT and operations areas. This shift can also drive changes to how resources are aligned, moving from a capability-centric organization model focused on delivery via projects to a product-centric model focused on continuous and rapid delivery of value. This presentation will review how business architects can use models like Value Streams and Capability Maps to help identify the impacts of the project-to-product changes and the Scaled Agile Framework to support the transition to a Agile-based organization.

With 29 years of experience in industries ranging from retail and manufacturing, to banking and healthcare, David Walters is a leader at providing business solutions through collaboration, partnership, and analytic insight.  He started with Prime Therapeutics in IT and is currently a Business Architect with responsibilities supporting two of the largest departments in the company. David is engaged in an enterprise effort to transform Prime from a project-centric operating model into a dynamic product-centric model that will equip Prime to lead in its industry. He is passionate about finding the sweet spot in standard methodologies like Scaled Agile to lift the company, and all its employees up together.

Reese Puckett is the Assistant Vice President of Clinical Program Development at Prime Therapeutics, where he leads a team of clinicians in developing health insurance policy around prescription drug management. Reese has had an extensive career in process improvement and system development.  He began with system consulting work for Target corporation, working on a retail pharmacy application development.  More recently he has led a team to successfully partner with IT to build a foundational clinical application using agile methodology.  Reese is a business champion for SAFe and agile transformation activities at Prime Therapeutics.

Enabling Innovation

ArchOps@Cargill: Redesigning our execution model and “source of truth“| Jason Walker, Cargill
Pulling from LEAN, DevOps, and LEAN, this talk will look at how large, corporate Enterprise Architecture practices can (and maybe should) incorporate some of the practices of modern software engineering in how we discuss, plan, build, and deliver architecture “sources of truth” for our communities to consume. The artifacts we’ll discuss are materials concerned with the practices and principles of Enterprise Architecture as opposed to specific/general diagrams of architecture.

Jason spends his time working with other engineering teams and management on ways they can incorporate DevOps principles, Agile approaches, and LEAN philosophies into their day to day workflow. This includes expressing and guiding key areas to focus on, like source code management, leveraging continuous integration, and emphasizing culture in the form of empathy, collaboration, and experiential learning.

This extends into service-oriented focuses on delivering IT … like customer value.

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Bringing Business Architecture to Disability Services & DHS through Altair  | Tracy Murphy, President Mount Olivet Rolling Acres
Altair is an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) comprised of both for profit and nonprofit disability services organizations that are working closely with the Department of Human Services to define what managed care should look like in Minnesota for this population. Altair is currently working on a Strategic Plan, in partnership with DHS and funded by the Center for Medicaid/Medicare Services, that will help define our business model. While following a traditional strategic planning methodology, we are realizing a need to incorporate business architecture to help us better understand our organizational model from a governance, fiscal and operational perspective.

Tracy joined Mount Olivet Rolling Acres in July of 2017. She has more than 25 years of experience as an operational and financial leader of teams. Prior to joining MORA, she served in multiple leadership roles in Bangalore (India), Minneapolis (Minnesota), and Toronto (Canada) with Target Corporation.  Tracy brings her high-energy, personal, and authentic leadership style to our organization. Her focus on staff development, change management, and solving critical/systemic issues in the disabilities sector helps us serve our clients and partners more efficiently and at the highest quality level.

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Standing up a Business Capability Management Office – A Field Report | Todd Sicard, Blue Cross Blue Shield
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota has newly created a team of three to perform capability management functions for the enterprise. This new team works to define & introduce themselves, develop baseline models & practices, and gain traction & deliver value. The progress forward has wins and misses. Through MN’s experiences, this will be an interactive sharing experiences and lessons learned.

Todd Sicard is a Business Capability Management Director at Stella, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota’s parent company. His experience includes over 25 years of health insurance, 15 years of IT enterprise architecture, and 5 years of working with capability-centric modeling.

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State of the Tech Union using the Capability Model | Mary Sue Moore, Principal Business Architect, Asurion

Within the world of large, integrated, monolithic technology suites, it’s not enough to say that a technology is ‘good’ or ‘bad’.  An understanding of WHAT the technology does well and not so well is needed as well as the understanding of the gaps.   Business capabilities are a straightforward rubric to pulling apart the forest to get past the trees, past the limbs and leaves and down to the root of the situation.  Mapping organizations’ participation in a capability against the technologies available is the first step in understanding the technology fit.  From the technology fit, plans can be made and steps can be taken forward in the appropriate direction.  We learned several unexpected insights along this path.  Come and see how this can be done.  

As the Principal Business Architect for Asurion, Mary Sue is committed to providing value through understanding and transparency which aligns business and technology teams. She illustrates patterns, information, and models to ensure communication among all types of solution contributors. At Asurion, she provides a business architecture perspective to tech teams, product teams, projects, management, and other architects.  She creates business models, such as Capability Models, Business Model Canvases, Product Models, the Asurion Meta-Model, the Business Entity Model, and Business/Technical Process Models and then uses these models for requirements, scoping, gap analysis, maturity analysis, and general communications.  

Mary Sue drives the definition of need, criteria definition, evaluation process, and implementation of the current product configuration tooling.  In her past, she has operationalized model management through implementation of version and change management disciplines.  She drove the discipline definition for a Model Driven BPM-SOA.  She has been a Process Definition Consultant, Project Manager, Software/System Engineer, and Software Developer. Along with device and data protection insurance, her background includes commercial finance, telephony, healthcare insurance, Space Station controls, and electric/transportation controls.

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Informing Change

Enterprise Resilience – A framework for navigating the exponential pace of change | Terry Roach, Capsifi
Enterprise resilience is the capacity of a business to successfully navigate disruptive events and persistent uncertainty. Consistent value creation, constant innovation and continuous delivery are the cornerstones of a digitally resilient enterprise. This session will discuss enterprise resilience, plotting a course for companies to develop their transform muscle & deliver innovation at scale.

Terry Roach is the Founder of Capsifi and lead architect of the Jalapeno knowledge engineering platform.

He holds a PhD from the University of New South Wales where his 2011 thesis developed “The CAPSICUM Framework”, a semantic meta-model for the design of strategic business architecture.

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Unmasking the Link Between the Business Relationship Manager and the Business Architect | Susan Heidorn, Watermark Learning

Have you heard about the Business Relationship Manager profession but not sure what it is and how the business architect fits?  How do they work together? How are the different? How are they similar? Many of the skills necessary to be a successful business architect are similar to those needed for the BRM role, and yet there are some differences. This session will introduce participants to the BRM role, understand the value of BRM role, and learn how business architects can work with BRMs or move to a BRM role.

Dr. Susan Heidorn is the Director of Business Solutions for Watermark Learning in Minneapolis. Susan is an experienced consultant, facilitator, speaker, and trainer, with over 25 years of business experience. Susan directs programs in business analysis, business relationship management, and leadership, including developing and delivering courses and providing consulting. She has been a
speaker at a number of IIBA® and PMI® conferences, as well as local and regional organizations, boards, and private clients. She is a lifelong learner whose passion it is to guide people into achieving excellence in their personal and professional lives and works on creating positive
impacts to the organization.

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Leading During Disruptive Change | Christine Pouliot, Evocent

As Business Architects, your role is to find opportunities and drive changes that keep businesses competitive and relevant in the marketplace.  

One element critical for success and often overlooked is LEADERSHIP.  Typically all hands are on deck to focus on executing the logistics – A hyper focus on the project plan, budget, timelines.  What is often overlooked is how changes big and small impact people – at every level.  AND this is still the major cause of failed change.  In this session we will explore the human side of change – from perspectives that people carry, the greatest challenges encountered and explore ways that we can improve success.  

Christine Pouliot is an Executive and Leadership Development Coach and owner of Evocent Leadership Development.  Christine has spent over three decades of her career building and leading teams that are resilient in the face of change and uncertainty. She has experienced firsthand the effects that change can bring to a team or organization and is adept at supporting leaders in identifying and addressing pain points in a human-centered way to navigate hurdles and maintain a positive, highly engaged and motivated workforce while advancing business goals. Christine has managed global teams of hundreds, managed multi-million dollar budgets and navigated numerous complex workplace scenarios.   

“I’ve sat in every seat. As someone who has gone through and supported teams in navigating several transformational changes, I’ve seen first-hand when it’s gone wrong and when it’s gone right. I’ve seen the mistakes. I’ve learned that I have a passion and a talent for seeing how the unforeseen impacts people, and what it takes to be resilient and effective.” 

Christine has completed an Executive MBA with Carlson School of Business, U of M. She holds CPCC certification from Co-Active Training Institute and has earned the PCC designation from the International Coach Federation. She is an official member of the Forbes Coaches Council. 

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Application Portfolio Strategy, IT Operations and Business Architecture | Ryan Peterson, Maryville Consulting Group 
– Almost 2/3 of organizations report that they have too many or far too many apps due to sprawl from poorly managed portfolios.

– Application managers are spending too much time supporting non-critical apps and not enough time on their most vital ones.

– Application managers need their portfolios to be current, effective, and evolve continuously to support the business or risk being marginalized

Prior to joining Maryville Consulting Group, Ryan spent 9+ years with Accenture and 3.5 years with Cargill.  Ryan is Passionate about solving business challenges and creating innovative approaches to achieve business goals. He has experience driving results in many industries while specializing in strategic planning, service/product management and program/project management.

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Build Your Skills

Business Capability Modeling | Chris Armstrong, President Sparx North America

 

 

Linking Business Capabilities to IT Services | Chris Armstrong, President Sparx North America

 

 

Layering Customer Profiles with Human-Centered Design to Unearth Innovation | Patrick Salaski, Metropolitan State

Customer Profiles are helpful for stepping into your customer’s shoes.  They help you identify the work your customers are doing, the pains they have while doing that work, and the gains they hope to achieve with the work.  However, just focusing your products and service on the tangible work leaves out opportunity to add value by addressing their feelings.  Pairing Human-Centered Design with Customer Profiles will help you identify additional ways that your products and services can relieve your customers’ pains and help them achieve their gains.   This interactive session will have you use a scenario to try this layering techniques to create an Empathy Map in a real-world case study for a local non-profit organization.

Objectives:

  1. Understand that the root of innovation is customer need
  2. Use a customer profile to identify your customers’ jobs, pains, and gains
  3. Use a customer persona to introduce Human-Centered Design
  4. Use all tools to create an Empathy Map

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