Two and half speed IT architecture @Digital Transformation - fail fast, fix fast...

"Digital transformation" is now important subject for the technology fighters and hides remarkable challenges itself.

Internet era evolves information technologies to cover not only customers but also employees ,stakeholders, public even politics in order to enhanced organization's vision and mission through rapid strategy.

Nowadays, no one skips social media, mobility, smart bots, omni-channel in their strategy so Organization must align with the new technologies quickly. Apart from that Industry 4.0 already pushes business daily bases for any changes to get ready Industry 5.0.

2-speed IT architecture is clear for Digital Enterprise architects during transforming organization digitally. It defines two separated streams working in parallel. while one is involving with current system improvements, other is focusing on digital transformation to align organization with the latest technologies, trends and expectations. It is obvious that each streams will have speed difference since each of them has different motivation and target.

2 speed architecture approach results increasing complexity, uncertainty, effort, cost and risk so a half speed between 2 teams can be defined in order to minimize phase difference.

Team 1 - Legacy System Excellent Center
Team 2 - Digital Transformation Center

We define an intersection set of the two teams acting catalyst as is defined in chemical reaction thus while they speed up slower team. They already slow faster team but they are not consumed by the reaction and recover unchanged at the end of the reaction what happens in chemistry.

Note: A catalyst is a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction, but is not consumed by the reaction; hence a catalyst can be recovered chemically unchanged at the end of the reaction it has been used to speed up, or catalyze.

2,5-Speed IT Architecture Intersection Set

The group must consist of few senior experts from the streams equally. They should be ahead of legacy system domain (or back end) team in order to build up a comfort-zone.

This group should be encouraged:

"fail fast, fix fast"

so the motto can be:
"
Realize quickly,
Implement quickly,
Test quickly,
See the result fast"

They need to get involve with mission critical business or features for the existing systems in order to speed up team. Besides, They have to build one way bridge from team 1 to the to the team 2, no return defines :)

First stream (team 1) will mostly
- be waterfall methodology oriented
- be conservative
- be "problem - solution design" oriented such a infinite loop
- have daily base regular tasks in terms of maintenance
- be adding new features or be involving with design changes for the legacy systems


Second stream(team 2) will mostly
- be agile
- be rapid delivery oriented
- fresh -free- due to rarely regular tasks coming from the existing ecosystem.
- be "experiences oriented" instead of "problem-solution" pair
- be highly motivated for collaborative design
- new technology oriented
- define continuous integration/deployment to be faster

we define tight and complex collaboration in IT architecture due to 2.5 streams so It is required to have all stakeholders attention in the company. Digital Transformation is a long journey but it is necessary for organizations who want to be dynamic, fast , proactive and innovative by utilizing information technologies bravely.