ITANA Conference Call

Minutes -- September 21, 2007
 
 **Attendees**

Jim Phelps, University of Wisconsin-Madison (chair)
Gary Chapman, NYU
Piet Niederhausen, Georgetown University
Kevin Miller, Duke University
Keith Hazelton, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Tom Barton, University of Chicago
Beth Warner, University of Kansas
Michael Cerda, University of Texas
Scotty Logan, Stanford University
Paul Hill, MIT
Mark Poepping, CMU
Ann West, Internet2/EDUCAUSE
Steve Olshansky, Internet2
Dean Woodbeck, Internet2 (scribe)

**Action Items**

[AI] Jim Phelps will send the St. Louis University value chain documents to the ITANA email list.

[AI] Beth Warner will determine if there are documents related to the University of Kansas process review that she can add to the wiki.

[AI] Jim Phelps will survey the ITANA email list about changing these calls to a different day of the week.

[AI] ALL - Review the draft EDUCAUSE CIO survey on the wiki.
            https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/itana/CIO+Survey+on+EA

[AI] ALL - Review the draft Enterprise Information Management Capability Maturity on the wiki.
            https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/itana/Enterprise+Information+Management+Survey

**Agenda, September 21, 2007**

 (0) Roll Call. Agenda Bash.

  1. Accept minutes of last call
  2. How is it going on your campus? (all)
  3. (Postponed) SLU's Pillars and Value Chain Documents - see Value Chain and Pillars (Jim H)
  4. CIO Survey on Enterprise Architecture(Jim P)
  5. Enterprise Information Management Survey (Jim P)

Items on the shelf:

  1. Kuali Student System Report Out (Hebert)
  2. Mellon ESB Assessment - goal? is there date on this? Mark get Chas on the call
  3. Mellon New Initiative: Framework for scholarly studies tools
  4. Report out of Architecture Tool presentation (Dave P)

**St. Louis University Value Chain**
Jim Hooper from St. Louis University cannot make today's call. He has sent Jim Phelps a document related to the university's value chain and pillars of success. Jim Phelps will send the document to the email list. 
**Enterprise Architecture: An Update**

Jim Phelps started a discussion of the status of enterprise architecture on the campuses represented on today's call. 
University of Wisconsin - Jim Phelps reported progress in the visibility of EA, judging by the types of people contacting him and the inclusion of EA staff members in meetings that they have not attended in the past. Keith Hazelton said EA is taking advantage of an administrative process design project at the university, using that to define architecture principles and reviewing work process flows in central IT and in IT support areas in colleges and departments. He has posted some sample architectural principles on the ITANA wiki: https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/itana/Architecture+Principles

University of Texas - Michael Certa reported that Texas is just starting with the idea of enterprise architecture. EA has begun identifying areas needing common standards and procedures. This is his first call and he is interested in learning about strong project management systems. 
Georgetown University - PietNiederhausen said Georgetown is at the very beginning of enterprise architecture. This is a new role at the institution and he is working to determine where to apply his energy first. He is interested in a system for project management and getting involved in projects early in their life cycle.

Duke University - Kevin Miller is looking to benchmark on architectural principles. Defining those will help lead to the next step of developing standards. 
Stanford University - Stanford has build a project management system over several years, according to Scotty Logan. This year, a group of architectural people have started meeting to review all projects prior to those projects receiving funding. This inserts architecture into the process at an early stage and results in an ad hoc architecture review board.

New York University - Gary Chapman said NYU has a technical review of projects, but not necessarily an architectural review. The technical review involves presentation of the details of a proposed project to a variety of people, including staff members in security, identity management and other disciplines. The university is also conducting an external review of central IT to determine whether they are doing the right things in the right way. 
University of Kansas - Beth Warner said KU has done some piecemeal EA work over several years, particularly with high-level architectures such as data warehousing, digital libraries and digital preservation. The university also has drafted technical architecture principles. Because KU is considered a state agency, these principles must also mesh with the state of Kansas architecture. The university has a project mgmt office in place, with a concept review process (where people ask, "should we do this?") and a review after a solution and approach is proposed. [AI] Beth will determine if there are documents about this process that she can add to the wiki.

University of Chicago - Tom Barton said the focus is on having enterprise architecture as an influence group within central IT, so that major strategies are carried out with a central viewpoint rather than begin driving by projects. Chicago has a project management office, which reviews projects from an enterprise architecture point of view. But IT is also planning to have two enterprise architects become involved in organization areas, such as security and storage technology, and data and data policy. The idea is to have EA helping drive which projects are even proposed. 
MIT - Paul Hill said that projects at MIT voluntarily go to central IT for review.

Carnegie Mellon University - Mark Poepping said the emphasis has been on portfolio management (understanding the important issues and how IT is positioned to address those), rather than project management. However, they are recognizing the need for some project management tools. 
**EA Drivers**

Jim Phelps also asked what was driving moves toward enterprise architecture. The areas mentioned include security, privacy, ERP replacement, data warehouses and web-based self-service applications. **CIO Survey on Enterprise Architecture**
As reported during the last ITANA call, Jim Phelps has been in touch with the head of the CIO constituent group of EDUCAUSE about sending a survey about enterprise architecture at their institutions. The survey is targeted for early October. He is drafting the survey on the wiki and invites comments and editing: https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/itana/CIO+Survey+on+EA 

Jim has also been in touch with ECAR about periodically including enterprise architecture questions in their core data survey. They are, so far, not optimistic.

The survey would provide a way to determine maturity measures on different topics, as discussed on previous calls. The first area, business intelligence and data warehousing, is being developed on the wiki: https://spaces.at.internet2.edu/display/itana/Surveys+of+key+enterprise+IT+capabilities

**Dates and Times for Future Calls**

Jim will survey the ITANA email list about changing these calls to a different day of the week. He has had some feedback that members would prefer a different day.

**Next call: October 5, 2:00 pm (EDT)**

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