Agenda
- Roll Call (by timezone - East to West)
- Scribe Shout-out - It's easy to scribe: How To Scribe Itana Calls Guide
- EA Shifts in Planning in Response to Pandemic - Paul Hobson, Dir. of EA, WestJet
- Itana Org Updates (if any)
- Working Group Updates
Wiki Refresh Working Group - Deciding on Jira and Trello items
Women in EA Working Group - New2EA Working Group
- API Working Group
- Topic TBD
- Business Architecture Working Group
- Call next Friday, February 12th
- Steering Committee Update
- Coaching and Mentoring
- Some folks have signed up on the Educause mentoring site and have been matched
- Book Club
Full program on the 2020-2021 Itana Program page. All calls (including working groups) are listed on the Events page.
Notes:
Jim Phelps met Paul Hobson on Twitter.
Recently they met at a CIO meeting regarding cloud adoption during the pandemic and noted the move towards the cloud has been accelerated as a survival mechanism for some organizations.
Paul has the following experience:
- Banking in London
- EA at Cardiff University
- University of British Columbia (UBC)
Paul moved from UBC to WestJet in Calgary, Alberta in 2018
- Harbingers on the drive to Calgary?
- BC wildfires
- September snow
WestJet
- Started in 1996 to compete against the Air Canada near-monopoly
- WestJet 1996-2019
- Started as a low-cost carrier
- Local businesspeople in Alberta started WestJet by using a personal plane to fly people to Vancouver BC
- Started with 2 737 200s and only flew in Western Canada
- When Paul started in 2018 WestJet was shifting into being a full-service carrier with 180 aircraft
WestJet and the Pandemic
- Fear
- What about my job!
- The level of booking in February 2021 is the same as March 2020
- Trip to MS in Redmond February 2020 and came back very sick (COVID?)
- March 2020 more cancelations than bookings
- There has been no federal aid to the airlines in Canada
- At this point, WestJet is a major airline equivalent to Air Canda
- Due to the fluid nature of the pandemic, it has been difficult for WestJet to plan and execute initiatives
- The airline is living week to week at this point
- How times can we use the word “unprecedented”
WestJet Culture and Relationship to Architecture
- The company has been viewed as a western upstart by eastern Canada
- Values:
- Employees as shareholders
- Metrics
- TDI: Total Disability Injuries
- NPS: Net Promoter Score
DO: Departing on Time - A15: Arriving within 15 minutes of the scheduled time
- Revenue per available seat mile (RASM) - Cash per available seat mile (CASM) = $Profit
- In the airline industry Time is Money
- Time spent running engines at gates
- Only Taxiing with 1 propeller
- Weight it also money
- Airline Industry is built upon late 1970s early 1980s Technology
- Sabre
- Utilize common technologies in the network of airport partners
- Upon arrival in 218 Paul’s view of WestJet’s Architecture
- 25 years in the making where many of the same people who built the infrastructure were still there much like a university
- Built-up fast and not looking out to the future
- It was like watching a kid wearing their dads’ clothes
- Frameworks:
- Late 70’s early 80’s technology
- Follow a wire to a mainframe
- Open Group TOGAF
- Architecture is driven through the org structure
- Architecture happened in a coordinated but in a siloed manner
- Enterprise PMO:
- A business case provided with funding
- Default yes
- The governance process didn’t really work
- Paul had when he started in 2018
- 16 direct reports
- 40 contractors,
The Future of WestJet and Architecture
- Currently
- 120 Locations
- 24 countries
- 49 providers
- Competing Business Models:
- Segmenting customers
- Consistent customer experience
- Partnerships
- Credit cards
- New Technology
- Juliet
- Chatbot, 3 years old
- Swoop: Ultra low cost, becomes the future of the architecture
- Architects who move to enabling rather than governing
- Navigating the new operating reality:
- Digital Adoption
- Respond
- Cost containment
- Looking at all contracts, renegotiating, just housework with focus
- Resilient Core: Designing for failure
- Health Concerns, federated response
- Build out fully digital guest experiences
- Move to Product and Services based
- More planful in developing people
- Cost reductions:
- Heritage vendors (Oracle), not totally renegotiated.
There may not be a way back to where we were before - Negotiations heating up
- Paul relies on supply management to do the negotiations.
- Increased data efforts:
- Contract tracing at scale
- Outcomes focused
- WestJet moved to be a private company
- Essentially a training company:
- Pilots use an LMS
- Use Archi and Archimate for conversations
- CEB: Technology Operating Model Principles
Questions:
- Since Paul has been in higher ed and the corporate world how are the 2 environments similar and different?
- Similar in that each organization has many verticals with VPps and they also compete with each other
- With a profit and growth motive, there has not been much of a focus on stability
- They first said you are not an airline guy.
- Similar customer verticals just the time frame is different
- Student lifecycle vs Airline passenger experience
- The student is a wider vertical.
- Skills are transferable. Time horizon different.
- Being revenue and profit-focused changes things a bit
- Jim: We’ll go buy technology. Get to what is the outcome. Architecture is a release mechanism. Move the activity of the architects further up the stack, We bought a cool thing, make it fit.
- Paul: Architecture at WestJet is also trying to move the conversation further up the stack where the decision-makers don’t really care about the title of the person but they know that person can help them.
- Perception of EA value:
- The business does care and is interested in the outcome.
- EA is seen as an enabler.
- Enabling IT to have a coherent conversation with the business
Participants:
Chat:
14:25:26 From Dana Miller to Everyone : What % of the Westjet fleet is leased?
14:26:59 From J.J. Du Chateau (Wisconsin) to Everyone : Question: Having experience with both Higher Ed and private sector, what EA lessons or activities have you experienced in the private sector that we ought to apply to Higher Ed regardless of H.E. motivations & culture? And what EA lessons or activities could we likely successfully apply given H.E. motivations & culture?
14:36:33 From J.J. Du Chateau (Wisconsin) to Everyone : So, that exists everywhere. :)
14:43:24 From Christopher Eagle to Everyone : how did the perception/value of EA change to WestJet over this time?
14:43:27 From Dana Miller to Everyone : What would be an example of a new product or service?
14:43:35 From Mary Stevens to Everyone : Have you accelerated any of your data efforts? IE. Leveraging data to make operations smarter.
14:43:50 From Alberto Mendoza to Everyone : +1 on Mary's Q
14:51:20 From Christopher Eagle to Everyone : I've been much more effective as an EA at UM since I quit calling my area EA...
15:01:22 From Christopher Eagle to Everyone : I have to leave. This was great! Thanks Paul!
15:01:50 From Piet Niederhausen to Everyone : Thanks so much for doing this, Paul. Great to see you!
15:02:00 From Jacob A. Morris to Everyone : Slide deck availability??
15:02:18 From Rupert Berk to Everyone : Thanks, Paul!
15:02:27 From J.J. Du Chateau (Wisconsin) to Everyone : Thanks Paul
15:02:49 From Beth Schaefer to Everyone : Thank you, Paul! That was fantastic!
15:02:58 From Louis King to Everyone : That was fantastic! Still processing. Thanks for taking the time to share with us.
15:03:06 From Dana Miller to Everyone : Thank you Paul!
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