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Table of Contents
Dates
TiAC, The Information Architect’s Cooperative, announces its program for
1999. The
group will meet three times:
Winter Meeting
Monday, February 8th and Tuesday, February 9th
Charleston, South Carolina
Spring/Summer Meeting
Monday, June 21st & Tuesday, June 22nd
Portland, Oregon
Fall Meeting
Monday, October 18th & Tuesday, October 19th
Newport, Rhode Island
Meetings begin with a working breakfast at 8 o’clock on both Monday
and Tuesday, and continue until 5 o’clock on both days. There are mid-morning and
mid-afternoon breaks and a working lunch.
The first day is largely devoted to member presentations and discussion.
The formal agenda concludes at 5 o’clock, then continues informally at dinner.
Discussions are more general on the second day; topics currently being discussed are
listed below.
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Current Round Table Discussion Topics
 | Forming alliances with (or to balance) vendors: If more and more
of the architecture is defined by the products you buy, how can individual firms influence
the creators of standards? What value have companies found from participating in user
groups, industry consortia, or standards bodies? |
| Review/discussion of release procedures for desktop software from
member companies (including statistics or estimates of how long the process takes, how
many man hours, or costs) and next steps to be taken (it has been suggested that we
collectively approach Microsoft on the issue of managing version upgrades). |
| Aligning IT with the business: A number of companies have been
working at this. It seems that this "political" issue continues to haunt most
groups. How do you get educated support for an architecture, and once you have it, how do
you keep it? |
| Architecting: Understanding the Role, Aptitude, Skills and Training. These
have been identified these as themes to explore. There are a number of examples of skills
inventories and job descriptions to share as well as some ideas on training. Eberhardt
Rechtin, the author of Systems Architecting, is an advocate for one definition of
the role of the architect that draws upon his experience of engineering in many fields.
How applicable is this to the corporate architect role, and are there any alternatives? |
| Repeatability: What is required for architecture to become a
repeatable, successful process in an organization? Rephrased, to what extent can either
architecture be made a science, or the training of architects be standardized? |
| Principles: The Foundation of Architecture? In many
enterprise architectures principles have a special role serving as the link between
policy/strategy and standards/implementation. How valuable have companies found their
principles to be, and what makes an effective process for deriving them. |
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Sample Agenda
| Monday |
| 8:00 |
The meeting will begin with a working breakfast.
|
| 8:00 - 9:00 |
TiAC Status and Brief Updates
|
| 8:30 - 12:30 |
Company Presentations & Discussion (includes lunch)
|
| 1:00 - 3:00 |
Company Presentations (continued)
|
| 3:00 - 5:00 |
Architecture Focus: discussion of research or investigation in the
practice of architecture
|
| 6:30 |
Dinner
|
| Tuesday |
8:00 - 8:00 |
The meeting will begin with a working breakfast.
|
| 8:30 - 11:00 |
Guest Speaker
|
| 11:00 – 3:30 |
Company Discussions
|
| 3:30 - 4:00 |
Summary & Close
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