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12
Enterprise
Architecture
Business Process
Management at
IBM’s Way
IBM Maximo Asset
Management finally
in Croatia
Agile Methodologies
in Software
Development
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fyi by croz | editorial
W
Author: Krešimir Mudrovčić
Editor: Mura Kokotović
ho enjoys reading
a typical company
profile or a flyer?
Nobody! That is why
we have decided to publish our own
magazine that presents interesting
project stories, latest trends and
technologies, as well as insights from
our customers. We do everything in
this magazine on our own (except
press and preparation). And we enjoy
it. Then we realized that a lot of our
customers cannot read our magazine
in Croatian and here it is, the English
edition.
It has been a while since I wrote
my first editorial in FYI by CROZ.
More precisely – six years. A lot of
things happened since then. We have
been IBM Beacon Award finalists
twice, three times ranked highly on
Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 list for
Central Europe; our conferences QED
(Quality in Enterprise Development)
and Adriatic Mainframe Conference
are now well established, and many
successful projects are behind us.
However, our basic strategy has
not changed. We are very serious
about professional IT services.
No matter what we do, custom
development projects which must
be completed within very aggressive
milestones or consulting on the latest
IBM tools, education or modernization
of traditional mainframe applications,
we always have fun but are
nevertheless extremely focused
on delivering the best service for
enterprise customers.
What is CROZ doing outside
Croatia? Mostly consulting, but more
and more we are also delivering
projects. Why are we doing it? Croatia
is interesting and challenging market,
but IT world is globalized and there
are very few choices left. Also, we
love to travel, meet new people and
learn about different organizations
within different cultures. We have
had projects and engagements in the
Middle East, South Africa, Turkey,
all around Central Europe, Slovenia,
Serbia, UK, USA...
The best way to check if the whole
story holds true, is visiting QED, the
upcoming CROZ conference on Quality
in Enterprise Software Development,
which is taking place on the beautiful
Adriatic coast in the city of Zadar, 13 15 May. We will discuss various topics
about quality and testing, enterprise
architecture and agile development.
See you in Zadar!
FYI by CROZ | IT magazine | Editor: Mura Kokotović | Publisher: CROZ d.o.o., Lastovska 23, 10000 Zagreb, Republic of Croatia | Phone: 00385 1 6184 831
Fax: 00385 1 6184 833 | E-mail: fyi@croz.net | Internet: www.croz.net | Graphic design: SHIFT kreativna agencija, www.shift.ba | Print: Tiskara Grafing d.o.o., Zagreb
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 3
content | fyi by croz
Technologies and Trends
Agile Methodologies in Software Development
The days when someone would give you a blank stare at the mention of agile methodologies are long gone. What’s more is that agile is now
a trend and large global companies are increasingly beginning to use agile methodologies. However, what is agile’s true status in the world,
which methodologies are most frequently used, what is valuable, what has been proven to be successful, have some ideas been rejected...? We
will try to answer these and other related questions in this article.
5
We present IBM Rational Disciplined Agile Delivery
The use of agile methodologies during development of programming products is not news to us. More and more organizations
worldwide are deciding to introduce agile principles into their work. Scrum (a method you can read more about in this issue) stands out
amongst numerous other methodologies and is likely the most popular and widespread agile method used today. However, this kind of
methodology has its drawbacks and areas for improvement; thus, bringing Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) onto the scene.
11
Enterprise Architecture
The role of IT in everyday business has for a long time been irreplaceable; however, the complexity of connections between these two
units presents obstacles. Enterprise Architecture aims to align IT with the business life cycle, while at the same time using it for improving
business.
14
Business Process Management at IBM’s Way
The dynamics of the business scene requires from every organization readiness for all possible challenges. Use of Business Process
Management solution enables organizations to have direct control of business processes. Examine what kind of aces IBM has at its
disposal in this field.
19
Strategy for the Development of Electronic
Government two years later
January 2011 marked two years since the Government of the Republic of Croatia adopted a Strategy for the Development of
e-Government, which aims to network individual sectors into a unified administration office. Find out more from our interviewees firsthand about the steps that have been made and which ones are anticipated in this area.
24
CROZ in banking
It is a fact that the banking sector most directly influences all social segments, but the trends that affect banking operation cannot be
ignored. This article will deal with what banks are currently doing in IT both short-term and long-term and it will also address CROZ’s
position in banking.
IBM Maximo Asset Management finally in Croatia
“Extra, extra! Read all about it! CROZ involved in first IBM Maximo implementation in Croatia!”
28
32
Agile Methodologies in Software Development | technologies and trends
Author: Bojan Šmid
Agile Methodologies
in Software Development
The days when someone would give you a blank stare at the mention of agile methodologies are
long gone. What’s more is that agile is now a trend and large global companies are increasingly
beginning to use agile methodologies. However, what is agile’s true status in the world, which
methodologies are most frequently used, what is valuable, what has been proven to be successful,
have some ideas been rejected...? We will try to answer these and other related questions in this
article.
W
hen talking about agile
methodologies, many
initially think of the wellknown Agile Manifesto
(Manifesto for Agile Software Development) from 2001. Over the years, it
acquired such a reputation that many
from the IT industry who are not familiar with agile methodologies can even
say that they have heard of it. Someone
might even incorrectly say that it marks
the moment when agile methodologies
came into existence. However, the truth is
that the history of agile methodologies is
much longer than this.
Japanese genes
Some of the basic principles of agile methodologies, like iterative and incremental
principle and the principle of adaptability
have in the context of software development first been mentioned in the 1950s.
Many methods that are known today as
agile evolved before Agile Manifesto. One
of the first methods was announced at
the beginning of 1995 (though it is poorly
represented today) – DSDM (Dynamic Systems Development Method). Shortly after,
Scrum, today’s most popular agile methodology in software development officially
entered the scene. Scrum, as it is known
today, actually evolved behind the scenes in
1993, and its origins can be found in Japan
in the mid-1970s at the Japanese company
Fuji Xerox. During the development of a
new photocopy machine, they modified the
classic, sequential waterfall model, in which
the next development phase begins only
after the previous one has been completed,
so that the phases overlap. Given that
the authors were Japanese, this variant of
waterfall model was later called the sashimi
model, based on the Japanese dish sashimi
(thinly sliced raw seafood).
The overlapping of phases brought
about the need for increasing communication and interaction between project participants, and project teams were made up of
people from various professions (research
engineers, sales, developers, testers...),
which is one of the traits that characterizes
project teams led by agile methodologies.
There were multiple benefits: ranging from
shorter project duration, greater flexibility
toward change, promoting responsibility
and collaboration, increasing the exchange
of key information between team members
who have different tasks, to eventually, a
product of better quality.
The sashimi model became dominant
at Fuji Xerox, as well as across Japan, by
the mid-1980s. Since Japan was then at
its peak and it seemed that its numerous
corporations were unstoppable in conquering the rest of the world, numerous analysis
were done which attempted to uncover the
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 5
technologies and trends | Agile Methodologies in Software Development
origin of their strength. One of the most
crucial features discovered was actually the
sashimi approach.
As a further evolution of the sashimi
model, which includes overlapping only
between neighboring phases, another
model emerged in which multiple phases
could overlap simultaneously while team
members participating in the project in different phases could reach their goal with a
coordinated effort. This kind of model was
dominant in other Japanese companies,
like Honda and Canon and it was described
as the rugby approach. Thus, the origin of
the name of Scrum methodology and the
roots of its evolution become obvious to
all fans of this respective sport (as for the
rest of us, scrum is a term used in rugby for
an interwoven group of players who begin
the action). Another interesting fact that
should be mentioned is that the Scrum
methodology has one more connection to
its Japanese roots – in Scrum, sashimi is a
name for the report which marks a completed activity (i.e. a part of code).
Light or agile?
Due to a need for agility, over the years
numerous new methodologies emerged
whose goal was to ensure lightweight of
product development. A group of enthusiasts for such methodologies came together
for an informal gathering in February of
2001 where they came up with the popular
Agile Manifesto. The manifesto alone is
quite short and it emphasizes some knowledge gained through experience:
• People and interaction are more valuable than processes and tools
• A functional code is more valuable
than extensive documentation
• Collaboration with the user is more
valuable than negotiating a contract
• Responding to a change is more valuable than adhering to the plan
Even if the common theme was
‘’lightweight’’, ‘’agile’’ was the word attributed to manifesto and its development
method. The reason for this is simple: the
word ‘’lightweight’’ also denotes negative connotations and, therefore, another
word had to be found in order to improve
the “sale” of this kind of software devel-
Requirements
Requirements
Design
Implementation
Verification
Verification
Maintenance
Waterfall and sashimi model
The Scrum process
6 | FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012
Scrum
The Scrum project progresses iteratively
through sprints. Each sprint should last
two to four weeks (but this duration must
be fixed and determined in advance; timeboxing is one of the key features of Scrum)
during which a version of the product that
is ready for delivery is created. During the
entire project, a Product backlog exists, in
which crucial functionalities of a product
are prescribed. It is sufficient to describe
them at a high level, without details. Functionalities that are implemented during
one sprint are strictly specified before the
sprint is initiated, during its planning. Their
set is called a Sprint backlog, in which the
functionalities from the Product backlog
will be found through an agreement
12 principles of Agile
Manifesto:
Design
Implementation
opment approach. From then on, Agile
became the buzzword, which surely sped
up and simplified the implementation of
these methodologies in the development
process, even in the largest (traditionally
conservative) companies in the world. Of
course, if methodologies alone did not
create added value, the hype would probably be ephemeral.
Maintenance
(1) customer satisfaction by rapid delivery
of useful software, (2) welcome changing
requirements, even in late phases of development,
in order to further increase the client’s position,
(3) working software is delivered frequently,
every several weeks or months (the shorter, the
better), (4) working software is the principal
measure of project’s progress, (5) sustainable
development, which can sustain a constant pace
during the entire project, (6) close cooperation
between business people and programmers on a
daily basis, (7) face-to-face communication is the
best form of communication, (8) the projects are
built around motivated individuals who should
be trusted, (9) continuous attention to technical
excellence and good design which increases the
agility of the project, (10) simplicity, (11)
self-organizing teams are capable of delivering
the best architectures, requests, and design, (12)
periodic reviews within teams and adaptation to
changes in the environment.
Today, ten years (and many projects) later, we
can identify the methodologies that have had the
most success.
Agile Methodologies in Software Development | technologies and trends
between the project owner and the development team. The idea is that the sprint
is planned so that there is enough time for
implementing tasks that are placed in the
Sprint backlog and it is very important that
development team gives its assessment
of planned work. The tasks found in the
Sprint backlog should be described in more
detail than those in the Product backlog,
while the estimated amount of work per
each task should not exceed sixteen hours.
It is important to keep in mind that the
Sprint backlog is fixed. In other words, it
is not possible to add new activities from
the Product backlog into it after a sprint
has begun. This is very important for many
reasons: the team is entrusted with the
responsibility of assessing what can be
done and in which time frame and no unforeseen challenges will be found before a
sprint. This makes people more motivated
in their work, while important functionalities selected during the planning phase
have a higher possibility of actually being
implemented on time.
The Product backlog is adjustable in
many ways. One of these is detecting new
functionalities that the product should have
and which were not perhaps obvious or clear
enough in the moment when the project
began. The other is in the event that some
of the functionalities from the current Sprint
backlog are not able to be implemented during the current sprint (i.e. if some external
prerequisites are not met for that functionality or if there simply is not enough time).
Scrum, as it is known today, actually evolved behind
the scenes in 1993, and its
origins were in Japan in the
mid-1970s at the Japanese
company Fuji Xerox. During
the development of a new
photocopy machine, they
modified the classic, sequential waterfall model, in which
the next development phase
begins only after the previous
one has been completed, so
that the phases overlap.
PBZ,
Zvonimir Križ
(Team leader and ScrumMaster for
PBZ365 team)
PBZ has for some time been using agile
methodologies on its projects. What were the
key reasons for introducing them?
The concrete problems that we identified before
we engaged in Scrum were: an excess overhead in
development, slow deliveries that were always late,
unclear requests, slow and inefficient communication and bureaucracy. For these reasons, we decided
to use Scrum methodology on one of our projects at
the start of 2010.
Why was Scrum selected? Have you thought
about combining with other agile methodologies, like XP?
Well, Scrum has, in the last few years, become a
prevailing agile methodology for project management. We realized that agile development is a good
way to solve our problems so we were looking for a
concrete methodology we could apply. It was easier
to gain information about Scrum methodology so
that was our choice. We are very satisfied because
of that.
With regard to Scrum and XP, these two methodologies actually do not have many common points
because they cover different areas. Scrum exclusively
deals with project management and does not
prescribe any development practices, while XP has
the opposite situation. This actually makes them quite
suitable for parallel use, which we do, in part.
To what extent has Scrum been implemented
into PBZ? What were the greatest obstacles in
implementing Scrum into an organization of
such great size?
‘’Full-blooded’’ Scrum is only used on one
maintenance project for now, while we are using
elements of agile development on several other development projects. During Scrum implementation,
we actually had very little resistance and problems.
With this lag time, I would say that the key thing
was unreserved support from higher management.
What does the use of Scrum look like on one of
your projects? How many members does your
Scrum team have?
Sprint lasts one month. At the beginning of sprint,
we decide on the scope and at the end we deliver what
was agreed upon. We hold 15 minute Scrum meeting
every day and at the end of the sprint a revision and a
retrospective. Thus, I would say that this is one ‘’geeky’’,
Scrum implementation by the book. The reason for
these strict implementations lies in the fact that, at
the beginning, we agreed that we would not give
anything of ours until it is necessary. Later, it turned out
that there was not a need to neither change nor adjust
anything. Generally, I would recommend this kind of
approach to anyone who is just getting into Scrum
because the value of some of the rules will be evident
only after some time.
The team consists of five members, of whom
three are developers and two are from the business
side who deal with analysis and testing. For now,
this number has proven to be a good ratio.
How do you measure its success? Have you
conducted any assessments by which you can
see the benefit of implementing Scrum in
relation to previous methodologies?
We gave full attention to measuring the success
right at the beginning. We were lucky because even
before Scrum we had quite an orderly situation in
terms of monitoring requests, bugs, etc., so that as a
basis for comparison we had rather quality information. We carried out an initial assessment of success
three months after implementing Scrum, comparing
it to the direct quarterly period before introducing
Scrum. The comparison indicated extraordinary
results: 60% less bugs and 211% more improvements. I am noting once again that this does not have
to do with subjective assessments, but rather with
exact information based on documentation from
our Production Committee and evidence in our issue
management system. A subjective assessment by all
team members who unanimously stated that this
method is much better should surely be added.
Do you intend to implement Scrum on other
projects and do you see agile methodologies
as a strategic choice for achieving even greater
quality of your products in the future?
In the near future, we wish to try Scrum on
so-called development projects, but especially on
projects being worked on by multiple geographically remote teams. This deals with the use of
so-called Scrum of Scrum modification of Scrum
methodology. After a year’s worth of experience,
we believe that we are finally ready for this kind of
step forward.
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 7
technologies and trends | Agile Methodologies in Software Development
Scrum in combination with XP
In these kinds of situations, the task must
be returned to the Product backlog. Extending the sprint beyond the initially given time
limits is not permitted!
Another key feature of Scrum is standup
meetings, for which it is important to:
• Set a time limit of 15 minutes
• Always begin on time, without being
late – at the same time and the same
place
• Ensure that all team members stand
during the meeting (hence the term
standup) – since standing for a long
time is uncomfortable, staying focused
on key topics is ensured
• Have each team member respond to the
following three questions:
1. What has been accomplished since
yesterday?
2. What will be accomplished today?
3. Are there any problems standing in
the way of ability to complete the task?
The Scrum project improves
iteratively through sprints.
Each sprint should last two
to four weeks (but this duration must be fixed and determined in advance; timeboxing is one of the key features
of Scrum) during which a
version of the product that is
ready for delivery is created.
During the entire project, a
product backlog exists, in
which crucial functionalities
of a product are prescribed.
Even though this is merely a cursory glance at Scrum, some features that
strengthen it should be evident even here:
• A simple, easy to understand, and
strong development process
• Focus on important functionalities that
the development team itself assessed
can be implemented
• Everyday communication at standup
meetings, which are only focused on
important items
• Communication between all team
members (business analysts, programmers, testers...)
• More satisfied team members, which
results in faster and higher quality
development
Extreme programming (XP)
• More satisfied product customers and
users
XP kicked up a lot of dust when it surfaced
at the end of the 1990s and it is surely
numbered amongst the most popular representatives of agile methodologies. Like
other agile methodologies, it emphasizes
the need for short iterations, communication within a team, giving team members
responsibility and power, readiness for
change requests at any given time…Over
time, XP gained many fans and critics,
but statistics show (more on this later)
that the most valuable and most widely
used aspect of XP methodology was not
project management but, rather, the part
dedicated to the technical area. Beginning
with four basic principles – communication,
8 | FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012
feedback, simplicity and courage – XP builds
a set of ’’best practices’’ which should be
applied to software projects.
According to XP, these practices are
interrelated and interwoven and support
one another. Therefore, all must be used or
else this is not XP. The most interesting ones
are those that deal with development, or
programming itself:
Pair programming – 2 individuals work
together on one task and at one work station
and they regularly exchange roles between
one person coding and the other overseeing
and thinking about the big picture. Of course,
this practice will not sit with everyone and a
period of adjustment is needed for this kind
of work. Regardless, it seems that this is a
frequently used method in the agile world.
Test driven development – first a test is
created for some part of code and then the
code itself. In this way, the programmer is
forced to think about the logic of his code before it goes into implementation. As parts of
the logic are added so are the tests. Eventually, an additional effect of detailed coverage
of test codes is achieved, which guarantees
high quality and eases regression testing of
larger changes in the future. This deals with
a rather valuable practice which is for many
foreign or exhaustive in the beginning, but
with time every programmer learns to value
this (or slightly modified) kind of work.
Continuous integration – deals with the
need for frequent integration with the code
being worked on by the remaining team
members. If multiple people are working on
the same parts of the code and development
lasts longer (without mutual synchronization), the differences are greater and it is
more difficult to integrate the code into a
well thought-out unit when that time eventually comes. Additionally, there is a greater
chance for the occurrence of bugs which are
not visible to the eye. This practice stems
from a number of methods without which
quality software development would be
practically impossible:
1. Maintaining a code repository that serves
for storing and synchronization of a code
in a team. Tools like CVS, SVN or Git are
today indispensable even on the smallest
of projects.
2. Automated build of application artifacts
– it can oftentimes also include installation of the application on the test
environment. The well-known tools Ant,
Agile Methodologies in Software Development | technologies and trends
Maven, IBM Rational Build Forge, etc.
are usually used for this.
3. Frequent commit of code into the
repository.
4. Testing of code should be done in an
environment that is very similar to the
production environment.
Refactoring – as an application improves through development, individual
parts of code become awkward or unsuitable to use. For instance, a good indicator
for code or architecture that should be
refactored is a situation in which a change
in one part of the code results in an entire
range of changes in other parts.
Coding standards – it is necessary
to have a set of standards that all team
members will adhere to during coding.
These standards are related to the method
of naming application artifacts, the coding
style, etc.
A Scrum + XP combination is frequently
used precisely because of this technical
part. Scrum is used for general project
management (managing sprint) while
XP techniques are used for development
within the sprint itself.
Most frequently used agile methodologies
Lean
This methodology is praised for emerging
from the philosophies and practices of the
Toyota Production System, which were the
driving force of this Japanese company.
Unlike Scrum, which gives a clear structure
for project management and XP which
additionally emphasizes development
practices during application coding, Lean
gives suggestions that are applicable at the
company level.
Eliminate the superfluous – everything that brings no benefit to the client
represents a surplus, whether this refers
to resources, functionalities or bureaucracy.
Learn as much as possible – about the
product being developed and about the
development process first-hand.
Making a decision as late as possible – if some requirements are not fully
recognized, the product should be developed so that it can be easily customized
to the facts that become apparent later.
Decisions should be made based on facts
and not on uncertain assumptions and
predictions.
Most frequently used techniques in agile development
Agile methodologies according to the organizational level at which they are used
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 9
technologies and trends | Agile Methodologies in Software Development
Deliver as soon as possible – clearly,
this does not mean delivering a defective
product. It is important to deliver the functional product without all functionalities in
order to get feedback from clients as soon
as possible so this new information can be
used in the next iteration in development.
Empower the team – project managers
should allow team members to do their
work in their own way. At the same time,
they should be given the ability to make
certain key decisions.
Build integrity in – there are two
dimensions of integrity: perceived, which
refers to the user’s perception of the
product’s quality, and conceptual, which
indicates how well the system functions
under the surface (when it is out of the
user’s eye) in providing the services.
See the whole – no product is merely
a sum of its parts; rather, the relationship
between these parts is crucial as well as
how they function together. For instance,
a product as a whole can function below
its optimal level even if a lot of attention
was given to the optimization of each of its
individual components.
Given the proven value of a global
company like Toyota, many will question
whether Lean can be used in combination
with Scrum and XP. The picture on the previous page illustrates the domains of each
of these three methodologies, which in
some way provides an affirmative answer.
Popularity
Scrum is an unrivaled number one in the
world of agile methodologies. The research
study The State of Agile Development,
which is undergone by the company
VersionOne in the second half of each year,
showed in 2010 that pure Scrum is used in
58% of cases (picture on page 9).
Besides this, Scrum is quite often used
in combination with Extreme Programming
(XP). Since each of these two methodologies places emphasis on a different domain
in software development (Scrum is more
oriented on project management while XP
is oriented toward development tasks), they
are in some way complementary and can
be used together. This is similar with the
Scrumban methodology as well, which combines Scrum with Kanban and is suitable
for maintenance projects where tasks are
unexpectedly repeated (for instance, in the
event of a programming or system error).
However, one must be careful with
these percentages. Namely, even if this
is a rather comprehensive research study
which involved nearly 5,000 participants
worldwide, these individuals assessed
themselves, in fact. Thus, it is quite
common that someone claims to use
Scrum, but in the end it is revealed that
this individual actually used either a very
narrow set of Scrum ideas or a set of ideas
that this person wrongly considered Scrum.
Consequently, the so-called Nokia test,
which can verify how much a team actually
uses Scrum, was devised over time.
The same study inquired about the
most commonly used agile techniques.
Here, one can see a little bit from everything, while the amount of representation of techniques that are connected to
XP is especially interesting: Unit Testing,
Continuous Integration, Automated Builds,
Test Driven Development, etc.
What is next?
It is rather difficult to determine the extent
to which agile methodologies are really
accepted. The estimates begin with the
most conservative 15% or less, where the
waterfall methodology is still believed to
be dominant. Somewhat more optimistic estimates speak of 35% (Forrester,
2009), where a large proportion is held by
generally called ‘’iterative methods’’, while
the waterfall is rather poorly represented.
The most optimistic estimates speak of a
representation that is over 60%, but they
come from the camp of the foremost advocates of agile methodologies and should
thus be taken with reserve.
Some of the largest world companies
embraced agile. For instance, in 2007 IBM
published information about 25% of internal software projects that are developed
using some form of agile methodologies. A
shift in IBM from the classic waterfall model
was also evident in the new methodology
that emerged from there – Disciplined Agile
Delivery. This method came from Scott W.
Ambler, Chief Methodologist for Agile and
Lean at IBM Rational, and it is basically
an upgrade to Scrum, introducing phases,
project initiation, and activities related to
issuing the product, etc. Scrum undoubtedly
branched into a dominant methodology,
even if the other agile methodologies bring
certain values. It is certain that agile methodologies are here to stay.
10 | FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012
Is RUP an agile methodology?
RUP (Rational Unified Process) has a long and successful
history of its use in the world of development projects,
but an equally long history of misunderstandings and
wrong ways of use which has a closer resemblance to the
traditional waterfall approach. The blame here lies less in
the actual methodology and more with the people that
apply the methodology. RUP is actually a process, rather
methodological framework, of numerous good methodology practices, patterns, behavior rules published in
the form of a huge knowledge database under the name
RMC – Rational Method Composer. RMC is a huge box
filled with artifacts from which those artifacts that are
applicable for concrete situations using RUP should be
chosen, customized to that concrete situation and then
adhere to the rules that were by the choice and customization created this way. This is where problems appear.
Despite it being modular and customizable, RUP has
strict rules. These rules are formulated into phases and
iterations, documents and activities that are prescribed by
RUP. At the moment when the development teams face
these, they begin to (sub)consciously avoid RUP’s good
sides because they are under the impression that RUP is
‘’difficult’’, that it demands the production of hundreds
of pages of documentation and drawing large numbers
of strange diagrams. These are not the central and most
important ideas of RUP. The most important idea that
RUP presents is simple: with the consistent use of RUP
rules we remove risks from the very first moments of
the project (inception), build architecture prototypes as
soon as enough information about the project is acquired
(elaboration), and based on these we determine where
to go and what to do next; through numerous short
iterations we produce new application/product versions
so that each iteration gives a result that functionally
agrees with the requests at the beginning of iteration,
which can be demonstrated to stakeholders (construction), and at the end, an application/product is prepared
for production through complete user testing, refining
documentation, user training and, finally, putting it into
operation in the production infrastructure (transition).
Throughout the entire project duration, we are adjusting
to changes (because we have short iterations and we
see results quickly) and we involve stakeholders in the
development process so that we have information and
an understanding on time. If we, in the execution of
the RUP methodology, additionally add technological
and organizational practices that in no way contradict
RUP – practices like TDD (test driven development), CI
(continuous integration) following the success in the
realization of project tasks supported by Scrum board or
daily, short status meetings by an entire team - we get
a clearer picture which illustrates that RUP can, when
applied in such a way, be a quality agile methodology. A
prerequisite for this is that people change the way they
think about the development process from a traditional
way to an agile way and they understand that they have
to adjust – regardless of whether the methodology is
called RUP or something else.
IBM Rational Disciplined Agile Delivery | technologies and trends
We present
IBM Rational
Disciplined Agile
Delivery
The use of agile methodologies during development of
programming products is not news to us. More and more
organizations worldwide are deciding to introduce agile
principles into their work. Scrum (a method you can read
more about in this issue) stands out amongst numerous other
methodologies and is probably the most popular and widespread
agile method used today. However, this kind of methodology
has its drawbacks and areas for improvement; thus, bringing
Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) onto the scene.
D
uring agile’s 10-year movement, many methodologies,
techniques, and practices have
surfaced which help organizations and development teams around
the world to ensure timely quality
delivery within defined budgets. Scrum
is absolutely the leader with regard to
methodologies. It is widely accepted and
has clear although strict rules, as well as
a long tradition and history of successful
implementation. However, it has been
noticed that numerous organizations lack
one crucial setting which is not a part of
Scrum, and these are the explicit phases
(we could say seasons) during the life cycle of a project. Scott Ambler, IBM’s Chief
Agile Methodologist, drew this conclusion
Author:
Mihael Sedmak
(our interview with Scott Ambler will be
presented within this text). While working
with various clients, he noticed that many
of them began with implementing Scrum
as well as many other agile techniques
and principles, but in reality, they adapted
these methodologies to their teams and
to themselves while working on projects.
This customization has led to the formation of different hybrid methodologies
such as DAD.
DAD – A look from afar
DAD is an evolutionary (iterative and incremental) approach to development which is
aimed at regularly producing high quality
solutions within the defined budget and
timeframe throughout the life cycle and
also promoting early detection of problems,
risk elimination, and delivery of business
values to the user. Development according
to DAD is characterized by a high level of
DAD process through phases
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 11
technologies and trends| IBM Rational Disciplined Agile Delivery
interaction between all participants in the
process; by a self-organized and disciplined
teams within the project management
framework, and intensive cooperation
amongst all stakeholders. Together, these
factors are aimed at developing a team in
which its members (and all stakeholders)
understand and can respond to changes to
requests and circumstances (which are a
reality and occur naturally) within a project
and to maximize the business value of the
application, the product and the project.
DAD is a hybrid methodology which draws
on and combines ideas from different agile
methodologies and techniques in addition to using good ideas from the Unified
Process (UP) family of methodologies
(RUP, OpenUP). First of all, what must be
emphasized are the UP project phases,
which provide outlines of the complete life
cycle of DAD methodology, as well as the
typical Scrum sprint (in DAD referred to as
iteration) which constitutes the heart of
the DAD life cycle. In further text, we will
take a look at the DAD’s details.
What is new here?
In order to answer the question posed
in the subtitle, we must take a look at
the snapshot that shows the life cycle of
DAD methodology. At first glance, it is
clear that according to DAD, development
begins with the Inception phase which we
are familiar with in RUP. That phase serves
to prepare the project, organize the project
team, initial business modeling, and
creating a vision for the system’s architecture - all of this through several short
iterations which result in the initial list
of desired functionalities. The Inception
phase penetrates the project’s cooperative
spirit foundation, creates communication
channels between stakeholders and development team and through this decreases
initial project risks.
The initial list of functionalities which
have already been mentioned is the basis
for further work and planning of the first
‘’real’’ iteration and it is necessary for
stakeholders to reach a consensus about
the mentioned functionalities and priorities of their implementation. Reaching
a consensus is the key moment which
marks the beginning of the construction
phase, with respect to several short iterations during which confirmation of initial
architecture vision is looked for through
implementation of key functionalities
(those with greatest priority) and presentation of results to the stakeholders.
The confirmed architecture is a starting
point for the continuation of the construction phase during which the development
team produces new functionalities (from
and into iterations) through numerous
iterations (which can be longer than the
initial ones and until the suggested one
month timeframe) and presents them to
stakeholders. Each iteration begins with
reviewing and defining related details at
the most critical moment of functionality as well as selecting functionalities for
implementation by the development team
side, and finishing with a demonstration
of implemented functionalities. Those
kinds of steps are typical for Scrum iteration (sprint) and we will not give their detailed descriptions (however, at the end of
this article, you can find information that
will help expand your knowledge of agile
methodologies in DAD) – it is important
to point out that DAD has embraced this
effective practice because it fits into the
philosophy of maximum communication
within a project team.
After construction (the part of DAD
is clearly the most similar to the Scrum
process), the typical UP transition follows
with several shorter iterations during which implemented functionalities
prepare for production, are put into a test
phase or, for instance, are tested from the
user. What follows is the production phase
of the application, which is worth noting
because development teams are often
unaware that the production work results
in errors logging that occurs while working
or that it results in requests for new functionalities. The existence of the explicit
phase demonstrates the need for planning
the already mentioned instances in the
wider plan of application/product development or in planning of new projects.
Through combining project phases that
are common in the UP family of methodologies and typical Scrum iterations, DAD
uses good ideas from other methodologies
such as Agile Modeling methodology, Agile
Data methodology and a good practices
incorporated under the name Extreme
Programming (CI – continuous integration,
TDD – test driven development). As you
12 | FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012
can see, with this rather complex combination, DAD provides some of its own ideas
which are new and which are characterized
by additional quality of the methodology. Namely, this refers to solutions for
typical problems caused by the use of agile
development like distributed teams, large
teams, exceptionally complex business
domains, technically complex systems and
other similar issues. DAD deals with these
issues as factors of scaling agile development and there are variants of DAD that
address these factors.
The agile story continued
Given all of the information we have covered, it is without question that DAD is a
complex methodology that can and must
adjust to the current needs of a project
and its team. However, one of DAD’s
advantages is the fact that it evolved from
experience and it is already adjusted to
reality and typical situations. Based on
what we have said thus far, it is clear that
much more can be written about DAD.
Whilst our limited space prevents us from
sharing more with you about DAD, we will
provide you with a list of interesting links
(some of which have been mentioned
in the interview) with the hope that you
will find some useful information that
will encourage you to implement agile
principles using DAD. To start, take a look
at www.scrum.org for more information
on Scrum and http://xprogramming.
com/index.php for more information on
XP usage and then engage in research of
DAD (along with DAD’s related methodologies) on https://www.ibm.com/
developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/
ambler/?lang=en_us. Several CROZ teams
have begun researching and utilizing agile
practices based on DAD methodology
in their projects. To date, the results are
interesting – not only in the context of the
problem we were faced with (and successfully resolved) but also in the context of
a new way of looking at the development
process provided by DAD. Together with
our enthusiasm about using DAD, we are
always keen on sharing our experiences
with agile projects in order to help you to
apply agile principles to your projects. Do
not hesitate to ask your favorite CROZ
partner or the author of this article for
advice – you will not go wrong.
IBM Rational Disciplined Agile Delivery | technologies and trends
Interview with Scott Ambler
and I’ve done a fair bit of work helping people
understand the implications of scaling agile in my
work with the Agile Scaling Model (ASM) (ftp://ftp.
software.ibm.com/common/ssi/sa/wh/n/raw14204usen/
RAW14204USEN.PDF)
IBM Rational,
Scott W. Ambler
(Chief Methodologist for Agile/Lean)
For starters, could you introduce yourself to our
readers in your own words?
My name is Scott Ambler, I’m the Chief
Methodologist for Agile and Lean at IBM Rational.
My job is to help organizations around the world to
understand, and hopefully adopt effectively, agile/
lean strategies at scale. I’m also the person behind
the Agile Modeling, Agile Data, and Disciplined Agile
Delivery (DAD) methods. My Agility@Scale blog is
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/
blogs/ambler/?lang=en_us.
Agile practices and methodologies have a
growing support amongst our customers and
also in CROZ internally. This support ranges
between full blown Agile adoption with excellent feedback from all those involved to “only”
implementing TDD, CI and daily stand-ups in
the development process. However, we have
found that there are typical pain points to
adopting agile – the biggest one being lack of
understanding of the product owner role and
responsibilities. What do you believe to be the
biggest challenges when adopting agile and
what did you encounter most when helping
customers implement agile?
The primary challenges prove to be people
oriented, typically cultural. Are you willing to work
together? Are you willing to share information? Are
you willing to share success? And failure? Adopting
the technical practices is quite easy. Having said that,
when adopting agile you need to focus on what I call
the 5Ps (https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/
mydeveloperworks/blogs/ambler/entry/5pofit)
– People, philosophies, practices, products, and
processes. I’ve listed them in priority order, although
you will need to address all five if you want to be
successful.
Many organizations also struggle with adopting
agile approaches at scale. This is often my focus,
We found that there are a lot of benefits in
adopting agile even when you start small
(adopting TDD, CI, self organizing teams)
– people get a sense of responsibility and
ownership over tasks and functionalities and
a fast turnaround and feedback on what they
have implemented. What would you say to be
the biggest benefits of agile adoption?
One of the things that I do is run IT industry surveys (http://www.ambysoft.com/surveys/) so that I
can determine what is actually happening in industry
as opposed to some of the rhetoric that gets thrown
around. In the 2008 IT Project Success Survey (http://
www.ambysoft.com/surveys/success2008.html) we
found that agile approaches had statistically higher
success rates than traditional approaches. They also
produced better return on investment (ROI), better
time to market, better stakeholder satisfaction, and
higher levels of quality on average. Those seem to be
pretty good benefits to me.
In our experience, we found agile practices
and methodologies to work best in banking IT
projects (banking IT seems to be most receptive for such ideas). From your point of view,
what environments (or better yet, what kind of
environments) will agile be most successful in?
I’ve seen agile approaches applied successfully
in all sectors, including government, manufacturing,
retail, telecommunications, and even aerospace. The
surveys also show successful agile adoption across all
sectors. As I said, the real challenge with agile adoption is around people and culture, not industry sector.
Now, a question or two about Disciplined Agile
Delivery, the youngest among agile methodologies. What was the motivation behind the
creation of DAD? Was there any or is DAD a
new natural step in the agile methodologies
evolution?
We created DAD based on what we’ve observed
work in practice. I get to visit dozens of organizations
every year and see what they’re doing, and many of
them were doing something very similar to DAD. DAD
is a hybrid process framework which focuses on the
full delivery lifecycle, is people focused, enterprise
aware, and goal oriented. Time and again I’ve seen
organizations claiming to be doing Scrum, only to
find out that they’re also doing some practices from
XP, some from Agile Modeling, some from Unified
Process (UP), and many more. Yet they’ll often
claim that they’re just doing Scrum, not realizing
that Scrum was only a very small portion of their
overall effort. Sadly, these organizations had spent
a lot of time and effort figuring all this stuff out, so
one goal of DAD is to help eliminate some of this
waste and get teams started with agile a bit faster.
Also, DAD provides an important foundation for
scaling agile development, something that the ASM
makes clear. You can read more about DAD in my
blog and in an IBM whitepaper from March 2011.
DAD resembles RUP (actually the Unified
Process family of methodologies) in the
inception and transition phases as well as
Scrum in the construction phase. Would organizations that already implement RUP and
have been doing projects according to RUP
for a few years find it easier to make the agile
transition by using DAD practices? Is a “clean
slate” approach better?
The UP was one of several sources of ideas
for DAD, as I indicated earlier. It includes explicit
phases as that reflects what agile teams actually
do in practice. Instead of counting backwards in
Scrum and adding a “Sprint 0” to initiate the project
and one or more “hardening sprints” to release
the system into production, DAD includes explicit
phases to take the guess work out of the process.
We find that organizations like this increased level
of explicitness.
What are your current experiences with DAD
adoption?
It’s hard to say as this is the early stages. Like I
said, many organizations have done things that are
similar to DAD in their effort to develop their own
methods. Also, the book isn’t finished yet which
is when methods tend to take off. Luckily there is
training available if you want it in the form of IBM’s
Advanced Disciplined Agile Delivery workshop
(http://www-304.ibm.com/jct03001c/services/
learning/ites.wss/us/en?pageType=course_
description&courseCode=RP252).
What is, in your opinion, the future of Agile
and the future of Disciplined Agile Delivery?
Agile is definitely here to stay. My hope is that
Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) takes off. Time
will tell.
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 13
technologies and trends | How to Reconcile Business and IT?
Author: Davor Čengija
Enterprise Architecture
The role of IT in everyday business has for a long time been irreplaceable; however, the complexity
of connections between these two units presents obstacles. Enterprise Architecture aims to align
IT with the business life cycle, while at the same time using it for improving business.
What is Enterprise Architecture?
It is not difficult to imagine a scenario in
which IT Director of a seemingly serious
telecommunications company is pulling
out his hair, that is, if he even has any
left, because an implementation project
has just been launched; for instance,
let’s consider a new billing system. The
decision was made without his influence
– because it is in the business domain –
and he is responsible for implementation.
How this project will be implemented and
what effect it will have on the rest of the
infrastructure is not on the daily agenda
of the business strategy sector which began the entire initiative. On one hand, this
manner is understandable and business
challenges must be reacted to quickly
and decisively. The problem involves
insufficient communication between the
business and technical sectors. Enterprise
Architecture is missing.
Enterprise Architecture (EA) is an idea
that began surfacing in the late 1980s;
however, still today it lacks a clear definition and boundaries. You can read about
how similar these different definitions
actually are in the separate text box, but
we can say that the EA discipline in one
which seeks to reconcile the business
strategy, key processes in an organization
and technology by connecting them into a
harmonious unit while at the same time
enabling their work without interference and prompting continued business
development.
Business, processes and people
Accepting Enterprise Architecture
requests, in the first line, organizational
changes, and not only establishing a department for EA but also for appropriately
connecting business sectors, through
EA, and informatics. It can be logically
concluded that implementing EA is, in any
case, not an easy task and that it requires
serious consideration, development and
quality implementation.
Enterprise Architecture in relation to the concrete implemented systems architectures (Source: Wikipedia)
14 | FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012
How to Reconcile Business and IT? | technologies and trends
Despite that EA can be accepted and
implemented by exclusively using one’s
own efforts, experience and knowledge,
there is a presumption that we are not
the first ones to go the EA way and that
advice, best practices and other materials
from that domain already exist, or rather,
that Enterprise frameworks which lead
through the implementation process exist
and are followed by maintenance, or in
other words, retention of EA. As with the
definitions, several EA frameworks have
been accepted in the industry. The most
popular is surely TOGAF, which is described in more detail in the separate text
box on the following page.
If nothing more than for historical
purposes, Zachman’s Framework for EA
should be mentioned. Namely, in 1987
John A. Zachman published an article in
IBM Systems Journal titled ’’A Framework
for Information Systems Architecture’’
in which he laid out the foundation for
Enterprise Architecture as we see it
today - which is an all-encompassing
bond between business and technology.
Although Zachman’s Framework is, in
principle, more or less a taxonomy for
organizing architecture artifacts (documents, specifications and models) which
takes into account for whom the specific
artifact is intended (for instance, owner of
the business process) and which problem
is covered, and it can serve as a sort of
a list of all of the things that should be
considered for EA development.
FEA (Federal Enterprise Architecture) is
also worth noting, which was an attempt
to organize all government agencies,
ministries and similar organizations in
the U.S.A. in the same way. There are
five reference models which are held by
the FEA: business, service, component,
technical and data reference model, and
within these frames they attempt to
create a balance and enable a sustainable
development. It will be interesting to see
how much it will succeed in this.
Expected profit
The ways that information technology is
applied in the business develops. Those
days when IT presented us with more
expenses than actual use are behind us.
Today, IT is regarded as support in everyday
work, which is not quite so bad, however, it
still does not use the greatest technology
potential. The aim is to achieve a synergy
of business with IT so that it can become
the driving force of business. This goal can
only be achieved if business and technology fully understand and permeate one
another, which is precisely where Enterprise
Architecture finds itself.
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 15
technologies and trends | How to Reconcile Business and IT?
Definition of Enterprise Architecture
It can be expected that a complex unit like
Enterprise Architecture is looked at in a different
way depending on the observer’s perspective,
but regardless of this it is surprising how many
Enterprise Architecture definitions exist, each
which makes sense it its own way. Several of these
interesting definitions follow; however, they do not
have to be learned by heart 
The ArchiMate Foundation: “A
coherent whole of principles, methods, and models
that are used in the design and realization of an
enterprise’s organizational structure, business
processes, information systems, and infrastructure.”
(http://archimate.nl/en/about_archimate/)
Gartner Group: “Enterprise Architecture
(EA) is the process of translating business vision
and strategy into effective enterprise change by
creating, communicating, and improving the key
principles and models that describe the enterprise’s
future state and enable its evolution.”
ANSI/IEEE Std 1471-2000: “The
fundamental organization of a system, embodied
in its components, their relationships to each other
and the environment, and the principles governing
its design and evolution.” (http://standards.ieee.
org/findstds/standard/1471-2000.html)
Cap Gemini: “Enterprise Architecture is
the description and visualization of the structure
of a given area of contemplation, its elements
and their collaborations and interrelations links
vision, strategy and feasibility, focusing on usability
durability and effectiveness. Architecture enables
construction, defining principles, rules, standards
and guidelines, expressing and communicating a
vision.”
Forrester, Gene Leganza, 2001:
“Enterprise Architecture consists of the vision, principles and standards that guide the purchase and
deployment of technology within an enterprise.”
Gartner Group, Philip Allega: “Enterprise Architecture is the process that interweaves
business and IT together.”
Institute for Enterprise Architecture Development: “Enterprise Architecture is about understanding all of the different
elements that go to make up the enterprise and
how those elements interrelate.” (http://www.
enterprise-architecture.info)
MIT Center for Information
Systems Research: “Enterprise Architecture
is the organizing logic for key business processes
and IT capabilities reflecting the integration and
standardization requirements of the firm’s operating model.” (http://mitsloan.mit.edu/cisr)
Based on a very limited number of subjects,
the closest to the truth are Gartner and ArchiMate,
which are organizationally quite similar to The
Open Group. Everyone agrees on one thing: EA
represents a link between business requirements
and technical implementation, which is the mutual
satisfaction of both sides.
(Source: http://www.ariscommunity.com)
TOGAF – The Open Group Architecture Framework
TOGAF is likely the most popular, if not also
the most widely used EA framework, or rather
architectural framework, which emerged under
the auspices of the organization The Open Group
(TOG). It was developed based on TAFIM (Technical
Architecture Framework for Information Management), which the American Ministry of Defense
publicly released, precisely to TOG, in 1995 as a
base for the entire EA life cycle.
TOGAF, in its current version 9, is based on four
core units – architectural domains:
• Business architecture, in which business strategy,
management, organization and key business processes in the organization/company are defined.
• Applications architecture, in which basic
guidelines and outlines that should be followed
in application systems, their relationships and
connections are defined.
TOGAF ADM
APIS IT,
Dubravko Šamec
(Information
Systems Architect)
How does APIS IT look at EA within its everyday
work?
APIS IT is a so-called multi-enterprise system, which
assumes the use of concepts, ideas that are closely related
to Enterprise Architecture. Despite that there is no formal
‘’department for EA’’, there is a formal team. The need for
systematic access to technology and business has been
recognized, and use of EA principles has already begun in
some systems. In the beginning, we mainly focused on
technical aspects of system implementation according to
EA principles, but later we expanded also to the business
dimension. These experiences are being applied in parallel
to other systems, from infrastructure unification to using
common elements for the implementation.
16 | FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012
What are the advantages of EA from the perspective of APIS?
For the implementation of EA, it is crucial for management to have an interest in improving business,
thus, end services that we offer, which are recognized
by us, and management provides support for the development of IT infrastructure based on EA principles
and best practices. By introducing EA, we expect an
improvement in managing resources, knowledge,
infrastructure, project plans, primarily through
defining and use of standard forms of ‘’behaviour’’, i.e.
designing of projects.
Which EA framework is most closely related to
APIS’s approach to EA?
It is difficult for me to answer this question
because until now we have not used a single formal
EA methodology. Our methods of thinking are in the
direction of TOGAF for many reasons. TOGAF evolved
based on IT architecture and is thus close to a wider
variety of people in APIS IT. This methodology is easily
accessible (it does not require additional investment),
and it is present in this region.
How to Reconcile Business and IT? | technologies and trends
Tax
Administration
– Central Office,
Sector for
Information
Systems
• Data architecture, in which logical and physical
data structures in the organization are defined, as
well as their procedures and data management
techniques.
• Technical/technological architecture, in which
hardware, software, and network infrastructure
needed for the implementation of key applications, without interference, are defined.
The development of the architectural domain is
clear and pictured and helps in understanding the entire
relationship between business and technology, which
brings us to the part of TOGAF that is likely the most
widely used: ADM (Architecture Development Method).
Although TOG praises itself on the fact that TOGAF
is an all-encompassing framework for EA, it should
thank ADM for its wide acceptance. People like the
processes and ADM is precisely that: an iterative and
cyclical process of defining Enterprise Architecture, from
an architectural vision, across business, system and
technological architecture, to managing of changes in
EA. Each of the eight steps is subsequently worked out
into smaller steps, which, when superficially presented,
represent the cookbook for implementing EA. It should
be noted, however, that the deliveries are in that context, rather documents that describe the selected unit in
sufficient detail. Furthermore, ADM does not prescribe
anything; instead, it suggests units and their order.
The third unit in TOGAF is Enterprise Continuum,
rather, a virtual repository of all architectural artifacts
in the organization. Under artifacts in this context, we
Vlasta Marinović
(Head of Department)
Enterprise Continuum
are referring to architectural models, forms, best
practices, and all of the other elements that define
Enterprise Architecture in the organization.
Despite good elaboration, TOGAF is a very
complex architectural framework: the TOGAF 9
Edition book has 778 pages and reading it in its
entirety is quite a feat. Nonetheless, the amount
of material that is available on TOGAF probably
exceeds the amount of material available for all
other frameworks put together, de facto making it
a standard for EA.
IBM Rational System Architect – a tool for EA
With the Telelogica merger in 2008, System Architect, which is likely the best tool for Enterprise Architecture,
found its way into IBM’s portfolio of tools. Even though using this tool alone cannot ensure substantial gain in
introducing EA, System Architect is without a doubt an excellent support tool. Built as an entire environment
with the support of numerous EA frameworks, including TOGAF, Zachman, and FEA, amongst others, System
Architect will carry on and provide
support for BPMN, also including the
ability to simulate processes, UML,
modeling network architecture,
service orientated architecture,
object-related mapping and other
concepts and technologies – the list
of functionalities is surely impressive. This kind of tool, despite its
complexity, can significantly help in
accepting Enterprise Architecture by
guiding architects and keeping them
focused on concrete problems and
an order for resolving them.
Given the line of work of the Tax Administration, IT
is a key element. How do you see the role of EA in
continued work expansion and widening of the Tax
Administration’s business scope?
IT is a strategic factor in business, while the Tax Administration attempts to develop the system in that direction, in
terms of the limited capacities it is dealt with. Business goals,
which evolved from the company’s business strategy, need to
have a direct effect on defining IT goals, which subsequently
leads to an influence on the IT system’s architecture – the Tax
Administration does not need to be an exception here. I see EA
primarily as a methodology whose use in large organizations
can greatly simplify the harmonization of complex (read:
expensive) IT systems with business needs.
What gains from EA do you see as key for an organization like the Tax Administration?
The Tax Administration has an information system that is
maintained and developed to a great extent by one of its strategic
partners, but also by numerous other IT service providers. Preventing the system from becoming so complex that it is too expensive
to maintain is the key. Besides this, we have an obligation to
enable quick system adjustments in response to changes needed
for doing business. Expenses related to IT, and those related
to the business of the organization which is increasingly more
reliant on the information system, demands a framework for the
development of the information system. EA can help with regard
to establishing a suitable development framework.
Which EA approach is optimal for an organization like
the Tax Administration?
When deciding upon implementation of methodologies
related to IT, whether with regard to project management,
service management or the EA area, the maturity of the
organization in which the methodology would be applied
must be taken into consideration. Selection of the EA
methodology that is most commonly used in the environment
has its advantages with regard to development and in-house
use of the methodology, mainly because of a high level of
outsourcing by the Tax Administration. Generally, we leave
EA methodology (for instance, Zachman Framework, TOGAF,
FEA, and Gartner Methodology) and reconsideration of the EA
related approach in the Tax Administration to a theory level
for now. Nonetheless, I anticipate that the initiative that will
deal with this area will be achieved in the near future, and
following this, a step forward from the area of theory towards
the practical application of EA at the Tax Administration.
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 17
technologies and trends | How to Reconcile Business and IT?
T-HT,
Marija Šoša (Director of the Office for Information System Planning and Architecture)
Boris Paljak (Enterprise Architect)
When addressing Enterprise Architecture, connecting the business and
technology domains is always mentioned. How did T-HT used EA in this
context?
EA is undoubtedly a support tool for aligning the business and IT strategy, and we
increase the level of communication within the company. Most of our applications essentially manipulate with some data, whether its data about users, services that we offer,
their usage, etc., while at the same time business-related data appear in various different
applications. Examining the entire IT infrastructure, from the perspective of implemented
systems, presents a problem because, ultimately, which applications are doing the work
is irrelevant as long as the job is completed quickly, correctly, and on time.
Here, we decided to reverse our IT approach: using EA principles, we recognized
functionalities that we are implementing, for instance, management of user data,
and we found business owners for those recognized units who are responsible for
correctness of the business functionalities, its supplements, and upgrades according to
the business strategy.
The next step was mapping business functionalities on for technical elements,
in other words, systems and applications, which are entirely in the IT domain. At the
same time, we recognized implemented technical elements many times which we are
now consolidating.
Using this kind of approach, we were able to get the business sector to think
in terms of business needs, for instance, ‘’A supplement to the CRM functionality
is needed,’’ rather than ‘’We are requesting upgrade of application X’’, which makes
implementation, planning and migration of the application easier for us.
How do you see EA’s role in telecom given this type of industry which is
quite active and dynamic?
The EA process in the telecom industry is crucial because of a large number
and the complexity of business processes and their constant external influences
(changes) on the business strategy. The role of IT is to provide support to business
processes. In this regard, the question ‘’How?’’ is always posed. Precisely the use of
EA methodology and reference architectures offers the answer and surely leads in
the desired direction without wandering and experimentation. EA – thus, planning
- ensures the best long-term solutions for building a modern IT landscape.
18 | FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012
How does T-HT position itself toward EA, especially from the perspective
of expanding its services in telecom?
T-HT recognized the value of IT planning at the Enterprise level. Carefully selected
and connected systems can, with their flexibility, respond to quick and frequent
changes in business decision-making and implementation of new products and
technologies. Close cooperation between the IT and business sectors is certainly
necessary, as are the previously mentioned and agreed upon inter-domain processes
(so-called E2E). The EA function, like EA Governance, is established.
Which EA framework are you implementing and what are the key reasons
for your selection? How do some professional organizations, but primarily
we are thinking of the TMForum, influence EA acceptance in the industry?
There are many EA frameworks. For every level of architecture, at least one
must be selected.
T-HT uses:
· Business architecture: eTOM - Enhanced Telecom Operations Map (TMForum)
· Logical architecture:
º Functional level: GDM – Group Domain Model (DTAG), NGSSM - Next Generation Service and System Management (DTAG), NGSRL - Next Generation Service & Resource Lifecycle (DTAG),
º Data level: GDM (DTAG) i SID - TM Forum Information Framework (TMForum)
· Application architecture: TAM - Telecom Applications Map (TMForum)
· Technological architecture: TNA - Technology Neutral Architecture (TMForum)
· Supplemental: Development of architecture solutions (Target architecture):
ADM – Architecture Development Method (TOGAF)
Some frameworks are used in everyday work (GDM, eTOM, ADM), some we
use on an as-needed basis (SID, TAM, TNA), and some are just now being applied
(NGSSM, NGSRL).
A key reason for our selection is experience and a recommendation of Deutsche
Telekom AG (DTAG-a).
IBM BPM | technologies and trends
Author: Aleksander Radovan
Business Process
Management at IBM’s Way
The dynamics of the business scene requires from every organization readiness for all possible
challenges. Use of Business Process Management solution enables organizations to have direct control
of business processes. Examine what kind of aces IBM has at its disposal in this field.
B
usiness processes are
the foundation of every
organization and they
represent all the activities that
unfold in them. The processes can be
quite complex (for instance, production
of computer hardware components) or
simple (for instance, parking payment),
but their main feature is the need for
repetition of the same sequence of
operations or events. The automatized
process enables consistency with regard
to making decisions that are aligned
with the organization’s goals, which
provides maximum profit with minimal
costs.
Business Process Management
(hereinafter referred to as BPM) helps
users to define and manage processes in
order for them to achieve their desired
Unifying IBM products into IBM BPM brand
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 19
technologies and trends | IBM BPM
goals more quickly and easily. Using
BPM enables faster and better decisionmaking and proactively improves
the very processes that contribute to
even better business results for the
organization.
How do we begin with BPM?
At the beginning, it is necessary to
evaluate the needs of the organization
and examine its strategy and main
business goals in order to capture the
processes within it. Those processes
whose changes will result in the
greatest return of investment, so-called
low-hanging fruits, should have the
highest priority at the start of BPM’s
implementation. These are usually
processes that cause the greatest
problems and whose optimization
will result in the most concrete
improvements. Following selection
of these kinds of processes, it is
necessary to find out in which segment
improvements can be achieved as well
as selecting the means for achieving
this. Key performance indicators (KPI)
can be defined for each process by
which it is possible to measure the
Business Process Management (hereinafter referred to
as BPM) helps users to define and manage processes
in order for them to achieve
their desired goals more quickly and easily. Using BPM
enables faster and better
decision-making and proactively improves the very
processes that contribute to
even better business results
for the organization.
efficiency of implementation of some
of these operations and events within
the process. Besides this, iterative
improvement of the very process is
made possible in the event that there is
still room left for improvement.
For instance, an organization which
approves credits to its customers
Process Designer display interface
20 | FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012
can encounter problems with certain
business processes if the interest for
a service rapidly increases. In time of
very unstable currencies, if there is an
unexpected increase in the number
of customers’ requests to change the
currency (by reprogramming) of the
credit, problems may occur in regards
to time required to process these
requests. These problems can result in
an overload in the credit department
as well as customer dissatisfaction
due to slow processing. With the help
of a well-defined KPI, it is possible to
quickly determine the ‘’bottleneck’’ of
the process that is causing the delay for
processing the requests (which results
in slower collection of credit processing
fees) and determine the measures for
resolving this problem. The measures
can relate to an increase in the number
of employees in the credit department
or they can involve simplifying the
credit reprogramming process, which
would result in an improvement of
that department’s efficiency. Following
this, with additional measurements
using various KPIs it is possible with
additional iterations to achieve even
IBM BPM | technologies and trends
‘’Inbox’’ with tasks
greater efficiency in performing certain
operations within the process, if the
need arises.
One product: IBM BPM
In 2011, the company IBM decided to
unify various solutions in the field
of BPM into a new product. From
WebSphere Process Server, WebSphere
Lombardi Edition and IBM Case
Manager/FileNet BPM, the ‘’best’’ was
taken and used in one unified product
called IBM Business Process Manager.
This new product has been expanded
using a module called Process Designer,
which enables a modeling and process
debugging, a snapshot management
process, adding external resources (like
‘’external’’ Java classes that define
services included in the very process),
connecting with external web services,
implementation of a graphical interface
(display) and data models that are used
The IBM BPM Standard edition is most similar to
WebSphere Lombardi Edition BPMS and it maximally
simplifies the migration of Lombardi users to that
edition of IBM BPM.
Why is PBZ implementing the BPM solution?
Currently, there are many great tools for
managing business processes on the market, and
clearly prerequisites have been established to take full
advantage of this potential.
As a result, a PoC for covering the evaluation of
the BPM solution is underway. PoC covers evaluations
of several BPM platforms, including IBM WebSphere
Lombardi Edition, amongst others.
The evaluation should indicate which platform is
acceptable and applicable for certain business processes.
PBZ,
Ilica Brnadić
(Director of the Directorate for the
Application of Distributive Channels in the
Sector for Application Support)
in the process, etc. The current version
of the IBM Business Process Manager
product is v7.5, which is available in
three editions: Express, Standard and
an Advanced Edition. The Express
edition includes a full functionality of
Process Designer, and it is optimized for
simpler environments with one server
What are the key reasons for your decision to
implement the IBM BPM system?
The main reasons we decided to head in the
direction of implementing BPM (Business Process
Management) are:
– Orientation toward our clients and their needs.
Ultimately, BPM brings back the focus on what is
essential in every job – the job itself
– A continuous need for improving the effectiveness
of the business processes, and the above-mentioned BPM tools provide sufficient support for
the automatization of activities, which includes
people and application systems
– A need for integration of the existing applications
developed in-house into complex applications, rather
than uncontrolled development from the beginning
– Processing of business events in real time through
management consoles as well as earlier detection
of problems in processes
– Measuring the KPI of processes, especially for
sensitive processes of great value
– More agile process of development because it
decreases much of the manual work and wasted effort
In which areas of business do you intend to
implement the IBM BPM solution?
Implementation is carried out through a typical example
in the banking business which is credit process management.
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 21
technologies and trends | IBM BPM
(it does not support clustering), thus
it is not intended for use in missioncritical applications. The IBM BPM
Standard edition is most similar to
WebSphere Lombardi Edition BPMS and
it maximally simplifies the migration
of Lombardi users to that edition of
IBM BPM. The Advanced version comes
with an Integration Designer module
which enables an SOA (Service Oriented
Architecture) layer for orchestrating
the BPEL (Business Process Execution
Language) services and processes that
can be invoked by the BPMN (Business
Process Model and Notation) process or
that can be implemented on their own.
Designing process
When designing a process in Process
Designer it is necessary to separate
tasks into several roles in the system,
which are assigned as either human
tasks or system tasks. Human tasks are
assigned based on tasks and employees’
rights, for instance, assistants, business
managers and support. System tasks
include those steps of the process
that the system can carry out without
requiring intervention from human
resources, like verifying the calculation
of credit scoring, checking if the user
is on a ‘’black list’’, etc. Within Process
Designer, roles are defined as horizontal
‘’paths’’ called lanes. Besides that,
it is also possible to define vertical
segments, which represent individual
phases within the process that can
help to define the steps that need
to be implemented in order to finish
the specified process phase. These
can be separated, for instance, at
the initialization, data collecting,
verification of data, etc. Data is
transferred between process steps with
the support of defined variables, which
requires programming knowledge at
process implementation. However, this
is maximally simplified and adjusted
to effective development method.
Modeling the screens which constitute
the graphical interface, through which
users participate in the implementation,
is reduced to drag and drop actions. The
display screens are in the context of IBM
BPM called coaches, which is inherited
from the IBM Lombardi product named
after the famous American football
coach Vince Lombardi.
The principle of “inbox”
After the completion of implementation
phase of the process model, every user
uses their login and password to register
into the Process Portal module, where
they can view and manage their ‘’own’’
tasks. When this process reaches a
state which requires certain action from
a certain user (i.e. only the manager of
the bank’s branch can approve a credit
realization), it becomes visible in their
‘’inbox‘’, which by its design resembles
to the e-mail mailbox. Using defined
screens in the process model, the user
can carry out all of the necessary actions
and tasks in order for a process instance
from one state to be completed in
22 | FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012
the next state, until the end of the
process. Besides this, the Process
Portal offers the option of generating
different reports by which it is possible
to measure the effectiveness of a
process or individuals who participate in
the process. Reports can be generated
according to assigned parameters and
key performance indicators (KPI), and
in this way maximally customize and
accommodate various needs.
Expansion capabilities
To further facilitate the inclusion
of BPM in organizations’ business
conducting and for best practice from
experience to be used maximally,
IBM developed three additions called
Industry Packs. They include prepared
models of processes, services, data and
capabilities, and vocabulary and mutual
components for three key industries:
banking, telecommunications, and
the healthcare industry. Using these
completed models and components,
which include summaries of best
practice concepts from experience on
completed projects, it is also possible to
reduce the time needed to implement
the same models and, in advance, avoid
some of the most common problems
that can occur during implementation.
For example, in the healthcare industry
processes are prepared for introducing
new members and groups, which
are compliant with standards like
HL7, ASC X12 EDI (HIPAA) etc. In the
telecommunications industry, processes
IBM BPM | technologies and trends
and models for payment collection and
interaction with users are prepared,
based on the standards eTOM, SID and
NGOSS. Within the Industry Pack, the
banking industry has support for core
banking, payments, risk management,
and customer care, based on the
standards ISO 20022, IFW, SEPA and
NACHA.
Which criteria did you use when selecting the
BPM solution?
When preparing Enterprise Architecture in
2010, we assessed the various options while taking
into account any remaining open questions for the
targeted information architecture, where BPM was
one of the main open areas. We decided on IBM
BPM (Lombardi) after examining IBM BPM (then
Lombardi) and some competitive products after
implementing PoC – which confirmed integration
in a demanding information environment of the
Institute – due to numerous factors, most notably
because of the simplifying implementation, development and management as well as applicability
of business processes which are conceived by user
interaction.
IBM Blueworks Live
Blueworks Live represents IBM’s most
recent SaaS (Software as a Service)
solution in the area of BPM, which is
based on the cloud environment and
which offers users an easier introduction
of BPM into its organization. Using
Blueworks Live, it is possible to draw up
drafts of the processes and automatize
them, which eases the collaboration
of all process participants as well as
simplifying access to the social BPM
community, which can take part in
improving these very processes.
Versatile IBM BPM
IBM initiated a sort of new brand by
unifying multiple individual products,
whereby further strengthening the
position of BPM solutions provider.
Many companies around the world
like the telecommunication company
Mobitel from Slovenia, the health
institution Medizinische Hochschule Hannover from Germany,
Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings from
New York, which provides various
services to airline companies, and
the financial institution Wüstenrot &
Württembergische AG from Germany
– successfully implemented the IBM
BPM solution into their business.
Improvements in business were evident
quickly in terms of reduced expenses,
increased profits, and productivity
improvements and an increase in
customer service satisfaction, which
makes implementation of IBM BPM
worthwhile for a short timeframe.
Tailored for all types and sizes of
organizations, the pallet of IBM BPM
products covers most organizations’
needs and is customized for simplifying
integration with existing systems within
the organization.
ZPIZ – Pension and Disability
Insurance Institute of the
Republic of Slovenia ,
Mr. Edmond Pajk
(Director of the IT sector)
ZPIZ is in the process of updating its ICT systems.
Can you tell us something more about this?
The Pension and Disability Insurance Institute
of the Republic of Slovenia (Zavod za pokojninsko in
invalidsko zavarovanje Slovenije - ZPIZ) is conducting a comprehensive update of the ICT system, from
upgrading its infrastructure, to exchanging old business applications with new ones, along with taking
into account the SOA concepts and at the same time
updating business processes. At the beginning of
applications upgrade in ZPIZ, we did not have an
implemented Business Process Management (BPM)
system. We developed new business applications
according to our own SMIIS methodology, which
is a somewhat customized RUP. The applications
were developed in IBM Rational Business Developer
(EGL/Java), with business logic in web services on
the application server IBM WebSphere Application
Server and with portlets in the IBM WebSphere
Portal Server as a user interface. The main bus (ESB)
is implemented using IBM WebSphere Message
Broker – WMB i IBM MQ, and the database is IBM
DB2. With regard to upgrade the application, at the
first larger business process we perceived a need to
focus more on business processes rather than single
functionalities. Updating the business processes is a
prerequisite for suitable, effective upgrade of their
application support. Introducing BPM is a logical
next step for implementation and effective use of
SOA, whose strategic orientation is confirmed in
main strategic documents of the Institute from the
area of ICT.
How do you use IBM BPM (Lombardi) in ZPIZ
and what do you think are its core benefits?
After including BPM in the targeted infrastructure, we used it in the implementation of business
applications upgrade projects, including the largest
current project, UDG (our own case management
and document management system). Immediately,
we began taking advantage of its benefits which,
amongst others, enabled a high focus on a business
process and its effectiveness (establishing KPI) and
interactive collaboration between the user and IT
parts of the working project team, as much in the
Blueworks environment as later in IBM BPM (Lombardi). This resulted in less focus on the preparation
of documents and, for users, models that are often
difficult to understand, while increasing focus on
teamwork during the implementation of business
processes. Another great advantage of IBM BPM
(Lombardi) is its capability for quick preparation of
user-generated interfaces, coaches, as early as the
process planning phase. All of these advantages
provide a significant increase in speed and more
flexible development. Thus, early in development,
we can offer users the business process with
all user interfaces and user roles, which means
that they can test the process and prospective
application in a very realistic way even before the
implementation of detailed business logic started
(web services, business rules, progresses of messages on ESB...).
ZPIZ, as one of Slovenia’s few public administration institutions, has the ISO 9001 certificate, which
means that it is focused on quality management and
management of business processes. The use of BPM
when renewing business processes and business
applications provides an opportunity for increasing
the level of modeling, managing, implementing
and improving the business processes in a way that
will be completely data-supported, effective, and
customizable. BPM is a tool that can significantly
help achieve excellence in an organization.
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 23
technologies and trends | eGovernment
Central State Administrative
Office for e-Croatia,
Igor Lučić
(State Secretary)
Strategy for the
Development
of Electronic
Government two
years later
January 2011 marked two years since the
Government of the Republic of Croatia
adopted a Strategy for the Development
of e-Government, which aims to
network individual sectors into a unified
administration office. Find out more from
our interviewees first-hand about the steps
that have been made and which ones are
anticipated in this area.
T
wo years have passed since the
adoption of the Strategy, so we
asked the State Secretary of the
Central State Administrative
Office for e-Croatia, Mr. Igor Lučić, if
he could comment and give us some
information related to the implementation
of the Strategy. We also spoke with
representatives of two institutions,
CROZ’s customers, who separately, but
also through mutual cooperation, are
working on the implementation of actual
services. Mr. Zdravko Dragičević, who is
an APIS’s Board Assistant for Software
Author: Tomislav Jukić
and Hardware Support, spoke about the
infrastructural OIB project and its current and
future results. Mr. Miroslav Perinčić, Head
of the Department for e-Business Politics
Management, familiarizes us with FINA’s
plans for upgrading the process for issuing
digital certificates and other credentials
where the integration with the OIB system is
recognized as one of the key opportunities.
Our presence on the Serbian market gave
us the opportunity to speak to Mr. Damir
Baralić, Director of the State Institute for
Informatics and the Internet, who shared
with us interesting projects next door.
24 | FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012
Over 300 various project activities related to informatization, for which 4.5 billion kuna has been allocated
from the State budget in the last 5 years, are being carried
out today in State administrative offices. This kind of
investment has led to highly informationalized sectors of
administration which have enabled continued improvement of internal organizational capabilities as well as
providing electronic public services. However, despite the
high informationalization, these sectors are insufficiently
connected today.
In order to improve and enable the networking of
these individual sectors, the Government of the Republic
of Croatia adopted a Strategy for the Development of
e-Government in January 2009. The ultimate goal of this
strategy is to network the administration sectors and
building user-oriented administration offices. The networked administration office we are building represents a
different generation of electronic administration in which
political, legal, organizational, semantic and technical
interoperability are established. Along with user orientation, it provides a visible rationalization and savings
through the use of standard modular development, sharing and multiple use of information and resources at the
entire system level and through standardized networking
with other systems. Furthermore, it enables administration bodies to proactively offer ready-made solutions
to users, thus putting users in the center of their attention.
In the advanced version, the mutual system and its
components constitute a private ‘’public administration
cloud’’ of the Republic of Croatia. One of the system’s
tasks is to create conditions, support and to stimulate the
public and legal authorities to allocate their systems into
the integral system that is governed with and for which
enforcement support to stakeholders is provided in one
place. In doing so, due to various roles, content and procedures between institutions typically differ, but despite
this they should be compatible in all situations where
eGovernment | technologies and trends
In order to improve and enable the
networking of these individual sectors, the Government of the Republic
of Croatia adopted a Strategy for
the Development of e-Government
in January 2009. The ultimate goal
of this strategy is to network the
administration sectors and building
user-oriented administration offices.
Architecture of networked administration office system
Use of electronic identity in networked administration office system
System for communication and data exchange between public and legal entities
there is a mutual provision of basic services. Because
of this, imperative standardized functions and models
are built into these components. However, this does
not interfere with the basic tasks and the basic registers
which the public and legal govern in compliance with the
law and other regulations, but instead it enables their
connection to a common business and ICT infrastructure
for inter-networking. This is, in fact, an achievement of
the vision for a networked administration office in such
a way that, on one hand, every public body is given full
autonomy for carrying out its basic tasks and, on the other
hand, it supports systemized, agreed upon or contracted
delegation of all of the other activities of competent and
specialized systems.
The pictures displayed here show components of
the aforementioned public administration ‘’cloud’’, which
altogether constitute the system that enables modular
building of public services compatible with the adopted
model for pan European interoperable services. Two components are shown in a bit more detail: NIAAS, which is
a secure assumption that guarantees unambiguous determination of one’s identity and the systems that access the
common system and enables them to access services and
content; and GSB, responsible for the exchange of data,
messages, documents, and events between stakeholders
of the system through established processes and system
services. This system envisages continuous adaptation to
user needs and strategic goals of the public administration office.
In conclusion, building a networked administration
office is a long and complex process which never really
ends because it assumes continuous upgrade of the
public administration office’s processes and integration
at all levels with the goal of offering user-oriented and
customized services. Namely, by participating in the
implementation of the Digital Agenda for Europe, the
Republic of Croatia took on the responsibility of ensuring
the integration of Croatian public administration into a
single European administration space which erases the
borders between national systems and citizens are able to
use cross-border services. Because of this, the networked
administration office is one step forward towards Croatia’s
inclusion into European environment and towards an
equal participation on the single European market.
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 25
technologies and trends | eGovernment
APIS IT,
Zdravko
Dragičević
(Board Assistant
for Software and
Hardware Support)
OIB: from identifier to
the basic infrastructure
APIS IT is responsible for the technological
implementation of the OIB project. What did
this project do for us?
As a result of the OIB project, three functions
that are critical for national infrastructure of
interoperability were introduced: OIB as a personal
identifier, OIB as a register which simplifies and
speeds up the interoperable services in the public
administration office system, and OIB as a system
which serves as a starting point for creating the GBS
FINA,
Miroslav Perinčić
(Head of the
Department
for Managing
the Politics of
e-Business)
User registration and
certificate issuing
Since when has FINA been offering a service for
issuing digital certificates?
Since 2003, with a special emphasis on issuing
qualified certificates. Certificates are issued to business
individuals, employees of the State administration
bodies, citizens and for servers and applications. They
are used for authentication onto electronic services as
well as for advanced electronic signatures, which has
the same legal implications and replaces handwritten
signatures. Because of that, all subsystems must satisfy
the prescribed safety standards. Examples of these
electronic services are: e-Tax, e-Regos (Central Register
of Pension Funds Insurers), e-Healthcare, e-Pension
Insurance, e-RGFI (Annual Financial Reports), WEB Bon
(Creditworthiness and Solvency Data), the Concessions Register, and other listed electronic services are
designed for businesses where personnel act on behalf
of the business entities using these certificates. An increased interest for using electronic business conducting
building component of the Croatian Interoperability
Framework.
A personal identification number (OIB) is a permanent identifier for physical and legal persons residing
in the Republic of Croatia. The OIB represents a single
identifier for unified user data, offering a secure and
simplified data and information exchange between
public authoritative bodies and in such a way creating
an important prerequisite for integration.
The informatics job of the OIB implementation
project was establishing interoperability of relevant
government bodies based on the principles of a
networked administration.
In order to make this technologically possible, we
applied the concept of event driven architecture, as an
upgrade to SOA architecture, for building a central application infrastructure at APIS IT. The selected architecture gives added business value to processes which are
carried out within and between public administration
bodies in real time. It is a service oriented architecture
that represents an ideal solution that offers flexibility
and openness of information systems. Namely, SOA
enables all bodies that participate in the procedure to
keep their software and technology solutions and to re-
main completely independent, and in doing so allowing
mutual communication on the principle of service.
The first phase of the project was functional from
the 1st of January 2009 and enabled allowed registered bodies (The Ministry of Finance – Tax Administration, Ministry of the Interior, Ministry of Justice,
Ministry of Public Administration, the Croatian Bureau
of Statistics) to interchange information about new
individuals and change information in real time. In
this way, the goal of the project is achieved; interoperability between State administration bodies based on
the principle of networked administration offices with
the OIB as a single identifier is established.
has been evident since the beginning of 2010 and this is
reflected by an increased interest in using certificates.
issuing certificates and into the Card Management
System (CMS). Generation of keys on the smart card or
USB token is initiated for every user through CMS. CMS
then initiates a digital request for issuing a certificate
for a certain user that is directed to the system for
issuing certificates. After its creation, the certificate
is received using the smart card/USB token that is
given to the user. At the same time, the certificate is
published in the public directory. Remote renewal,
rather certificate reissuance, is possible using CMS
based on the registration of the certificate that is still
valid. This allows a certificate to be issued to the user
without having to return to the RA office.
What is the procedure for issuing certificates?
In order to issue a digital certificate, it is necessary to
comply with the prescribed procedure of user registration.
The process for issuing certificates begins with a user
request for certificate issuance. The registration, with
mandatory user identification, is carried out in registration offices (RA offices) at branches of FINA, but it can
also be done at other specified places, for instance, bank
tellers. Entering user data into the RA system is carried
out individually or through mass entry of signed and
encrypted XML files, which are sent from the external RA
to FINA through secure communication channels. The correct files are entered in the RA system and in case of errors
new processes aimed at their elimination are initiated.
After user registration in the RA system is
completed, the data is forwarded into the system for
Due to acceleration and
greater automation of
the registration process,
integration with the OIB
system is planned, which
will enable retrieval of
necessary data through
secure communication
channels.
26 | FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012
Is an upgrade of the system being carried out?
Full application of the OIB is realized throughout
the second phase of the project, which in the OIB system enables networking of everyone who is a legally
registered user of the OIB system.
As a result of its conceptual openness, the information system is ideal for upgrade to become a Government Service Bus (GBS) of the National Interoperability
System, or rather, one of the building components of
the Croatian Interoperability Framework.
Are you working on improvement of the system?
FINA is currently working on establishing a connection between the RA system and the OIB system
so that the entire process of registration and control of
entry data can be optimized. Based on the prospective user’s OIB, defined data sets needed for his or her
registration and certificate issuance will be retrieved
from the OIB system through FINA’s OIB gateway and
secure communication channels. As a result, automatic
data verification of the user and elimination of possible
errors due to manual recording of personal data from
certificate issuance requests is established.
FINA issues digital certificates on smart cards and
USB tokens using the positive experience of European
countries. We are also working on introducing new,
financially competitive credentials (i.e. software
certificates, various types of tokens...). Their security
level is somewhat lower, but nonetheless, it is acceptable for using many electronic services so users will be
provided secure access to the virtual world.
eGovernment | technologies and trends
The State
Institute for
Informatics
and Internet,
Damir Baralić
(Director)
eGovernment in Serbia
M
odern electronic government is being built
on individual IT solutions as much as on
infrastructure solutions that represent the
platform being used by all institutions and which
enables coordinated and harmonized development.
In the elapsed time, the State Institute for Informatics
and Internet worked on several electronic government
development projects.
At the end of 2008, we carried out an analysis of the
situation at ICT at local governments (municipalities) in
order to gain information about their developmental
state and which problems and needs exist in terms of
informatics. One of the projects that we did was drawing
up Recommendations for creating Internet presentations of State institutions that are rather concrete and
comprehensive and that direct State authorities how to
make quality presentations, including everything it needs
to contain from the technical side as well as content and
information availability. Government adopted a conclusion by which all State administration bodies must, within
6 months, harmonize their Internet presentations with
the Recommendations and which authorized the State
Institute to conduct audits periodically.
The central project in which we invested the most
work and effort over the last two years was improving the national eGovernment Portal. The Republic of
Serbia’s eGovernment Portal represents a central place
for electronic services for all citizens, businesses and
employees of Government administrative offices and it
is published on the website www.euprava.gov.rs. The
Portal makes communication with State institutions
and the entire public administrations simpler for
citizens in terms of more easily finding information and
relevant forms as well as simplifying requests and receipt of solutions and other documents. Namely, today
the eGovernment Portal enables certain procedures of
the public administration offices, which were until now
carried out on the counters, to be taken care of from
home, without physically going to the counter.
The eGovernment portal is a result of a project by
the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information
Society and the State Institute for Informatics and Internet as holders of this project, but also the result of the
work of many state institutions and local governments
that published their electronic services and information
related to the services that they offer citizens and businesses. Furthermore, in cooperation with the Treasury
Directorate, the Postal Savings Bank, and the Serbian
National Bank, a system that enables electronic tax
payment was also implemented. An important part of
this system is the Time Stamp Authority which is implemented and given for use to all public State institutions.
On the Portal, a functionality of electronic identification
and signature by all valid qualified electronic certificates
was also implemented. In cooperation with the
Business Registers Agency, legal entities are enabled
automatic registration on the Portal.
The services have a part that gives information
and an electronic service that has a form which can be
filled out, information about taxes which must be paid,
and the capability to electronically sign and submit a
request.
The functionality My eGovernment enables
registered users to personalize their contents and
information that they use as well as following the status
of realization of requests that they submitted using the
Portal. In this way, citizens and businesses can customize content and information to their own needs.
Currently, 93 State institutions are publishing their
services on the Portal, 35 of which are national institutions and 58 local governments.
eParticipation is a part of the Portal that enables
active participation from citizens, businesses and the
public in creating laws and other strategic documentation. On the Portal a publication of public discussions based on drawing up laws and other strategic
documentation is also enabled. In addition to that, the
Portal also has a Forum.
The Portal’s multilingualism applies to all content
and services in five languages of the national minorities. There is also an English version of the Portal with
content and services intended for foreign residents.
The eGovernment Portal represents a significant
step forward in the development of eGovernment in
Serbia. This is recognized from domestic and foreign IT
organizations; thus, the project has been given many
Currently, preparations for the realization of the
following projects within eGovernment are carried
out: Document Management System (DMS), an
Access Management system, a system for connecting
eGovernment services, eProcurement.
domestic and international awards: the European IT
Excellence Award, the ‘’E-market AWARD 2011’’ for its
contribution to the development of e-market and
e-business in the Republic of Serbia as well as a plaque
for exceptional achievement in informatics in 2011.
The Portal improvement project is underway and, at
the same time, continuous promotion and motivation
of State administration bodies to establish electronic
services in their domain on the Portal. The implementation of SMS notifications and electronic delivery of
processed requests is also planned. eScheduling, whose
implementation is underway, is a new functionality that
will enable full integration into the existing functionalities, defining a calendar, work time, intervals, breaks,
etc. providing the user with a high level of security,
preventing abuse. At the same time, this functionality
provides reminders for scheduled appointments and
communication between the users who are scheduling
them and the relevant State administration bodies.
Furthermore, we will expand the personalized part of
the Portal My eGovernment with various content which
will make the Portal more interesting and useful for its
users. Improvements also involve the implementation
of electronic documents archive which enables storage
of documents that are frequently needed. Furthermore,
we will implement calendars with which each user
will be able to see when she/he has an appointment,
deadlines for paying some taxes, the expiration of the
processing of her/his requests etc. The user will be able
to pose questions about anything that is unclear and
receive an answer from a State body.
The Portal is implemented in compliance with W3C
standards, while the improvement in plan also includes
the realization of a system for text-to-speech conversion which will enable citizens with disabilities to use
electronic services.
Currently, preparations for the realization of the
following projects within eGovernment are carried
out: Document Management System (DMS), an
Access Management system, a system for connecting
eGovernment services, eProcurement. We must also
make a campaign to promote the Portal to citizens and
companies because this is something completely new
and was not accessible earlier, so potential users are not
familiar with everything that it offers and what all they
can do electronically.
All projects that we implement are financed by the
Ministry for Telecommunications and the Information
Society (MTID). The Institute does not have enough
resources for financing projects and without cooperation with MTID it would not be in a position to make
these projects happen. Furthermore, implementation
of eGovernment’s new solutions assumes changes to
legal regulations and MTID played a significant role to
ensure this on time. Promotion of the eGovernment
Portal was carried out with the participation of the
Prime Minister, which also demonstrated support from
the Government.
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 27
technologies and trends | Banking & IT
CROZ in banking
Author:
Mario Mustapić
H
ave you by any chance seen the
film Margin Call in which Kevin
Spacey plays the main role?
The reason I am interested in this film
is definitely not because I am a movie
enthusiast (the reviews for this film were
not all that brilliant). The film attempts
to answer the question of how the
banking society, which can conclusively
be characterized as intelligent and
disciplined, was not able to foresee and
prevent the financial crisis which came
about relatively quickly and on a global
scale.
Whichever the answer was, the fact
is that the banking sector still remains
as one of the greatest influences in all
aspects of society and trends that affect
It is a fact that the banking sector most directly influences all
social segments, but the trends that affect banking operation
cannot be ignored. This article will deal with what banks are
currently doing in IT both short-term and long-term and it will
also address CROZ’s position in banking.
banking operation cannot be ignored.
While preparing to write this article, I
attempted to analyze the nature of IT
projects currently being implemented
or whose implementation is planned
in banks located across areas of exYugoslavia and I discovered that it was
impossible to functionally categorize
them. What was, however, possible to
categorize were business drivers that
influence IT projects and they can be
broken down into short-term and longterm.
Short-term business drivers
As short-term business drivers of IT
projects, decreasing costs and various
‘’mother’’ bank or Croatian National
28 | FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012
Bank (HNB) directives are emphasized.
You do not have to be an economic
expert to understand that cutting
expenses is the first thing that is done
during financially unstable times. The
answer for how this is accomplished
varies from bank to bank. As an
employee of a company whose staff
grows daily, I will not even draw on, much
less suggest, the unpopular approach of
reducing personnel. However, one trend
that is definitely quite interesting is
smart business outsourcing. Some banks
conduct offload of their core business
parts outside the bank into external
sales channels. More specifically, some
dedicated loan products can be suitably
contracted directly in a real estate
Banking & IT | technologies and trends
Trends in banking
Short-term business drivers
Long-term business drivers
Clients’ reciprocation
of trust
Decreasing costs
Business
outsourcing
Feasibility
analysis of
projects
Selection of
open source
technologies
Hosting
Client analysis
Complete
rebranding
Individualized
banking
‘’Big Shift’’
Reorganization of IT
architecture
’’From products to
solutions’’
What CROZ has to offer
‘’Out of the box’’ solutions
Document management
Credit rating
Online securities trading
ApPello – small banking
system
Oracle Flexcube Univ. Banking
Risk management
Vendor platforms
IBM Banking Framework
Banking Blueprints
Lombardi
Unica
Websphere Portal & WCM
Project Portfolio Mgmt
Financial Performance Mgmt
agency, auto dealer shops, electronics
store, etc. without even going to a bank.
This saves bank tellers from facing
long lines and ultimately saves clients’
time as well. From an IT perspective, in
order to achieve such type of business
conducting, a custom made web-based
application used by a real estate agent or
an electronics store salesman, which can
lean on the core system in a controlled
manner and have the capability to
generate and store various types of
documents is needed. CROZ makes
precisely these kinds of custom made
enterprise applications which you can
learn more about in the following text.
With the goal of reducing banks’
operational expenses, some activities
that are occasionally needed by a
bank are outsourced to suppliers. For
instance, application testing or project
management are activities that are
occasionally needed, depending on
the phase and intensity of the project,
and it is more cost-effective to engage
Open source
Alfresco - document
management & BPM
Liferay - open source portal
Sugar CRM
JasperReports
a specialized supplier instead of
continuously having one’s own testing or
project management team.
During times of recession, IT projects
are also run by the directives of foreign
Services
Custom Software Development
Consulting
Project management
Business analysis
Service Oriented Architecture
Enterprise Architecture
Testing center
Learn@CROZ
owners and according to the legal
regulations of the Croatian National Bank.
The directives of foreign owners usually
have a ‘’higher’’ goal, which is often
incomprehensible or unaligned with the
Margin Call – a scene from the movie
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 29
technologies and trends | Banking & IT
In banking, CROZ
positions itself as an IT
company that produces
custom made satellite
banking applications
that give an added value
to current transaction
core-systems based
on modern and reliable
technologies.
IBM Banking Industry Framework
local strategy. This generally results in
projects that change their priorities often
and have undefined project scope making
them difficult to manage.
On the other hand, the legal
regulations of the Croatian National Bank
simplify launching IT projects. These
kinds of projects are usually of the highest
priority with strictly defined deadlines
and they tend to put other projects on
hold. This fact can be substantiated by an
example of the implementation of a new
law on payments and a law on distraint
which were, towards the end of 2010,
the only topics of discussion between
suppliers and banks.
Long-term business drivers
Long-term business drivers are
completely different in nature. They do
not require direct result in ‘’this quarter’’
and are thus of greater quality with more
mature strategic goals. They examine
the core of banking, and seek the causes
and affect the consequences. The first
and most important long-term driver in
banks is clients’ reciprocation of trust.
Clients believe that banks do business
primarily for their own interest instead
of their clients’ interest and surprisingly,
many banks agree with this. In order to
make this trust reciprocal, banks had to
analyze the behavior and wishes of their
clients and orient banking toward the
individual. Clients are becoming more
powerful, better informed, and they want
to have individual banking.
Besides this, banks are beginning
to understand that their existing
procedures and business practices will
not set them apart from the rest on the
market and that they should, as a result,
make a ‘’Big Shift’’. While some banks
are entering into a complete rebranding,
others are making drastic yet absolutely
necessary turnarounds in their own IT
architecture.
How is CROZ positioned in
banking?
All the previously mentioned trends are
widespread in banks throughout this
region, so the logical question arises:
how CROZ positions its services in
banking industry and how it can help
banks to implement their short-term and
long-term strategic goals?
In short, CROZ has positioned itself
in banking as an IT company, a producer
of custom made satellite banking
applications that give an added value to
current transaction core-systems based
on modern and reliable technologies.
Furthermore, outsourcing of testing
applications and project management
was mentioned in terms of reducing
expenses. In 2010, CROZ opened a
testing center which offers functional,
performance and penetration testing
services of applications as well as
30 | FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012
Banking & IT | technologies and trends
security testing of IT systems. Also,
CROZ has a separate department
dedicated to project management
whose main goal is ensuring that bank
projects reach their goals within specified
financial and scheduled timeframes and
within a determined functionality scope.
CROZ also tirelessly researches
different open source technologies on
the market and is contrasting them with
strict banking requests. For instance,
Alfresco is an open source technology
imposed as a mature technology, which
an increasing number of banks are
placing into their first plan as a solution
for document and process management
instead of using expensive vendor
technologies. CROZ recently became a
regional Alfresco partner and our product
cDocs represents an excellent solution for
document management and is adjusted
to the specificities of this region. This
solution includes various processes
ranging from those of incoming and
outgoing invoices processing to contracts
or the credit process.
In long-term strategic steps of
banks, CROZ was ahead of everyone on
the market in recognizing the need for
establishing client trust. With regards to
this, we mean using a technology that
is one step ahead of the standard CRM
tools. UNICA is a recent acquisition of
IBM and it represents an end-to-end
solution which is capable of analyzing
the behavior and practices of clients
in full detail, segmenting them based
on different characteristics and needs,
and offering targeted groups specific,
personalized products through different
channels. In this way, it leaves an
impressionable value for the client which,
in the long-term, results in a trusting
client who does not intend on switching
to another bank.
In IBM’s portfolio, UNICA belongs
to the larger segment that is called
Customer Care & Insight, which is part
of four components of the large IBM
technological novelty called Banking
Industry Framework. Just as banks
need a more significant change in IT
architecture, large IT vendors committed
themselves to offering solutions
customized to a specific industry instead
of offering products. The IBM Banking
Industry Framework is the basis for
integrated solutions that mutually
connect four main banking domains of
the new age: Customer Care & Insight,
Core Banking Transformation, Integrated
Risk Management and Payments &
Securities.
Some time ago, CROZ realized the
necessity to transfer its focus from the
product to the solution and it is one of
the first thirty companies in the world
that have attained the certificate for
IBM Banking Industry Framework. We
recently held a workshop under the name
Big Shift for Smarter Banking, in which
the head of IBM’s Software Department
for Banking, Paul Davis, showed a
brief overview of the Banking Industry
Framework.
With this article we hope we have
succeeded in presenting the extensive
topic of trends in banking and CROZ’s
position in relation to these trends.
Answers to question from the movie
mentioned at the beginning of this
article, Margin Call, perhaps you will read
in the following articles.
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 31
technologies and trends | IBM Maximo Asset Management
IBM Maximo Asset
Management
finally in Croatia
Y
es, we must admit, we’re guilty.
We eliminated one more item
on our list of “things to do
first” in Croatia. Again, it deals
with a historical achievement in the areas of asset management in Croatia. Are
you interested in how we succeeded and
who is at ‘’fault’’ for this story? Let’s
start from the beginning...
Author: Luka Gauta
“Extra, extra! Read all about
it! CROZ involved in first IBM
Maximo implementation in
Croatia!”
Asset management
In line with flourishing IT opportunities,
‘’managing’’ assets and satisfying defined
client needs has not been sufficient
enough over the last few years for service
providers in the area of physical asset
management; it has become necessary,
for physical asset management, to
position oneself as an information system
that is directly accessible to the end user.
In providing a wider range of information
related to physical assets, end users are
32 | FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012
able to monitor their business in real time
with regard to assets they transferred
to someone ‘’in confidence’’, whereby
allowing for optimal management of
their own financial resources. The goal
of every service provider is to recognize
and implement a single IT solution which
supports facility management (FM) at the
highest level in terms of the business and
technical aspects.
Owning a CAFM (Computer Aided
Facility Management) system is a
must-have for any FM service provider
in the world today, and expectations of
Croatian companies are developing in
the same direction, anticipating a big
step forward in relation to the existing
state on the market. IBM Maximo®
Asset Management (IBM Maximo) is
doing just this.
IBM Maximo is a system that is
developed on a single software platform
IBM Maximo Asset Management | technologies and trends
which, through a comprehensive and
complete review of assets, offers the
ability to detect unused potential within
assets and enables asset management
to be optimized by analysis of inventory,
assets, procurement and analysis and
work planning. For everything listed,
IBM Maximo offers six key management solutions: Assets, Work, Services,
Contracts, Materials, and Procurement.
These solutions cover everything that
is needed for optimization and asset
management and their services.
The fourth issue of FYI provides more
detail about the IBM Maximo system,
while this issue gives central focus to
interesting parties participating in its
implementation. Let’s meet them.
Adria Grupa is an IBM Maximo
user!
Adria Grupa, as the largest provider of
services from the facility management
domain in the Republic of Croatia,
recognized that the modern and proven
through experience CAFM system,
like IBM Maximo, offers transparent
management of all management and
maintenance processes that are key to
successful business operations of all
company’s clients. This is precisely the
solution that offers high standards that
Adria Grupa wishes to ensure its clients
using this approach.
Over the last 12 years of its existence,
Adria Grupa has reached an envious
number of around 1,100 employees.
In its portfolio, it covers services such
as: horticulture, technical facility
maintenance, hygiene maintenance, fire
safety and environment maintenance,
catering, hospitality disinfection,
fumigation and pest control. In the
previous period, it participated in fifteen
outsourcing projects through which
it took on over six-hundred workers.
Adria Grupa can be praised for its
continuous investment in education and
employee development, informatization
of all work processes, technical and
technological equipment, and complete
implementation of adopted quality
standards. With regard to this, Adria
Grupa owns the following certificates:
ISO 9001:2008, ISO 14001:2004, HACCP
and OHSAS 18001:2007, and it is in the
IBM Maximo on iPhone, iPod, iPad or Android device without additional installation
In line with flourishing IT
opportunities, ‘’managing’’
assets and satisfying defined
client needs has not been
sufficient enough over the
last few years for service
providers in the area of
physical asset management;
positioning oneself as an
information system that
is directly accessible to
the end user has become
necessary for physical asset
management.
process of attaining the certificate for
EN 16001:2009 Energy Management.
Besides these, Adria Grupa is now an
IBM Maximo Asset Management user!
Who was holding the rod? SmartIS!
The first implementation of this
system in Croatia, is also the first
implementation for CROZ. Given this,
we decided to join the forces of the
experienced IBM Premier Business
Partner in our ‘’neighborhood’’, SmartIS
in an effort to reduce project risks.
SmartIS is a Slovenian IT company
that exists since 2009 and today has
seventeen employees. All of them are
highly qualified employees, with many
years of work experience in providing
system integration services and mana-
SmartIS,
Marko Prapotnik
(IT Services Director)
How do you see
the Croatian
market in terms of
facility management and potential IBM Maximo
implementation?
There are many
opportunities for
IBM Maximo projects
in Croatia. Together with CROZ, we are planning to
organize workshops/presentations during which
we will present the advantages, possibilities,
experience and references from this area.
What motivated you to participate in
CROZ’s IBM Maximo system implementation
project in Croatia?
Due to its current technical capabilities and
conditions, CROZ proved itself as a quality and
reliable partner, and on such projects an immediate
presence and expertise not only during but also
after production, in terms of offering client support,
is certainly an advantage. CROZ and SmartIS have
complementary portfolios of services and therefore
will continue to develop their strategic cooperation
because we believe this is a good combination that
will have a lot of success even in the future.
ging IT and non-IT services and resources.
SmartIS is an IBM Premier Business
Partner and is the most accredited Tivoli
and Maximo partner in Europe.
Managing IT services, IT resources,
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 33
technologies and trends | IBM Maximo Asset Management
Customized interface
Adria Grupa,
Robert Markuš
(Head of IS/IT)
Why did you decide on implementing the IBM
Maximo system?
By implementing this complex solution into our
business, we hope to offer our clients knowledge
and the best practices that are offered by the
popular CAFM system. The goal of Adria Grupa is
to raise the asset management level in Croatia to
a higher bar by offering our clients measurability
and transparency in business operations thereby
increasing our competitiveness on the market. With
the implementation of the CAFM system, we expect
not only the purchase of the application solution
but also the process, experience and knowledge
that is composed in one complex system that has
over 30,000 users around the world. By using the
well-known CAFM system, in practice, we want to
offer our employees an additional chance for innovation in their business conducting, offering them
all necessary information in one system, which they
have not had until now.
By the end of May this year, we are planning
to have completely implemented and integrated
the IBM Maximo system with the ERP (enterprise
resource planning) system that we use because we
believe that we can only fulfill our expectations of
the CAFM system with full integration of the system
that we wish to offer to all of our clients.
We are sure that all of our existing and potential
clients will recognize the IBM Maximo system
features that we offer. We are fully oriented on the
needs of our clients and our services came about
from listening and taking into account their needs.
Do you know that this is the first implementation of the IBM Maximo system in Croatia?
We are aware that this is the first implementation of the IBM Maximo system in Croatia and
we are proud of this fact. Because this is the first implementation, we feel additional responsibility for
successful implementation towards such a popular
CAFM solution. We are certain that with CROZ’s help
and with our years of experience in FM, the IBM
Maximo system will be a part of the exceptional
CAFM system not only in Croatia but also beyond.
34 | FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012
With successful
implementation of the
IBM Maximo® Asset
Management system in
Adria Grupa, CROZ opened
the door to new challenges
in the area of asset
management, which we
can say has proven to be a
strong and secure move.
product resources, facilities and
equipment are only some of the areas
in which SmartIS has plentiful experience in implementing the IBM Maximo
system.
Let’s bring it on!
Successful implementation of the IBM
Maximo® Asset Management system
in Adria Grupa by CROZ and SmartIS
is definitely an excellent example
of successfully reaching seemingly
unattainable goals for this area and
synergizing clearly defined needs,
knowledge and experience. All parties
involved, which are typically visionaries,
IBM Maximo Asset Management | technologies and trends
Work order tracking
widened their horizons and made a great
team for all possible challenges in the
future, whether on individual or mutual
projects in this business domain.
Thankfully, IBM Maximo® Asset
Management, with IBM’s great research
investment amongst others, is currently
a world leader in the area of Enterprise
Asset Management that supports and
integrates with a large number of ERP
solutions and it generally reached an
extremely high level of endurance with
existing users as well as accessibility to
future users at a global level. IBM Maximo
is, according to the last Gartner research
conducted at the end of 2010, the leading
system in the area of Delivery Utility
Enterprise Asset Management and Power
Generation Enterprise Asset Management
Software, and it is left competitors like
SAP, Ventyx, Oracle E-Business Suite,
Invensys Operation Management and
the Mincom system far behind. With
successful implementation of the IBM
Maximo® Asset Management system
in Adria Grupa, CROZ opened the door
to new challenges in the area of asset
management, which we can say has
proven to be a strong and secure move.
With hope for new challenges to prove
ourselves, we say: We are ready, let’s
bring it on!
FYI by CROZ / english edition / april 2012 | 35