Van Haren Publishing at Open Group Agile Architecture 2019 in Amsterdam

Van Haren Publishingat Open Group
Agile Architecture 2019 in Amsterdam

4-7 November, Amsterdam. The Open Group Agile Architecture days was an event not be missed in the Netherlands, and as usual Van Haren Publishing was present throughout the entire week. This week was all about the latest updates to the Archimate modeling language and how it can be used in an agile environment. You can read about some of the activities at the event and how we experienced it this 3 minutes blog.

Written by: Paul van den Elzen (Sales and Marketing Representative Van Haren Publishing)

About the event

4-7 November, 2019. In the photo above, you can see the stand that we set up at the Agile Architecture days. The event was organized by The Open Group and hosted in a beautiful old chapel in the center of Amsterdam. The main focus of the whole event was all about Archimate and Agile. 

Agile is based on customer satisfaction through early and continuous delivery of a valuable product. It welcomes change requirements, even late in the development of delivering workable software or products. In this approach, business people and developers must work together daily throughout the entire project to ensure consistent collaboration. Knowledgeable and motivated individuals are therefore important.

Enterprise Architecture (EA), on the other hand, is about supporting business transformation keeping in align with the overall strategic view to pursuing an incremental, continuous value delivery that addresses concerns from different stakeholders. EA provides guidance and techniques to develop a holistic view of the organization landscape to address complexity and change. It supports business value delivery, and also impact and risk assessments across the organization and its ecosystem. EA Governance and change management support compliance and value delivery measure. 

Highlights at that event included:

• – ArchiMate® Standard – Learning about how the ArchiMate® Modeling Language can be used in an Agile environment.
• – Agile Architecture – Plenary and track sessions on Agile Architecture methods, including case studies from organizations such as Capgemini, IAG, and ING.
• – ArchiMate® User Group – An open meeting where users can share information, best practices, and learn from each other.
• – Open Subsurface Data Universe™ (OSDU) – Learning about how The Open Group Open Subsurface Data Universe™ Forum is developing a standard data platform for the oil and gas industry, which will reduce silos and put data at the center of the subsurface community.
• – Process Automation – Presentations by Members of The Open Group Open Process Automation™ Forum on developing a standards-based, open, secure, interoperable process control architecture.
• – Digital Management Professionals Day – Discussing how organizations are using the IT4IT™ Reference Architecture standard as an outstanding planning mechanism to help with digital transformation.

Who was there? 

During the entire week, we met probably close to 1000 people who were all active in very different working environments and had all come with very different purposes. We met very interesting people who worked in the banking industry, were responsible for the IT of a large company, or even working with governance processes. It was clear that this event was truly international! People from all over the world were present throughout the entire event. 

In terms of the speakers, we saw some great keynote speakers and also saw some recognizable names like Bas van Gils, for example. We’ve known Bas for a long time, and he’s currently busy writing a book about Data Management, which will also be published by us. On Monday, Bas talked about leveraging Enterprise Architecture capability to “Become a Data-Driven Company”.

Other keynote speakers at the event were banking and solution architects from large companies, principal analysts, CEOs and managers, and consultants. Most of them talked about Archimate, Process Automation, Agile Architecture, Open Sub Surfaces Data Universe, and Managing Digital.

What did we do?

We were there as the official book sponsor and partner of The Open Group. We’ve known the Open Group for a long time and have been fortunate enough to develop a good working relationship with them. Together we’ve published numerous books, and we were proud to be there to watch The Open Group launch their new Archimate 3.1 Specificationbook (also published by us). Several people had told us earlier in the week that they were eagerly awaiting an Archimate update. It gave us great satisfaction to see all those happy faces when Steve Nunn, CEO of The Open Group, officially unveiled their new book. You can read more about the updates compared to the Archimate 3.01 book in this blog.

We thoroughly enjoyed the event because it gave us the chance to have direct contact with our target group. It helped us to collect some good feedback from some very reliable sources. 

What did we notice?

We had a very pleasant week and were impressed with the great atmosphere during the entire event – and of course, the spectacular location! We met many interesting and motivated people and our books sold very well. There was particular interest in our English Agile Pocket Guide written by Theo Gerrits, Rik de Groot, and Jeroen Venneman. You could notice that Agile is still a very popular and upcoming trend within project management and in almost every other domain at the moment. This pocket guide was designed to give people an easy introduction to Agile. 

There was also a specific demand for our Digital cookbook, TOGAF Business Architecture, and BIAN. These subjects seemed to be of particular interest to the participants of the event,  aside from the release of the new ArchiMate 3.1 update. 

What is great about The Open Group are all the active working groups involved, which attracts an excellent variety of participants from all over the world. For example, there was a large delegation of Japanese professionals at the event, and the Archimate working group themselves were also represented. 

On Wednesday, an IT4IT game was presented by Gaming Works together with Fruition, which clearly demonstrated the power of IT4IT. There was also some news that a new version might arrive somewhere in February – though these are only rumors at this point.

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