Meer datagedreven werken? Voor organisaties die elke beslissing, op ieder niveau, op data willen baseren is de juiste technologie natuurlijk onmisbaar. Maar ook een datacultuur is onmisbaar voor succesvolle inzichten.
Recent onderzoek van KPMG laat zien dat 79% van de ruim honderd ondervraagde organisaties moeite heeft met de implementatie van een datagedreven operatie. Iets soortgelijks signaleert ook Gartner: steeds meer organisaties begrijpen weliswaar het belang van het gebruik van data en analyses, maar dit daadwerkelijk onderdeel maken van hun kernactiviteiten blijft lastig.
Datacultuur
De hoeveelheid data die organisaties verzamelen, groeit snel. Hetzelfde geldt voor de complexiteit van die data, ook die wordt steeds groter. De uitdaging van een datagedreven organisatie is het snel kunnen opwerken van data tot informatie en op basis daarvan komen tot inzichten. Technologie speelt hierin een belangrijke rol, evenals goed ingerichte processen. Maar net zo belangrijk is een datacultuur. Dit houdt in dat mensen in een organisatie dagelijks nadenken over de kwaliteit van data, de technologie om deze tot informatie en inzichten op te werken én deze ook delen.
Een datagedreven organisatie gebruikt data niet alleen projectmatig, maar maakt werken met data een fundamenteel onderdeel van alle operationele werkzaamheden. Dit betekent ook dat een organisatie, om effectief te zijn, zal moeten beschikken over de juiste kennis en vaardigheden om op alle niveaus ‘databekwaam’ te zijn. Daarbij gaat het om kennis over data governance, cloudtechnologie, applicaties en analytics.
Tooling
Essentieel in datagedreven organisaties zijn de BI-tools die zij inzetten om data te verzamelen, analyseren en rapporteren. Deze markt is inmiddels heel volwassen, met tal van BI-platformen die verschillende soorten analyse-, visualisatie- en integratiemogelijkheden bieden. Sommigen maken gebruik van AI en zijn hierdoor in staat om betrouwbare voorspellingen te doen op basis van data. Alle tools hebben hun eigen onderscheidende features en add-ons, maar over de populairste tools valt wel te stellen dat deze stuk voor stuk goed in staat zijn om gebruikers waardevolle inzichten te verschaffen.
Een voordeel van BI-platformen, zoals Looker of Power BI, is dat zij data bijeen kunnen brengen in één omgeving, wat zorgt voor overzichtelijkheid en betrouwbaarheid. De oplossingen maken informatie in rapporten beschikbaar voor verschillende rollen, van operationeel tot strategisch niveau en voor zowel data-experts als andere teamleden. Alle beslissingen in een organisatie zijn hierdoor op dezelfde informatie gebaseerd. Dit helpt bij het creëren van een datacultuur waarbij een organisatie snel kan reageren op interne en externe ontwikkelingen.
Transfer Solutions
Technologie is dus noodzakelijk voor elke organisatie om te innoveren en datagedreven te werken. Maar het is ook maar één schakel in het geheel. Voor veel organisaties is Transfer Solutions een betrouwbare partner die hen helpt de kansen te benutten die datagedreven werken hen biedt. Of het nu om softwareontwikkeling gaat, het inrichten van de juiste IT-architectuur of de migratie naar een cloudplatform: onze experts denken mee, van een eerlijk en transparant advies tot de uiteindelijke implementatie. Daarbij borgen wij ook de continuïteit, want IT is nu eenmaal cyclisch. Wat vandaag nieuw is, is dat morgen niet altijd meer. Daarom werken wij ook samen met verschillende partners die ons aanvullen op onze technologische kennis, om zo tot de beste oplossing voor elk specifiek vraagstuk te komen.
Meer weten over een datagedreven toekomst ? Bekijk onze talkshow over het worden van een datagedreven organisatie of luister onze podcast over het inzetten van de juiste cloudoplossingen voor onder meer analytics.
The ‘gravity’ of custom legacy software means that IT-managers have to sink more and more time and attention into maintaining it, as well the legacy teams and processes, as time goes on. This makes the organisation as a whole less flexible, cannibalizes the innovation budget, and is very frustrating.
Every organisation still dependent on custom legacy applications knows how hard it is to get rid of them. These monolithic solutions were probably built with legacy development tooling in the past fifteen years, and now consist of hundreds of business critical screens. The legacy development tools are cunningly reanimated in Windows 10, but it gets harder and harder to keep everything working, while the number of developers able or willing to work with legacy development tools rapidly dwindles…In short, not a tenable position.
Still, I have noticed that many IT-managers find it hard to break this downward spiral, and struggle with compiling a business case for modernization. They keep passing the issue along to their successors, making it SEP (Somebody Else’s Problem). That’s quite the inheritance…At the same time, I see deciders who are willing to take up the gauntlet, causing a successful modernization of IT and business. Why do some fail where others succeed?
I have identified three factors contributing to success that I would like to share to inspire others:
Leadership
Modernizing legacy is about decisiveness. There must be a drive to help the organization and the team progress in present-day IT. There is a need for leasers that dare to break the status quo, not only for their own ego, but for the advancement of the entire group. So just do it, and don’t pass it on!
Learning by doing
By doing, you do set off on a path of uncertainties, and mistakes will be made. However, this dynamic will also give energy and teach you things. The change of technology can be used to innovate the team and the processes. Through Agile coaching, the business will learn to trust IT again, as they don’t hear ‘no’ and work together in new ways.
In our successful approach, we start with our legacy scan to map the structure and quality of the existing application. From there, we depart with our clients on their modernization journey, during which we quickly add value with new (mobile) applications.
Lowcode
The right tools are crucial when modernizing legacy. We have seen that the low-code platform OutSystems is well suited for modernizing legacy software, because it integrates very well and is easy to learn. During the modernization, some screens/modules might be incorporated directly as SaaS, while others are custom builds and so distinctive that the existing legacy code has to be accessed by new front-end. A complete rebuild is something to consider when the quality of the existing code is insufficient. Both approaches are possible with OutSystems, as well as a hybrid, in which new software modules are built to accompany the legacy ones.
Would you like to know more about how you can escape the gravitational pull of legacy and how you can reinvent yourself and your software development? I would be happy to talk with you about your challenges.
An interesting and wise move of Oracle to join forces with Microsoft in a Cloud partnership! Best of both clouds! Many new possibilities for an increasing number of customers with a multicloud strategy. Seamless integration of Azure and OracleCloud services.
As model driven development is emerging, OutSystems has become one of the leading low-code development platforms for developing both web and mobile applications. Model driven, or low-code development platforms such as OutSystems have one major advantage over their full-code cousins: rapid application development and full control over the application life cycle.
One thing must be kept in mind though: the delicate relationship between speed and quality. Building applications rapidly may result in applications that are of poorer quality. Even though low-code platforms such as OutSystems are closing the gap between IT and business, creating future-proof applications remains key when aiming for reaching maximum potential of these platforms.
Fortunately, OutSystems customers are realizing this exact point as well and they have been increasingly asking for governance on their software development processes. They are looking for answers to questions such as: How has the maintainability changed since last sprint? How does the code quality and productivity of my scrum teams differ? How can I reduce my maintenance costs? To what extent are components re-used?
In order to meet customer’s wishes and help them to reach the full potential that low-code platforms have to offer, Transfer Solutions and Omnext have joined forces to realize an automated quality scan for OutSystems.
Omnext has been specializing in analysing software applications for over 15 years and its technology, the Omnext Fit Test, is thus far already supporting over 30 different languages more modern ones such as Java, C# and SQL, but also legacy languages such as RPG and COBOL.
Together with both Transfer Solutions and OutSystems, quality rules were defined, based on the ISO-25010 guideline for software maintainability and guidelines on software quality, supplemented with OutSystems-specific best practices. The importance of these rules is adjustable and customers are able to add their own rules, hence enabling them to gain insight in the exact elements of an application that are of key interest to them.
After working together closely with Transfer Solutions and OutSystems for several months, Omnext has managed to add the OutSystems platform to its list of supported technologies and we are proud to present the result:
The Fit Test 4 OutSystems
The process to get insight in code quality, looks like this:
- Source code upload
A customer sends their OutSystems application exports (.oml file) to Omnext via a secure upload facility - Code scan
Omnext scans the models and code and presents the quality metrics in a user friendly dashboard, which provides detailed insight in a multitude of quality and productivity elements (see image below) - Dashboard and Expert Review
The results as presented in the dashboard enable the customer to identify areas for improvements and if required, Transfer Solutions can offer its expertise in the form of Expert Reviews to really help customers take the next step in improving the quality of their applications.
The Fit Test 4 OutSystems can be executed as a single scan, but also as a repetitive cycle which allows customers to analyse their applications on a frequent basis. Especially in a continuous delivery context, having continuous insight in the quality and development of your application proves to be of great added value. To further support this in the future, Omnext, together with OutSystems is already exploring the possibility of using an API to automatically transfer the application sources to Omnext and have them analysed on the fly.
We believe that the Fit Test 4 OutSystems is a perfect addition to the OutSystems Platform. With it we ensure that our customers can deliver high quality OutSystems applications now and in the future.
If there are any questions in response to this blog post. Feel free to contact Omnext or Transfer Solutions.
Jacob Beeuwkes, Transfer Solutions
Francis Jansen, Omnext
Enterprise IT teams are faced with a predicament. They’ve been challenged to create beautiful, highly-functional applications for front-end use, and they’re on a very tight timeline. The customer journey has changed – it’s turned digital and it’s faster than ever. Customers are demanding that enterprises keep up. How can IT be expected to deliver?
This article covers where the front-end development is at today, and what is expected of enterprise IT. Beyond demonstrating the need for upgrading legacy stacks and strategy to something more agile and flexible to meet the dramatically transformed customer journey, this piece uncovers:
- How IT must deliver the ‘holy grail’ of requirements for front-end apps
- The challenges in adopting an open-source stack
- The definition of Rapid Application Development (and Delivery)
- A method to creating beautiful, functional apps in an agile manner with RAD
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