The business selects the IT organization as a provider, but that means the organization must be a producer. Production for business has the same four bases today that it always has had. Today's necessary agility must be produced from those bases.

1. I.T. Production
Management Issues
The Business Demand Perspective

2. Archestra notebooks compile and organize decades of in-the-field empirical findings. The notes offer explanations of why
things did happen or can happen in certain ways or to certain effects. The descriptions are determined mainly from the
perspective of strategy and architecture. They comment on, and navigate between, the motives and potentials that
predetermine the decisions and shapes of activity as discussed in the notes. All notebooks are subject to change.
©2016 Malcolm Ryder / Archestra Research

3. Production Options
All IT organizations are subject to business needs that introduce the same fundamental issues in
I.T.’s production for business:
• What will we deliver
• How will we develop the deliverables
• What level and type of quality is necessary
• How will the delivery and deliverables need to improve
To an important extent, those are most essential because they address the reasons why the
business chooses the given I.T. organization to be its provider.
For each of the four fundamental issues, there is a characteristic pair of contrasting options. The
organization must be able to decide which options to favor and execute the decisions with adequate
communications and timeliness. The decisions direct or redirect the progress of production
throughput. The decisions and results constitute the management of the production options.
The business evaluates those decisions for their immediate impact and their implications. At
different times, the decisions may need to change according to current or impending demand.
The changes must not force the organization to undo its fundamental construction; the organization
must instead already be an enabling and resilient platform for varying operations.
Delivery: scope vs. capacity
Development: automation vs. transformation
Quality: assurance vs. criticality
Improvement: extensibility vs. sustainability

4. Operational Impacts
The IT organization’s operations are subject to basic business evaluations that are not
about the underlying technologies, and are increasingly about what the operations do to
the business.
• Expectations: are the created expectations reliable?
• Implementations: is the risk of acceptable reorganization required?
• Supportability: is the intended infrastructure and environment sustainable?
• Effective value: does the business function better according to its known needs?
To an important extent, those are most essential because they address the reasons why
the business recognizes the IT organization to be productive, unproductive, or counter-
productive.
The business productivity of the IT organization will be an effect of operations designed for
producing within the culture represented by those reasons.
Management is generally responsible for real-time alignment of the As Designed
operations with the As Is culture. The responsibility means that the organization can inform
the business about how things currently do or don’t work for business productivity.
Expectations: explicit and credible
Implementations: necessary and sufficient
Supportability: systematic and adaptive
Effective value: measurably positive and relevant

5. The Design and Culture of IT Management
Effective Value
is experienced here
and is requested here.
Continuous Improvement
Quality Management
Dev Lifecycle
Automation vs. transformation
Assurance vs. criticality
Extensibility vs. sustainability
Delivery
Scope vs. capacity
Expectations
are constrained and
defined here.
Implementations
are accepted and
rejected here.
Supportability
is cultivated here and
is measured here.
Differing eras of management occur, but they all
wind up addressing the same basic problem set.
Agile, lean, DevOps, analytics, and most other
newer priorities find their places in the problem
set, bringing demand, design, sourcing, change,
and transparency into production throughput.
©2016 Malcolm Ryder / Archestra Research

6. Time window
Org Competency @ Impacts
Mindset Technique System
Co-operation
Requirements
Priority
OrgEffectiveness@Demand
Resources
Productivity Dependencies
Discovery
©2016MalcolmRyder/ArchestraResearch
Competency includes a “series” of dependencies underlying
systemic capability. Each step (leftward) constrains the potential of
the following one (rightward).
Likewise, effectiveness has a series of underlying dependencies
progressively determining (bottom to top) the potential final value .
Agility requires the ability to make adjustments on demand,
in the right dependencies of competency or effectiveness,
for the known needed time window.

7. Continuous Improvement
Quality Management
Org Competency @ Impacts
Mindset Technique System
Dev Lifecycle
Delivery
Priority
Automation vs. transformation
Dependencies in Competency
Discovery
Scope vs. capacity
Assurance vs. criticality
Extensibility vs. sustainability
Systemic competence is a necessary
business characteristic of productivity.
Competency includes a
“series” of dependencies
culminating in systemic
capability. Priority
predisposes Mindset;
Technique predisposed
System; etc.
The production
management options are
impactful as direct
responses to the
demands of progressively
realized competency.
©2016MalcolmRyder/ArchestraResearch

8. Continuous Improvement
Time window
Quality Management
Dev Lifecycle
Co-operation
Requirements
Delivery
OrgEffectiveness@Demand
Automation vs. transformation
Resources
Dependencies in Effectiveness
Scope vs. capacity
Assurance vs. criticality
Extensibility vs. sustainability
Timely effects are necessary
business characteristics of productivity.
Effectiveness has a series of underlying dependencies progressively determining value.
Resources predispose accepted Requirements, which predispose necessary Cooperation, etc.
Just as with competency, the production management options are impactful as
direct responses to the demands of progressively realized effectiveness.
©2016MalcolmRyder/ArchestraResearch

9. Time window
Org Competency @ Impacts
Mindset Technique System
Co-operation
Requirements
Priority
OrgEffectiveness@Demand
Resources
Alignment of Impact Areas
Discovery
Delivery
Scope vs. capacity
Quality Management
Assurance vs. criticality
Continuous Improvement
Extensibility vs. sustainability
As seen here, the actual distribution of production
management options shows where their decisions
exert the most influence within the series of
dependencies for both competency and effectiveness.
©2016MalcolmRyder/ArchestraResearch
Dev Lifecycle
Automation vs. transformation

10. Continuous Improvement
Time window
Quality Management
Org Competency @ Impacts
Mindset Technique System
Dev Lifecycle
Co-operation
Requirements
Priority
OrgEffectiveness@Demand
Automation vs. transformation
Resources
Inter-Dependencies in Practice
Discovery
Assurance vs. criticality
Extensibility vs. sustainability
Timely effects and Systemic competence
are necessary business attributes of agility.
EXAMPLES: Discovery and Priority affect how Delivery decisions
are resolved; but Co-operation and Time window also exert
strong influence on Delivery decisions. Technique influences both
Quality and Improvement decisions. Requirements and
Resources both critically affect Development options; Etc.
©2016MalcolmRyder/ArchestraResearch
Delivery
Scope vs. capacity

11. ©2016 Malcolm Ryder / Archestra Research
www.archestra.com
mryder@archestra.com