Failure is an inevitable consequence of misunderstanding

Things that lead to failure

  • Avoidance (complexity will grow without outside intervention so this is not a sound tactic)

  • Denial (a head in the sand approach is worse than avoidance as your position becomes entrenched)

  • Apathy (not caring is not an excuse, be professional at all times and deal with the issue now)

  • Arrogance (thinking you know everything already is never a smart approach, give up trying)

  • Ego (will trip you up and make you look ridiculous, complexity is not political)

  • Believing in silver bullets (which kill projects as dead as they do werewolves)

Insights to help avoid [integration] failure

  • Start now before the pressure and time demands that a project brings

  • Do it yourself, don’t wait for other to take the lead - take the initiative yourself

  • Understand the technology choices and cut through the jargon (see technology survey)

  • The domain of “Integration“ has lots of ying and yang pairs, have a look at our summary and give us your thoughts

    • Asynchronous / Synchronous

    • Event Triggered / Time Triggered

    • Functional / Non Functional

    • Loosely Coupled / Tightly Coupled

    • Critical /Non-critical

    • Top down analysis / Bottom up analysis

  • Compile a list of questions you should be asking your Integration Platform Vendors and Services partners, some ideas we have are:

    • How will you make sure we have the skills to do everything ourselves

    • How do we move off the platform

    • How will the approach support extending and enhancing the platform in the future, a hybrid platform is not to be feared

    • Governance is as important as technology, ensure your requirements include the delivery of guard rails to avoid wandering off the path

    • Standard, standards and standards - naming conventions, agreed registers, agreed CI/CD processes, agreed review points

Do not fear integration complexity, defeat it

  • In the ‘Art of war‘ Sun Tzu wrote "know your enemy", when it comes to your integration landscape the enemy of simplicity is complexity.

  • The saying “no plan survives first contact with the enemy“ is attributed to Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltker, a plan to change an existing integrated environment without first understanding it is bound to fail