Context is to the appropriate use of technology as location is to real estate.  What are the three most important considerations for using technology - context, context, context.  

There was an old joke that no matter what question you asked a  consultant, the  answer will be "it depends".  It is true, it depends on context. 

In terms of the  Right Strategy, the context is established by the Right Time and Right Consumer.  It determines  who (consumer) desires  an outcome (based on Time in a process).  The tool is the means of success.

This Right Time/Right Consumer was once described as the  "business moment" by Gartner (it  has since seemed to have been dropped).

The diagram originated in 1996.  When  we  we  creating  our first "compsite application".  It still holds  up  even though the  names have  changed (probably  not enough - data base should be data base/persistence, the presentation should be ATLaaS UI, the Services may not be just  services (APIs) but  UI objects, ...).  Overall a pretty consistent 30 year vision (let's hope your ideas look so good 30 years from now).

The  important thing to focus  on is the process.  "The process is King".  Every  step of a process has an implementation; it is either access to a capability or to a tool.  The  goal of any  implementation is to successfully get an outcome that  allows  the process to proceed.  A capability  may be  a an individual service or an automation  (sub-process of  capabilities).  The tool is  designed for a consumer.  The business moment is the  combination of process/consumer/tool (The  Right Strategy).  

To achieve a Right  Strategy  aligned future, the  first we did was implement standard design  patterns.  

The Right  Consumer standardized  external credentials.  This simplified  different provisioning  models (self serve, internally  controlled, empowered  partners, cross account delegation, etc.), step  up authentication, flexible  multi-factor, zero trust, security  gateways, an openness to any  emerging  security  opportunity, and removed  platform dependencies.  Optimization of  the consumer is through  the usage of common security  patterns (like ATLaaS).

The Right  Tool standardization is focused on standardized  usage patterns.  Although  the common EA demonstrates that there  are different tools per channel (and even consumer) some are  just integration patterns (API, files, messaging, queues, automated agents).  The  focus here is on standardizing  the more complicated tool - Universal User Experience (UUX).  The groundwork of this is reflected in the Tabset/BABE example.  The Tabset is made up  of independent  pages that are driven off of metadata.  The  metadata comes from the context area of the  tabset (header information).  The context area  is populated by  data related to  the launch signature of the tool.  The signature must be fulfilled  or the  application can't be launched (security at  the edge).  All security tabset (tool) owned (the  tool is the proxy).  BABE is the optimization  based on this standard.  It is a business  tool  where  pages are incorporated  into  tabsets and tied  to a very specific context  (search or  worklist).  

Right Time  is based on BPM and Business events.  Standardization/Optimization was based on creating minimal  reusable services, standardizing events, and using process snippets.  Minimal reusable services  allowed  the simplified BPM integration with the  BABE tool and the UI. (Two Solutions to BPM). Standardizing  events allowed their simple inclusion into  any process or application.  This permitted us to test certain opportunities for change (generate an event for evaluation). Process snippets were tested  bits  of process that could be  reused.  The  best  example  was exception  processing.  These were returns that  has a series of problems.  Initially  we instantiated each problem into  a physical list. However, the business required  to be proactive  with new lists as they  adapted to changing business issues.  At this meant creating a physical list for each adaptation.   By moving  to a single list where  each issue included a value  for type  of issue,  the users could adapt and create new lists without  IT involvement.  The  exception process was always  the  same.  A workitem got evaluated and put on a list.  On completion it was reevaluated  and if an issue, added  to another  list.  If completely  corrected, it  was put back into  the main process.  The pattern was reused in every instance of correction and the  user  tool (BABE) simplified the usage.

The metrics of improvement were significant.

Development

• Page development was improved by 80%

• High percentage of reuse cut testing time by 60%

Training

• Common UI and navigation patterns cut training time by 70%

• Call center reps could successfully handle calls that used to take 2 years of training in just 2 months (highly important in such a high turnover position) (tools designed for the  problem)

Empowerment

• Business could create new tools and have them in production  in 1 day

• Business could add “completion criteria” to a tool to validate that the user completed certain subtasks before completion (every  page and every action  registered for configuration) (standards  enforced)

Security

• Reduced security calls by 80%

• No platform or application security.  External policies enforced all accesses.  For internal customers on 6 policies - 5 allowing everyone access (if we had a better naming convention this could have been avoided), and the basic policy - is  the user in the right role to access this tool (and does he have business need - a workitem)?

• Simplified audit trail because every access has a user/tool/page/action/account context

• Framework created audit trail outside programmer control

• Enforced a business reason for every access. (back to  pet peeve.  Is data classification needed if you  enforce appropriate use on every access?)

Support and Operations

• Help desk calls reduced by  40%

• Simplified page development allowed entry level developers an easy  on ramp (Note: we did lose quite a few very good developers who thought we were turning them into monkeys.  Just imagine AI used in this paradigm).

• Audit trail fed immediate data into system monitoring.  The system reported on every  access of  every system in near real time.  Went down to user level on the web (knew where they dropped out, how long at each  page, etc,). Internal accesses were followed at a tool level (not employee).

• Performance data told the real user journey because it tracked the context of accesses. This infromation was used to refine tools.

• 95% of future projects followed this guideline reducing design and development time.