Preface

Many organizations are now reaching the same conclusion: mastering technical and organizational complexity is today the primary difficulty to overcome for their IT departments, much more so than reaching some critical magnitude in IT investments. At best, poorly managed complexity will prevent any reliable predictions for possible future evolutions of the system. At worst, the sustainability of the system as a whole could be put at stake. It would obviously be illusory, if not naive, to attempt to remove complexity altogether from the IS. The aim is rather to master the growth of complexity and to make sure that it stays in reasonable proportion to the actual usefulness of the IS to its various stakeholders. More precisely, the goal is to avoid an uncontrolled proliferation of “useless” complexity to ensure the scalability of the system and to maintain the satisfaction of its users.

This book develops the point of view according to which mastering complexity implies two essential steps: first, we must develop a clear understanding of the real nature of complexity within the IS; second, we must identify the primary causes, which contribute to its uncontrolled growth and organize these into a logical framework, in order to define efficient countermeasures. We also consider that any serious explanation for IT complexity should deal with both technical and psychological causes of complexity.

Two themes make up the main thread of our book: complexity and value. Both themes are quite common when considered separately. Their interplay, however, has remained a largely unexplored topic.

Our approach to IS complexity combines theoretical analysis with practical field experience. This kind of comprehensive analysis differs, we believe, from both academic works, which focus mostly on theoretical computing and also from so-called pragmatic approaches that simply list catalogs of recipes without bothering to provide a sound conceptual basis for them.

Target audience

This book will be of interest to CIOs as well as to enterprise architects and project managers. Parts of it are written on a more conceptual level than most IT books. This will perhaps require some readers to postpone somewhat their legitimate desire to rush out and apply simplicity rules to real life. We believe, however, that this postponement is worthwhile and the reader will be rewarded with a deeper, and thus more efficient, understanding of the true origins of unmanageable complexity in the IS.

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the support of SQLI CEO Julien Mériaudeau. The authors would like especially to express their gratitude to several colleagues, who kindly agreed to share their expert knowledge and experience. Special thanks go to: Mr. Manuel Alves, director of Alcyonix Paris, an Enterprise Architect whose extensive experience in software engineering and project management, and sharp critical mind proved invaluable when it came to confronting theoretical analysis with practical IT issues.

Mr. Simon-Pierre Nolin, senior consultant in IT infrastructure at Alcyonix, provided his deep insights and extensive field experience regarding how simplicity principles could be implemented in IT operations.

The authors thank Dr. Julian Talbot from the Laboratory of Theoretical Physics of Condensed Matter at Pierre et Marie Curie University in Paris for his critical proofreading of an early version of the manuscript.

The authors thank especially Mr. Jean-Luc Raffaëlli, Strategic Project Director at Groupe La Poste and Mr. Pierre Bonnet co-founder of Orchestra Networks for their insights and feedbacks.

Last but not least, Mr. J. Patterson Waltz, consultant in processes improvement at Alcyonix, reviewed the whole manuscript with an impressive dedication and thoroughness. Obviously, any remaining inaccuracies or typos remain the sole responsibility of the authors.