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  • Vice Chair, The Open Group Architecture Forum; MSc, PEng, PMP, CD, CEO & Chief Consultant, Build the Vision, Inc.

    Q: How many years have you personally been actively involved with The Open Group?

    A: Formally with The Open Group since 2004; since 1994/95 if involvement in the application of the Technical Architecture Framework for Information Management (TAFIM) is included.

    Q: Why did your organization become a Member of The Open Group?

    A:  Build The Vision Inc. is a small company dedicated to assisting individuals, companies and governments through teaching, mentoring, sharing of global best practices, and targeted management consulting engagements in the fields of Enterprise Architecture, Strategic Planning and Knowledge Management. Build The Vision Inc. contributes a major portion of its earnings to support the creation and promotion of open standards to achieve corporate goals of enabling global open data and creating a knowledge-based economy. After having worked for thirty years in government and ten years as an executive management consultant at CGI, (founding its global EA Practice), Build The Vision Inc. was created to help organizations with strategic execution and to give back to the profession. The convergence between the Build The Vision Inc. vision and The Open Group, and its vision of Boundaryless Information Flow™ and standards such as TOGAF®) made The Open Group membership an obvious fit.

    Q: What key forums/initiatives are you personally involved with at The Open Group?

    A: Personally, my main involvement is with the Architecture Forum, as Vice -Chair, specifically the improvement of the TOGAF standard, in conjunction with helping to harmonize the large number of standards across The Open Group forums. Also as an academic, I am teaching multi-disciplinary executive, graduate and undergraduate courses that show why and how the various Open offerings can be used together to create a truly Open enterprise architecture.

    Q: How has membership in The Open Group benefited your organization and the industry at large?

    A: The Open Group has enabled Build The Vision Inc. to contribute to the advancement of the Enterprise Architecture profession as well as providing for the licensed use of The Open Group standards in Build The Vision engagements. The use of TOGAF in whole or in part with clients has enabled them to benefit from an international body of expertise and saved them significant time and effort in developing and then implementing their enterprise architectures. Academically and through organizations such as the Association or Enterprise Architects (AEA), exposing professionals and students to TOGAF and the rest of The Open Group body of standards, has been very worthwhile. As most students and clients are government, it is even more important for them to leverage open standards so that they can use them in RFPs/RFQs that must be impartial. It also allows companies to engage the services of multiple companies and have them collaborate through the use of Open standards.

    Q: What key contributions have you and/or your organization made to The Open Group?

    A: Build The Vision Inc. was heavily involved with the creation of TOGAF 9 and personally I was presented with an "Outstanding Contribution Award" from The Open Group for my work on the standard. Since 2008 I have been working to create an open knowledge/information architecture framework / set of best practices which was initially published in 2012 Open Group White Paper W132 (Information Architecture Vision: From Data Rich to Information Smart") whose updated core concepts are being used for further development in the TOGAF Ecosystem. Close synchronization with the Security, Platform 3.0 and IT4IT forums has led to a coordinated approach to managing the key corporate asset in the knowledge-based economy. As current Vice-Chair of the Architecture Forum, I am heavily engaged in bringing together ongoing work on the future TOGAF, working closely with the AEA executive and helping The Open Group executive with The Open Group event in Ottawa in July 2017. Most of the time I spend bringing the business and technology communities together.

     Q: Why is it important for other organizations to join The Open Group?

    A:        The corporate and government landscapes in the knowledge-based economy are complex and dynamic. Client expectations are high and often organizations are global in nature. There is also an increasing rift between technology and social innovation everywhere as the advance of technology is outstripping society's ability to leverage it. Global Open methodologies and standards provide a common process and vocabulary for planning and managing change. The Open Group is a not-for-profit organization whose existence is based on the creation of these essential open processes and standards. If an organization wants to be part of the solution, rather than the problem, of creating knowledge-based corporations and societies, membership in The Open Group fulfills professional and corporate needs of the company and its clients.

    About Robert (Bob) Weisman

    Robert Weisman BEng, MSc PMP, CD is a professional engineer and graduate of the Royal Military College (RMC) of Canada and Laval University where he studied engineering and computer science, specializing in knowledge-based systems for crisis response.

    After a diverse 30 military career he gained expertise in leadership, Plans and Operations, national and international Command and Control, and IM/IT Strategic Direction working in all levels of headquarters as well in the R&D establishments and as faculty in the RMC.

    Bob joined CGI in 1998 as a Management Consultant and started the Enterprise Architecture Practice in 1999 in Ottawa with a focus on coping with the Business Transformation aspects of EA and IM/IT in general. In 2008 he founded Build The Vision Inc. to teach, mentor and consult in Enterprise Architecture, Strategic Planning and Knowledge Management. In 2014, Bob started his PhD in e-Business and is also Engineer in Residence and Part-Time Professor of EA at the University of Ottawa. Most of his time is dedicated to creating, teaching and promoting open standards.

    Bob speaks several languages and continues to work globally. He joined the Open Group Architecture Forum in 2004 and was a major contributor to TOGAF V9. Now as Vice-Chair of the Architecture Forum and Chair of the Information Architecture Working Group, he is working hard on the next generation of the TOGAF ecosystem. Bob is also heavily involved in ISACA and is the Ottawa Chapter Vice-President.

    Bob is the happy husband of a fellow free spirit and are both proud parents of a graphic artist and two engineers, who are active in (ice) hockey, soccer , trampoline and raising our rambunctious grandchildren.

     

    September 2016