Legacy applications in the insuranceindustry have posed multiple challenges in realizing the goals of the Insurer.A legacy application would consist of a monolithic architecture where a largenumber of functionalities are packaged under one roof. Though monolithicarchitecture has its own advantages, it also poses a number of challenges suchas inability to deploy different components/ functionalities independentlythereby greatly affecting the speed to market, failure in one part/componentaffecting the entire monolith, inability to scale different components /functionality independently , etc.
Unlike enterprises that are born digital,traditional Insurance companies don’t have the luxury of starting with a cleanslate; they must build an architecture designed for the digital enterprise on alegacy foundation. In a 2014, McKinsey introduced the conceptof “Two-speed IT architecture” solution which involves managing two separate,coherent modes of IT delivery, one focused on stability and the other onagility. The high- speed IT can createstrategic advantage for the enterprise with Low-speed maintaining systems ofrecord “. They see Two-speed IT as re-inventing IT to support digitization aspart of an organizational transformation so as to deliver a strong digitalcapability in the organization. Their approach is to incrementally re-invent ITwith Two-speed IT so as to focus the high-speed IT on high value areas for aninitial period.
After which agile innovative IT approach is roll out to otherareas of IT. Thiswill involve implementation of enablers that can help realize theseorganizational goals which are:1. CloudServices and a Cloud Architecture (IaaS and PaaS ): Enables the use of public, or hybrid cloud through self-servicerapid provisioning of complete environments as well as rapid creation theseresources can be quickly deleted2. Instant cross-channel deployment of functionalityvia Microservices : New Microservicesdefining only a small amount of functionality, should be deployable in an hourrather than in several weeks. Such Microservices should also be availableacross all channels.
3. DevOps and Automation: ContinuousIntegration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) for faster more reliable deployments How applying Conway’s Law canhelp achieve Two –speed architecture?To achieve the responsiveness andagility businesses will need to modify their big ecosystems of software toallow for small experimental changes in production with the ability to gauge whatthe amortized change will be to the existing code base. In other words…Howteams & the infrastructure canrespond to changes quickly??The answer to this question can be foundin Conway’s Law which suggests that it is not just a development team problembut an overall organizational problemThe right question should be…What isthe organizational structure one needs to be able to deliver the software quickly??Teams which are focused and have small code footprint react better to changes& the nimbleness of team(s) has direct correlation to the team size andrelationship among development team and product owner. The better the communicationchannel, the better a development team is able to model the design to theproblem domain.
Most of the time when the team fails to deliver what waspromised is due to flawed communication withmultiple layers of translation existing between the team & the businessstakeholders or may be the process toimplement a change quickly are broken . Discreet teams owning discreet problem candevelop code base tailored to the subdomain rather than worrying about theenterprise wide change. Cutting down the time to get something to production isalso very crucial as multiple layers in between pushes the development teamfurther away from context that is needed to make the right decision. We need toensure that teams are smaller (E.
g. 2 pizza team size in Amazon) and closer tobusiness.Netflix is an example of such a companywhere the organizational structure is created around the development culture.
Theythought of the dev ecosystem they want and then built an organization communicationstructure around it
