Review By: Siva Krishnajee
10/27/2010Authors Martin Abbott and Michael Fisher combine organizational tasks like technical knowledge, business process management, and people management in order to build a scalable organization and IT architecture that meets the current demands and future growth of customers. They cover architecture, processes, and organizations in a way that reaches out to every segment of professionals in the information technology field. The authors explain this subject in a plain and simple language without any technical jargons. If somebody wants to build a scalable IT architecture, then he should read this book.

According to the authors, the size of the organizations doesn't matter. What matters in the organization is the process that they follow to perform the work. If there is a set of processes, then it takes care of the organization irrespective of the size. This is something like constructing a road with proper design, signs, and signals to ensure that traffic rules are followed at any given point of time. These measures would automatically take care of the traffic regardless of how light or heavy it may be. The same analogy can be applied to the organizations. Create and develop a process-oriented organization and that will scale to the needs and demands of the customers.

I like how the author emphasizes that the people are key to the organization. Whether a scalable organization is created, managed or broken, it is all done by the people and they should be managed and well taken care of. Hence, if an organization would like to improve its performance and metrics means, first it will have to focus on the people to improve their knowledge and performance.

The management of change in the production environments is explained very nicely in the book. As an ITIL certified professional, I can really appreciate the simple manner in which change management concepts are explained. I completely agree with the author that the organizations should manage changes to the IT environment in a methodical and process-oriented way. This book is a must for every top and middle IT management to improve the scalability of the organization. The authors Martin and Michael have done a wonderful job writing this book for IT professionals.