Phases within the MuleSoft Catalyst.
Starting the journey to implement the MuleSoft Integration capability within a business
At the end of my last article, I said that we would start looking at the phases of the Catalyst Methodology in order that we can start building what is required for a successful implementation of the MuleSoft capability and in turn building successful business outcomes. And indeed, we will start looking at that but just prior to this it is important to establish a few key pillars and principles, after all, we all need a set of key pillars and principles to keep in mind before we get down to the details. So, as we go through the phases of the Catalyst Methodology, please keep the following at the front of your mind.
The three pillars are:
a. Everything revolves around archiving successful business outcomes.
b. Business outcomes are supported by organisational enablement.
c. Technology delivery is present to support customer success.
The core pillars of the MuleSoft Catalyst are supported by seven key principles: -
1. All of the approaches in the MuleSoft Catalyst are outcome based.
2. When planning work all products should balance short and long term outcomes.
3. Always remember to separate the platform from the solution.
4. Decentralisation is key to the speed of evolution.
5. Always keep in mind the development of Products over projects.
6. Functional cohesion and logical decoupling are the key to composability.
7. Finally, never, ever try to reinvent the wheel!
OK, so now we have that out of the way and you have got the above clearly at the front of your mind let’s start looking at what the Catalyst is, what it isn’t, which is just as important, and my comments that will hopefully bring this to life. After this I promise we will get onto the phases!
MuleSoft state that Catalyst is a delivery tool that couples outcome-based technology delivery with organisational enablement in order to achieve customer success. Great, so let’s look at the ‘tools’ it provides in order to achieve this goal.
Here we need to be very clear on the assets that have been provided and their purpose as well as where all of this information can be found, and I have to say that some people have found this a bit confusing from my experience in talking to other customers so hopefully I can provide some clarity.
Everything you need can be found in the Catalyst Knowledge Hub which is available to all MuleSoft customers.
Within the Catalyst Knowledge Hub you will find playbooks and delivery approaches which are the key elements you need to be aware of at this stage plus some other material in the form of Collections, News and Ideas. I’m not going to cover the latter three in this article.
Now the Catalyst playbooks, of which there are six, and the delivery approaches, of which there are currently three, describe the delivery activities and what to do, when and by whom. The delivery approaches are very prescriptive in nature but are based on a lot of experience with customers we are told so they are a valuable resource which should be explored. However, like all methodologies, they need to be explored with intelligence and experience and most importantly, a very good understanding of your own organisation.
I cannot emphasize how important it is to understand the organisation that you are introducing the MuleSoft integration capability into. When I say understand the organisation, I have to look at this at many levels and I can speak of this from my own experience. Some of the considerations are:-
· The use of other integration technologies within the organisation.
· The acceptance and / or resistance to change.
· What is the strategic intent of the organisation as a whole in terms of consolidation of integration technologies or not?
· What resources are available to implement the MuleSoft capability? Will MuleSoft professional services be used or a third-party consultancy who are, hopefully, a MuleSoft partner, or will it be implemented by internal staff?
· Who will have permission to access the MuleSoft platform?
· How will the Centre 4 Enablement be constructed and operated?
……and many, many more. You could, I suppose, look at these as considerations for achieving a successful business outcome (pillar a above) but these, and as I say other considerations of your business need to be included or you will be on shaky ground from the start.
Now, here comes the confusing bit, or hopefully not so confusing now. The Knowledge Hub contains the assets which provide the details of how things should be done in the form of templates, standards and best practices, examples and webinars.
So the Catalyst is made up of the playbooks and delivery approaches — What to do, when and by whom and this -
Sits within the Catalyst Knowledge Hub
-
the Catalyst Knowledge Hub also contains the Knowledge Hub where templates, standards and best practices that show you how to do the things that the Catalyst tells you need to be done can be found.
Got it? Good! Now we can move on to the phases of the Catalyst methodology which should, hopefully be easier to understand.
Catalyst Phases
So, the phases of Catalyst are related to every playbook and identify what the steps are in each phase when each of the individual playbook steps should be performed. The four phases are: -
1. Plan for success.
2. Establish the foundation.
3. Build to scale.
4. Measure impact
(As a quick reminder there are six playbooks, Business Outcomes, Platform, Projects, Centre for Enablement, Internal Support and Training which support three delivery approaches, AnyPoint platform, Projects and Centre for Enablement — don’t worry if you are not familiar with these at the moment, I will cover more about these in future articles)
Plan for success
In my previous articles I have written at length about the Centre 4 Enablement Playbook so, if you would like to see those articles you can find them here. I will not be covering the Centre 4 Enablement Playbook in detail here as this article is more focussed on the MuleSoft Catalyst as a whole rather than individual playbooks.
In planning for success in any of the playbooks, remember the phases only apply to playbooks not the delivery approaches, this initial stage focuses on the establishment of a comprehensive success plan given the detailed investigation of the organisations current position in both business and technical terms. Of course, the plan must be accompanied with success criteria and a way of measuring the success during, and at the end of the phase. One of the key success criteria for this phase will be the establishment of a core team who will either define the vision, create a roadmap and platform architecture for the engagement and hand it over to an implementation team, or will actually execute the plan they have established themselves.
A significant breath and depth of experience are required in the establishment of this foundational plan for any of the playbooks. In my view the team required to perform this activity from start to end would either have to be of such a significant size as to make it not a viable proposition for a long-term engagement or, more likely, a core team is established with the skills to engage with other teams within the organisation, and senior management, to establish the plans that are required to support any of the playbooks success criteria. Of course, many different skills will be required across the six playbooks and therefore it is highly likely that the core team required would be different for each playbook. One thing is for certain however and that is that the planning for success components is an essential precursor in laying the groundwork for the overall foundation.
Now, having said that a different core team is required for each the separate playbook, which I believe is correct, my experience is that a small core team can achieve a successful outcome in this area but only if they have the knowledge of the organisation, authority and consultancy skills to work with a wide audience of domain experts across the business. It should be remembered that this is not just a technical project and capability but must crucially also meet business objectives and the strategic view of the business for its future. Remember the three pillars I referred to at the start of the article!
Establish the Foundation
This phase of the Catalyst may be the most crucial element to get right. Certainly, in my experience, getting this right first time will save a considerable amount of time and resources and for this reason I would always recommend getting assistance from someone who has been through this process before and can show evidence of success. One consideration should definitely be to engage with MuleSoft Professional Services as funding spent here at this stage will be returned in dividends going forward.
So, what does this phase actually require in a real-world setting? Well like the title says its establishing the foundation of your capability going forward within whichever of the playbooks you are tackling at the time. You need to keep a careful eye on the success plan and use it to steer whatever needs to be done including the deployment of the platform and the surrounding technologies such as DevSecOps tool chains, requirements capture and monitoring tools and documentation management tools, defining a solution architecture and the execution of projects. In addition, the build of foundational assets including standards and templates, code fragments and connectors should also be undertaken along with their evangelisation and training of the staff necessary to operate the capability. Only once you have a firm foundation in place should you move to the next phase.
Build to Scale
In the same way that you would build a house, once the foundations have been laid and provide a reliable base on which to build you need to start scaling the capability and drive the reuse of what you have established. But actually, one of the things you will need to do is show that the foundations you have built are fit for purpose, you need to show that the capability you have already built can meet those initial success criteria, maybe not all but at least some. So, look at the success plan again and refine it, maybe update it to show what you have achieved and the benefits delivered and, in light of this and the experience gained, refine the success criteria to either change direction or increase the capability given what you now know.
One thing to keep an eye on here, and again I speak from personal experience, building to scale does not just mean doing the same thing over and over again. As we will come onto in later articles, business demand will change, new capabilities in both technical and business terms will present themselves and you will need to embrace these and the challenges they bring in order to continue the scaling of the capability. Yes, the foundation should be the same but in the using the same analogy you may want to build the foundations of an extension to your property and in the same way you will build your integration not only upwards but outwards as well. Success plans will change and your capability must change with them.
Talking of what you now know let’s move on to the fourth and final Phase.
Measure Impact
As soon as you start talking about planning and establishing you have to start thinking about measuring — defining the Key Performance Indicators that you are going to use to show success or to identify where more effort or change is required. Measuring impact should not be seen, in my view, as a negative element but as a baseline to learn from and increase the efficiency and capability of the integration technology you are building.
I can guarantee that if your KPI’s if carefully thought out and SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timeboxed) will lead the path to learning and improvement. One thing I can also guarantee is that they will change over time.
Final thoughts
This has been a long article and if you have stayed with me so far then first of all — thank you!
I hope in this article that I have given you the foundations to make the best of the following articles. I started with the three principles to keep in mind whatever you are doing with Catalyst — Business Outcomes, Technology Delivery and Organisational Enablement. The seven principles will guide your way to start and, importantly, guide you on your way to faster and better business outcomes.
All of the six playbooks and the three delivery approaches can be found in the Catalyst Knowledge Hub. The Playbooks describe activities and steps and each playbook is structured around the four Phases described above.
The delivery approaches, of which there are three, are prescriptive and explicitly define the work and deliverables of each step. They also define the logical flow of activities and the roles and responsibilities required to deliver the required outcome.
Combined together the playbooks and the delivery approaches describe what to do, when and by whom. This is the MuleSoft Catalyst.
And finally, the Catalyst Knowledge Hub contains the MuleSoft Catalyst and the Knowledge Hub. The Knowledge Hub is where assets in the form templates, standards, best practices, examples and other additional material that supports the ‘how’ to do it can be found.
In the next in this series of articles I will be looking at the Integrated Blueprint which brings together the Catalyst pillars and phases to depict the landscape of recommended activities
