Q: How long have you been involved with The Open Group?

In Hewlett-Packard we are pretty serious about the quality of our service professionals. When in 2007 the Open CA (former ITAC) program became operational in The Open Group, the Services organization in HP launched an acceleration program to have all experienced architects beyond a certain level on the career ladder to be certified. So in May 2007 I was assessed for Open CA at the Sunday before the three day conference of The Open Group in Paris.

Q. What do you do, and how long have you been doing it? 
Approximately in 1996 I started working in the domain where business meets IT, doing stuff that we call architecture today. Since then, the use-case of IT and how that coherently fits the purpose of its stakeholders has been my primary interest. Though I have architected across the whole stack of IT, the digital shift of society inspired me the last 10 years to focus on how information in particular can serve a business. I have been the chief technologist for a department delivering analytics and data management services in my country. Two years ago I started to lead the architecture capability for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region of our Enterprise Service organization.

Q: Why did your organization become a member and what does your involvement look like?  What forum did your organization join? 

In 2005 The Open Group announced the IT Architect Certification (ITAC) Program in recognition of the need to formalize the definition of the role of IT Architect. The Services business unit from Hewlett-Packard was one of the industry members in the Governing Board working group defining the standards for that program. As a platinum member HP is actively involved in, what is known today, as the Open CA program, but we are also actively contributing to Forums such as IT4IT™, Open Platform 3.0™ and Healthcare.

Q: How has membership in The Open Group benefited you, your organization and the industry at large?
I see the Open CA program, which in 2015 has its 10 year anniversary with more than 4000 professionals certified, as one of the successes that The Open Group has brought to the industry at large. As an organization we benefit from that because we now have a good reference of what a professional architect looks like. Moreover, we have embedded that industry standard in the architect job family in HP Enterprise Services to support proper career progression. For me, leading the architecture capability in my region, that standard is an essential guidance to govern the alignment between the market, our growth initiatives, and the capabilities necessary for that. But I also see the successes in other activities in HP, such as the IT4IT™ initiative that formally started in 2014 at the London conference.
 

Q: What contributions do you hope to bring to The Open Group?
Well, after my certification in 2007 I rapidly became a member of the Open CA Governing Board working group, contributing to the development the standard with my peers. I am currently also the Chair and the way the profession is maturing, with, for example, Enterprise Architect, Business Architect, requires the working group to proactively maintain the standard. It must be accurate and scalable into to the future, so personally I hope to continue the interactions with my peers in the industry. I have also been appointed to represent HP Enterprise Services in The Open Group Governing Board. With the digital shift we have all been experiencing the last decade I see that as a great opportunity to contribute to the greater good for IT standards that benefit the industry at large.
 

Q: Why is it important for other organizations to join The Open Group?
In general, to create a bigger whole that is more than the sum of its parts, things have to cooperate with each other. For the IT industry at large it is a necessity to develop standards so technology and any related developments can cooperate and serve the bigger whole in today’s information society. Some might see developing standards as a competition. My experience though is that The Open Group members provide a joint learning experience. That is beneficial for every organization as new insights enrich your view on your field of interest. Let’s be honest, we are living in very interesting times where information technology has become an essential part of our lives, so why not tap into the shared experiences of The Open Group members, contribute and experience something bigger that you can do yourself?    

Q: What are your hobbies?
I like to listen to various sorts of world music, experiment with my audio system, play a little guitar, watch contemporary art and hike in the forests where I live.
 

Q: What book are you currently reading?
I am not that much of a book reader as in reading novels. I tend to read more articles on the web that interest me. But, there are two books that have been laying around in the living room that I open up once in a while and that is ‘The art of looking sideways’ from Alan Fletcher and ‘Information arts’ from Stephen Wilson. Both stretch my thinking to put things into perspective of the bigger whole.
 

Q.  What social networks do you belong to?
Probably not enough. Of course there is the Association of Enterprise Architects (AEA), and also LinkedIn and Twitter.  But I have to be honest here. My interaction with social networks comes in bursts. You can really lose yourself, as there are so may around. So, I follow a very small selection of people, and yes, The Open group is amongst them. And there is the internal social network in HP, but that is of a different order because it is instrumental for me in doing part of my job.
 

Q: Any last thoughts?

No matter how you look at it, interaction is the basic principle of our existence, so I am looking forward for many years to come with The Open Group to contribute, learn and experience.

Dr. Peter Beijer is Chief Technologist in the Office of the CTO of HP Enterprise Services, leading the architecture capability in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region. He is responsible for ensuring that the capability of 850 architects across EMEA is efficient and effective in using architecture artefacts for promoting growth and innovation. In his role he works closely with other capabilities in Enterprise Services to align the architecture capability with the global strategy in exploiting the standards of mandated methods, tooling and skills. In his role he coordinates, develops strategies, and solves problems to further enhance the internal architecture profession in response to the developments in the IT industry.

Before joining the CTO in 2013, Dr. Beijer was a Chief Technologist in the Analytics & Data Management practice from Enterprise Services, where he was instrumental in developing the new practice in the Netherlands through capability development and business development. In the more than 30 years of experience in the IT industry, he developed a proven track record of practicing architecture for more than15 years, covering the complete stack of Information Technologies. He was amongst the first in HP being certified through the Open CA certification program of The Open Group.

Dr. Beijer is a recognized pioneer in HP’s solution architecture method and core contributor to the HP architecture community. He developed architecture thought leadership by combining his field experience with course development and instructing, book authoring, as well as his work in The Open Group Governing Board workgroup for specifying and maintaining the Open CA standard – the Open CA Specification Authority. He currently is the chair of this workgroup.

Dr. Beijer has a Master’s degree in the Information Management discipline. He received a doctorate from the University of Amsterdam for his research on how governing actors in the C-suite build up perceptions on innovation potential of the technologies that represent the contemporary information society. He can be reached at peter.beijer@hpe.com.