Best Practices for a Mobility Center of Excellence - Sybase

A critical decision at this point is to
pick the person to lead the MCoE. Since
this person serves as the focal point for
mobility within the organization, this person
needs to be, among other things:
• Comfortable defi ning “art of the possible”
mobility scenarios
• Credible across business and IT
leadership
• Profi cient in driving and delivering on
innovation
• Grounded in real-world IT project
delivery
In addition to the leader, here are
some roles to consider staffi ng the MCoE
organization with:
• Solution architect
• Usability specialist
• Business analyst
Given that most MCoEs are bootstrapped
– that is, not created and fully
staff ed from the very beginning – deciding
on which resources will be full time
versus part time is important. We recommend
that you start with a full-time
MCoE leader and explore leveraging resources
from other parts of the organization
(application development, technology
architecture, UX, and so on).
With the organization structure and
the roles identifi ed, you need to defi ne
the responsibilities of the individuals in
terms of key work activities and
deliverables.
As you get started on bootstrapping
the MCoE, you should look to your supplier
ecosystem (carrier/telco, system integrator,
network, security vendors, and
so forth) for resources that can support
the MCoE.
GOVERNANCE
SAP White Paper– Best Practices for a Mobility Center of Excellence
This element of the MCoE defi nes:
• The ground rules for its operations
• The funding model
• The mechanism by which decisions
are made
• The criteria used to track its ongoing
eff ectiveness
• The process for communicating key
decisions and milestones to its
stakeholders
In defi ning the governance for the
MCoE, it is important to keep this process
lightweight and pragmatic. For a
space that is moving as fast as mobility,
you need a governance process that is
nimble yet robust enough to get the desired
results. Being transparent about
how mobility projects are reviewed, approved,
and delivered is a critical part of
the governance model.
We fi nd that three of the most commonly
addressed areas within governance
relate to architecture, security,
and operations.
Within architecture, typical questions
that need to be addressed are:
• How will you decide which modality (or
more than one) to use for a specifi c
application – native client, HMTL5 app,
hybrid app, mobile browser, text messaging/SMS?
Drive a culture of agility, fl exibility,
and customer centricity among the
CoE team.
• How will mobile application development
be integrated with your existing
software development lifecycle (SDLC)
tools and process – for example,
change management, version control,
patterns, code reuse, defect tracking,
and the like?
• What will your mobile user experience
guidelines be? What parts of your existing
user experience principles can
you carry over to mobile?
• How will mobile align with other enterprise
initiatives such as enterprise 2.0,
service-oriented architecture (SOA),
collaboration, and so on?
When it comes to security, some of the
items that require addressing are:
• Do you support “bring your own device”
(BYOD)?
• If yes,
– What is the process for specifying
the list of supported devices under
the BYOD policy? Does it cover
smart phones and tablets?
– What processes and infrastructure
do you need to get the desired level
of security and visibility across the
lifecycle of the mobile assets?
– How do you account for country-
and region-specifi c data privacy regulations
and their impact on BYOD?
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