Insurers Running Big IT Projects Need the Right Architecture and Small-Team Strategy, X by 2's Sadykhov Writes in Best's Review

FARMINGTON HILLS, MI--(Marketwire - Dec 20, 2012) - Big information technology projects at insurers often unravel because of flawed architecture and large, unwieldy teams, Oleg Sadykhov, principal of X by 2, writes in the December issue of Best's Review. The right architecture and a small-team strategy can tame big projects and pave the way for success.

"If the system is not well architected, it will result in a complex and inflexible solution. Cost overruns and major failures are inevitable," he writes. "Every project manager who has dealt with big systems has hit the 'wall.' Suddenly, development tasks that used to take a week start to take a month and it's not clear why."

With the right IT architecture, big systems are broken down into smaller pieces that will lend themselves well to independent work by teams, he writes.

"The challenge of architecture is to keep the criteria of autonomy and loose coupling of subsystems very clearly in mind and tackle the difficult issues such as data separation and disentanglement of the user interface to accomplish it," Sadykhov writes. 

His article also discusses data replication, and the performance challenges posed by centralized data access.

A promising recent development is CQRS, which stands for Command and Query Responsibility Separation, he writes. It says systems should have two parts: one for data modifications and another for data inquiries, each with their own databases. 

"Software architects should consider newer approaches such as CQRS when working through challenges of decomposition of their systems. The goal is to achieve autonomy and loose coupling of subsystems," Sadykhov concludes. "If they succeed, they can pave the way for small, independent and efficient teams that have a much better chance to deliver large and complex enterprise initiatives successfully."

The article can be read at http://www.xby2.com/articles.

X by 2 (www.xby2.com) is a technology company in Farmington Hills, Mich., specializing in software and data architecture and transformation projects for the insurance industry. It provides architecture design, planning, oversight, and turnaround services on enterprise-scale business technology initiatives. Clients include national and regional life, health and property-casualty insurers, and healthcare organizations.