Earl PerkinsI’d like to introduce myself to the readers of the Gartner IAM Blog. I am Ray Wagner, the Managing Vice President for the Secure Business Enablement team at Gartner.
Co-Chair Gregg Kreizman and I have just finished putting the final touches on the agenda for the fourth Gartner US Identity and Access Management Summit, to be held in San Diego in November. It looks to be a pretty good show: Earl Perkins, will provide the Opening Keynote, followed by security guru Bruce Schneier, who will discuss the intersection of Identity, Privacy, and Security. I’ll be hosting a Pundits’ Panel including some great thinkers on identity, including Identity Blog’s Dave Kearns. These will be wrapped around lots of presentations by Gartner analysts, user case studies, special analyst Q&A sessions, user round tables, the ubiquitous show floor, and a final ‘Stump the Analysts’ session which will include not only stumped analysts but a guest appearance on stage by the attendee winner of our ‘Best Best Practices for IAM’ contest.
The journey to IAM maturity is a long one, and there may be occasions to take stock of where you are as an enterprise. For our theme this year, we chose ‘You Are Here’ – many organizations find themselves somewhere in the middle of that journey today, looking perhaps for a road map that will give them guidance as to where to go next. This would put us (as a whole) somewhere near the beginning of the third of four phases of maturity. Phase one could be called ‘Blissful Ignorance’ – there was no formalism in the practice of IAM and not much realization that it was needed. Phase two is called ‘Awareness’ – when a problem is recognized and people begin to seriously talk about what it will take to solve it. Our estimate is that we (again, as a whole) were in this phase from around 2004 to 2007-8. Phase three, which Gartner thinks we are in the early part of now, is ‘Corrective’ – a plan is in place and we’re working on deploying an infrastructure in its various forms, including technology, organization, and policy. Phase four is ‘Operational Excellence’ – I don’t think that term needs definition, other than to note that the Operational Excellence phase is not static, but requires continual refinement.
So, my question to you is, “Are We Here?” What maturity phase is your organization in, and what phase are we in as a whole? Your thoughts would be welcome here, or through feedback to the conference chairs. And, don’t forget to submit your Best Practices at the IAM4 Event Page – you could win a free ticket to the conference and even end up on stage with us in November!
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Category: Uncategorized Tags: Gartner IAM Summit
