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How To Access The Strategy Briefings

Russell Abisla — Thu Jan 15, 2009 11:11 am

Author: Russell Abisla

Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 11:11 am

How you manage your IT applications is a direct result of setting a strategy appropriate to your enterprise. An appropriate strategy can have a direct and positive impact on business outcomes.

This forum contains a series of Strategy Briefings covering a wide range of topics. It describes several approaches and highlights the key opportunities to reduce the risks, costs, and time required to develop and deliver IT applications.

In order to download the briefings, you must first register as a user of the forum. To register, simply click on the Register link at the top of the page. Once your account has been activated, you will then be able to download the briefings.

A great way for you to network and make new industry contacts!

As a registered member of the forum, we value your contributions. Your contribution which you may choose to post to the forum may be a methodology, approach or success story about a specific strategy briefing that you would like to share with other members. Each month we will select and highlight one contribution made by one of the members. If selected, we will run your contribution along with your contact information on our site's (visible.com) landing page for at least 10 business days.

There in no cost to you if your contribution is selected ... a great way for others in the industry to see your contribution and recognize your skills.

Zachman Framework for Enterprise Architecture Briefing

MCesino — Mon May 05, 2008 1:02 pm

Author: MCesino

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 1:02 pm

Visible's relationship with John Zachman goes back to the early 70`s when John and Clive Finkelstein, our Chief Scientist, were with IBM. Clive's belief that data models should be "business event driven" and "model based" paralleled John's belief in the need for a business-driven Enterprise Information Architecture which would provide an organization with an organization-scale blueprint -- or architecture --for their information infrastructure. This strategy briefing describes how Visible tools, training and services help "populate" the cells of the framework.

This strategy briefing and its associated forum postings are designed to help you now in your endeavor to build a more effective Enterprise Architecture more efficiently. Please feel free to learn from other postings and share your experiences through your own postings via the Visible Forum.

Enterprise Portals Lifecycle Briefing

MCesino — Mon May 05, 2008 1:00 pm

Author: MCesino

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 1:00 pm

The latest "silver bullet" for IT is the Enterprise Portal. It has many names: Enterprise Portal, Enterprise Information Portal, Corporate Portal, Web Portal, and just plain Portal. Whatever it's called, portals promise to provide necessary information from any source to anyone who needs it. This has the potential for significant productivity and competitive gains.

While Enterprise Portals may have this potential, it is not easy to deliver� even with new tools and technologies and single point access to heterogeneous information, in multiple formats, from multiple sources. In order to be truly effective, Enterprise Portals cannot just happen -- they must be "engineered." This strategy briefing provides a simple definition for Enterprise Portals, describes their benefits, and outlines a method and tools for easily and efficiently engineering them.

This strategy briefing and its associated forum postings are designed to help you now in your endeavor to build a more effective Enterprise Architecture more efficiently. Please feel free to learn from other postings and share your experiences through your own postings via the Visible Forum.

Enterprise Architecture Lifecycle Briefing

MCesino — Mon May 05, 2008 12:58 pm

Author: MCesino

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 12:58 pm

This strategy briefing describes the Enterprise Architecture Lifecycle and the Visible Enterprise Lifecycle "tool set." The Enterprise Lifecycle involves all the activities that organizations ("enterprises") perform to improve productivity, gain and maintain competitive advantage, optimize resources, deliver quality products and services, and meet customer expectations and demand.

The impact of change on the Enterprise requires that systems supporting lifecycle processes must also be changed. This paper details how Visible's Enterprise Lifecycle methodology and tools, not only make effective change management throughout the lifecycle possible, they make it easy.

This strategy briefing and its associated forum postings are designed to help you now in your endeavor to build a more effective Enterprise Architecture more efficiently. Please feel free to learn from other postings and share your experiences through your own postings via the Visible Forum.

Information Technology Critical Success Factors Briefing

MCesino — Mon May 05, 2008 12:56 pm

Author: MCesino

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 12:56 pm

This strategy briefing describes what your enterprise needs to do to guarantee survival. Your twenty-first century systems need to meet your future information needs. They should be developed using state-of-the-art technologies and languages. They should be designed to allow rapid response to changing requirements. Your in-house development staff should be appropriately skilled and your processes and infrastructure should allow for quality rapid application development.

It's not too late. But you should start now. The longer you wait to begin, the harder (and more expensive) it will be. In any case, it won't be easy. It will take resources and hard work, but it will be worth it. Being able to determine and document your future information needs�and armed with improved processes, skills and infrastructure�you will be ready meet the challenges of the new century.

This strategy briefing and its associated forum postings are designed to help you now in your endeavor to build a more effective Enterprise Architecture more efficiently. Please feel free to learn from other postings and share your experiences through your own postings via the Visible Forum.

Federal IT Management Reform Briefing

MCesino — Mon May 05, 2008 12:48 pm

Author: MCesino

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 12:48 pm

More than ever, federal agencies are finding it necessary to reform and improve their internal management practices. This paper briefly describes mandated requirements for management reform and explains how e-Engineering methods and best practices can ensure agencies consistency, rigorously, effectively and successfully implement necessary reforms.

This strategy briefing and its associated forum postings are designed to help you now in your endeavor to build a more effective Enterprise Architecture more efficiently. Please feel free to learn from other postings and share your experiences through your own postings via the Visible Forum.

Enterprise Systems Modernization Briefing

MCesino — Mon May 05, 2008 12:42 pm

Author: MCesino

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 12:42 pm

This strategy briefing describes a permanent solution that reduces maintenance overhead while providing better customer service and quality information systems.

The ultimate results of Enterprise System Modernization are shared, non-redundant data, trusted strategic information, and shared reusable software components.

This strategy briefing and its associated forum postings are designed to help you now in your endeavor to build a more effective Enterprise Architecture more efficiently. Please feel free to learn from other postings and share your experiences through your own postings via the Visible Forum.

Enterprise Engineering Briefing

MCesino — Mon May 05, 2008 12:39 pm

Author: MCesino

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 12:39 pm

This strategy briefing describes Enterprise Engineering, the Enterprise Engineering life cycle, and the Visible Enterprise Engineering "tool set."

Enterprise Engineering involves all the activities that organizations ("enterprises") perform to improve productivity, gain and maintain competitive advantage, optimize resources, deliver quality products and services, and meet customer expectations and demand. These can include traditional activities such as reorganization, concentration on core products and competencies, niche marketing, acquisition, merger, and new technologies. Enterprise Engineering also includes new techniques and methods such as business process re-engineering, continuous process improvement, total quality management, enterprise architecture, and enterprise integration.

Enterprise Engineering, which applies equally to well-established and newly-forming enterprises, responds to the fundamental business drivers of the 1990's: migration to "agile" production, globalization of markets, changing labor pools, and volatile political and business environments.

In today's enterprises, knowledge and information are key resources on a par with capital, personnel, equipment and plant. Information systems are tightly interwoven within today's enterprises, requiring close coordination between information systems professionals and business engineers. The impact of business engineering requires significant change in how information is processed in an enterprise, which means that systems supporting changed processes must also be changed.

This strategy briefing and its associated forum postings are designed to help you now in your endeavor to build a more effective Enterprise Architecture more efficiently. Please feel free to learn from other postings and share your experiences through your own postings via the Visible Forum.

Enterprise Architecture Engineering CSFs Briefing

MCesino — Mon May 05, 2008 12:35 pm

Author: MCesino

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 12:35 pm

This strategy briefing describes critical success factors for developing, implementing, and managing (engineering) an enterprise architecture for strategic information management, operational information quality, and effective software component development and management.

Every enterprise has an architecture. Most organizations simply let their architecture grow and evolve uncontrolled. It is always undocumented and is most often characterized by high maintenance costs, long development cycles, poor quality software, non-interoperable applications, lack of data sharing, limited strategic information, and difficult change management.

Those organizations that engineer their enterprise architecture are able to avoid and/or overcome the problems experienced by organizations that are controlled by their out-of-control architectures. Enterprise Architecture Engineering means adopting rigorous and disciplined processes for effectively defining, documenting, and managing their enterprise architecture. Effectively accomplishing enterprise architecture engineering requires that the critical success factors described in this paper are addressed.

This strategy briefing and its associated forum postings are designed to help you now in your endeavor to build a more effective Enterprise Architecture more efficiently. Please feel free to learn from other postings and share your experiences through your own postings via the Visible Forum.

Enterprise Metadata Management Briefing

MCesino — Mon May 05, 2008 12:24 pm

Author: MCesino

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 12:24 pm

XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is becoming the new standard language for building Corporate Portals, integrating legacy databases, and facilitating E2E (Enterprise to Enterprise) and B2B (Business to Business) data communication.

The single most important factor in successfully using XML is metadata management: definition, documentation, and deployment. Visible's tools provide the means to do this easily and effectively. We also provide education and mentoring that ensures that our clients and partners are able to fully benefit from the enormous potential of XML.

This strategy briefing and its associated forum postings are designed to help you now in your endeavor to build a more effective Enterprise Architecture more efficiently. Please feel free to learn from other postings and share your experiences through your own postings via the Visible Forum.

Data Warehouse Architecture Briefing

MCesino — Mon May 05, 2008 12:20 pm

Author: MCesino

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 12:20 pm

This strategy briefing describes tools and methods for developing and documenting a data warehouse architecture for strategic information management.

"Engineering" a data warehouse is a lot like "engineering" a physical warehouse. Both involve a rigorous development cycle and require the right tools. A building is constructed using architectural diagrams (blueprints) that clearly depict the building's infrastructure (structural elements, walls, electrical wiring, plumbing, etc.). Visible builds data warehouses from architectural models of enterprise infrastructure (policies, goals, measures, critical success factors, etc.).

Blueprints are also used to enlarge a building or make any significant modifications. Without a diagram of the infrastructure, such changes are quite difficult and very costly and can even be dangerous. It is the same with data warehouses. Visible first updates an enterprise's data warehouse architecture model so that it reflects changes (e.g., new performance measures, product lines, or services) and then modifies the data warehouse to support the changed enterprise.

Data warehouse engineering is easier and less costly when based upon an accurate architectural model of the enterprise. Further, a data warehouse is easier to use and consistently produces desired outcomes when decision-makers have access to an enterprise architecture (metadata) that accurately reflects enterprise infrastructure.

This strategy briefing and its associated forum postings are designed to help you now in your endeavor to build a more effective Enterprise Architecture more efficiently. Please feel free to learn from other postings and share your experiences through your own postings via the Visible Forum.

Strategic Data Warehousing Briefing

MCesino — Mon May 05, 2008 12:09 pm

Author: MCesino

Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 12:09 pm

Information is a valuable resource. A well-defined Data Warehouse, properly implemented, can be a valuable tool for managing and using that resource. It translates the vast volumes of detailed, unorganized data an enterprise captures via its operational systems into useful feedback, predictors, and warnings that help Data Warehouse users at every organizational level make informed decisions.

"Data Warehouse" and "Data Warehouse Architecture" are terms that describe the methods and concepts Visible and its clients have used for almost twenty years to develop and implement Executive Information Systems (EIS), Decision Support Systems (DSS), and Business Intelligence (BI). These years of practical experience have allowed Visible to perfect our approach to data warehouse architecture and warehouse development

The business-driven, information-centric methodology pioneered by Visible provides an effective, productive, common sense approach to developing strategic Data Warehouses. A Data Warehouse, which should be called more correctly an "Information Warehouse," is a collection of computer-based information that is critical to successful execution of enterprise initiatives. This paper describes the characteristics and benefits of an information warehouse and our approach and special-purpose tools for designing, developing, and implementing a true strategic Data Warehouse.

This strategy briefing and its associated forum postings are designed to help you now in your endeavor to build a more effective Enterprise Architecture more efficiently. Please feel free to learn from other postings and share your experiences through your own postings via the Visible Forum.

Enterprise Change Management Briefing

MCesino — Sat May 03, 2008 9:16 am

Author: MCesino

Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 9:16 am

The only constant in American enterprises is change. Even the most stable enterprise changes. There are external changes in politics, climate, laws, markets, competition, and customer desires. There are internal changes of ownership, products, services, process, technology and measures of effectiveness. Today's enterprise must be able to react quickly and correctly to external change, while managing internal change effectively.

This paper describes the need for change management, effective change management practices, an infrastructure that facilitates change, and the role of the Chief Executive Officer in creating and using an infrastructure to manage change.

This strategy briefing and its associated forum postings are designed to help you now in your endeavor to build a more effective Enterprise Architecture more efficiently. Please feel free to learn from other postings and share your experiences through your own postings via the Visible Forum.

Business Rules Are Meta-Data Briefing

MCesino — Sat May 03, 2008 8:37 am

Author: MCesino

Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 8:37 am

By capturing their business rules as meta-data, enterprises consistently deliver effective strategic information � on demand, to the right people, in the right format. They also control the only constant in enterprise management � Change.

This strategy briefing and its associated forum postings are designed to help you now in your endeavor to build a more effective Enterprise Architecture more efficiently. Please feel free to learn from other postings and share your experiences through your own postings via the Visible Forum.

Enterprise Application Integration Briefing

MCesino — Sat May 03, 2008 8:27 am

Author: MCesino

Posted: Sat May 03, 2008 8:27 am

The biggest problem facing CIO's today is their existing applications. This briefing describes the problem and describes our permanent solution, Enterprise Application Integration.

Enterprise Application Integration reduces maintenance overhead while providing better customer service and quality information systems. The ultimate goals of Enterprise Application Integration are shared, non-redundant data, trusted strategic information, and shared reusable software components.

This strategy briefing and its associated forum postings are designed to help you now in your endeavor to build a more effective Enterprise Architecture more efficiently. Please feel free to learn from other postings and share your experiences through your own postings via the Visible Forum.