| Architecture Planning |
- Why Do Architecture Planning?
- Performance Management Architecture and Planning Discovery Services
- Benefits of Architecture and Planning Services
Drivers for Enterprise BPM Architecture
Architecture is the technical foundation for an effective IT strategy, which in turn is the core of any successful modern business strategy. Here are some examples of how an enterprise BPM architecture is essential to business and IT strategy:
- Enable strategic initiatives to leverage ERP, CRM and custom business applications
- "I've invested $X million in our ERP implementation, but how can I use them in my business planning and performance reporting?"
- "How am I going to bring my back-office and front-office information together for budgeting and forecasting?"
- Flexibility to support broad spectrum of performance management needs Status Reporting - "What is going on?"
- Attention setting - "How do I know what's important and what's changed?"
- Information sharing - "How do I get my people moving in a consistent direction?"
- Business relationship modeling - "How can I test my gut feel and transfer my experience to others?"
- Process-driven performance management - "What are the parameters driving my business results?" "How do we set targets that are achievable with the levers at our control?"
- Support technology and enterprise information integration strategies
- Open, modular, scaleable, independent
- Easier to implement and maintain
- Designed for enterprise performance demands
Why do Architecture Planning?
An architecture plan sets the stage for a successful implementation. The plan provides an implementation roadmap for the IT organization and ensures IT goals are driven by business priorities. The goals of the plan are to:
- Deliver seamless business performance management support regardless of how many systems are involved.
- Identify architecture and development standards (tools, models) that will reduce development costs and development time (productivity).
- Achieve gradual legacy system retirement without loss of application support.
- Enable data management of key business data (customers) across all business processes and systems.
- Implement architecture changes that leverage existing strategic technologies.
- Define both the business and technical requirements for the solution prior to design.
- Plan phased approach to maximize value and minimize risk, along with action plan to facilitate rapid implementation.
- Define integration requirements so downstream performance management needs are met.
- Ensure tools support analytical needs.
- Develop risk mitigation plans to address business issues, technical challenges, and outside factors.
- Establish stakeholder consensus and realistic expectations.
- Proven methodology to architect business solutions
- Designed with flexibility to be easily tailored to each client engagement
- Structured approach ensures predictable results
- Supports iterative, time-box based development
Benefits of Architecture and Planning Services
- Identify potential trouble spots before they can become problems.
- Prevent redundant development for common/similar metrics across projects.
- Standardize data and processes such as conforming business dimensions across projects.
- Create one view of business information rather than `Depends who you ask'.
- Define common strategy, e.g., for security, user interface, data sourcing, aggregates.
- Enable rapid deployment of multiple reporting and analytic solutions while minimizing future rework.
- Plan a phased implementation approach that supports changing business priorities
- Training in reference architectures and best practices, improving the effectiveness of development, test, implementation and support staff
- Maximize return on investment in existing IT infrastructure and increase flexibility to make, buy, or out-source IT solutions.
- Reduced risk overall in new investment and the costs of IT ownership.