Knowledge of the business Essay

Another research study, by Michael J. P. Whyte (2004), called Enterprise Architecture – the Key to Benefits Realization, stresses the importance of being aware of exactly what the business is about before change management can be implemented. Whyte (2004) discusses why business who have installed increasing amounts of computing hardware and software over the last three or four decades have not been able to realize the expected benefits (p. 2). In his study, Whyte outlines the following contributing factors that have lead to such non-realization of benefits: ? Manner in which IS projects proceed. Whyte criticizes most projects for merely being stuck in the discovery phase of the project. This involves simply defining the current situation, systems or processes. During the discovery phase of a project, certain architecture-like artefacts are produced, such as process diagrams, entity relationship diagrams, and infrastructure diagrams, all of which form the basis for the new project. According to Whyte, the fundamental problems with these artefacts are that they are created within the context of the project, and are thus seldom correct and almost never complete. They deal with the aggregates found in the current situation and do not identify the primitives upon which the new architecture must be based. As a result, these â€Å"artefacts† are not maintained and extended after the project is completed, precisely because they were based on the current situation prior to implementation of the project (Whyte, 2004, p. 3). ? The silver bullet mentality According to Whyte, this is another major obstacle in benefits realization. Whyte criticizes how vendors offer the latest and greatest hardware, the newest and most complete software suite, or the most up-to-date methodology to help companies in implementing their benefits realization programs. The problem with these offers, according to Whyte, is that they do not fit together. They cannot fit into any overall scheme which satisfies a particular organization’s needs since the organization’s needs are undefined in the first place (Whyte, 2004, p. 4). Whyte recommends what is called Enterprise Architecture to deal with the two factors identified above. Enterprise Architecture helps the organization to full define its current state and to precisely determine the things that need to be changed. All aspects of the propose change can be quickly assess and the results can be analysed and quantified. Enterprise Architecture involves both the integration of the business aspect and IS in change management. It provides a means to capture the knowledge which makes the business work, and makes this knowledge available for the ongoing benefit of the business. In other words, it provides a blueprint of the business, a complete picture of the business and all the components which make the business work. Such knowledge is quantified and captured as data so that it can produce information to be used by another person in a company, making change management thus not person or individual-centred. When a person who instigated the change management leaves, his or her replacement can easily pick up where he left off since knowledge of how the business works is readily available (Whyte, 2004, pp. 4-6). In obtaining this knowledge, Enterprise Architecture involves the use of the Zachman Framework. This framework involves the use of thirty models which are required to fully define an enterprise. Each model must be explicitly recognized and implemented. According to Whyte, â€Å"Each row of the Zachman Framework takes a unique perspective of the enterprise (planner, owner, designer, builder, subcontractor). Each column deals with a primitive interrogative (what, how, where, who, when, why). Each of the thirty intersections of these rows and columns identifies a unique model of the enterprise. Each model is unique – it is not an elaboration of a higher level model. Each higher level row provides requirements for the row beneath, but each perspective, hence, each model is unique† (Whyte, 2004, p. 6). â€Å"All models in a column are related by a fundamental meta-model (entity-relationship, function-argument, node-link, agent-work, time-cycle, ends-means). As the models are developed ‘as is’ for an enterprise, it is unavoidable that discontinuities will be discovered between the higher level models (planner’s and owner’s perspective) and the lower level models (builder’s and sub-contractor’s perspective). This is because current corporate systems have usually been built starting at the lowest levels with no regard to the higher level models. So naturally, the functioning enterprise is NOT a true representation of what the corporate management desires† (Whyte, 2004, p. 7). In other words, Whyte recommends Enterprise Architecture as the means to bind an organization’s business side and IS side into a fully functional whole entity. Knowledge of the entire enterprise, from top to bottom, is necessary in order to determine not only the current situation but the framework on which change management should be based on.