1/36 Business/IT alignment in the GRAAL project Pascal van Eck, Roel Wieringa (Dept. of Computer Science, Information Systems Group) SIKS course ‘Information.

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Business/IT alignment in the GRAAL project

Pascal van Eck, Roel Wieringa (Dept. of Computer Science, Information Systems Group)

SIKS course ‘Information & Organization’, Dec. 6-8, 2004, Vught, The Netherlands

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Goal of this presentation

• Present a theoretical perspective on business/IT alignment– … and introduce a few concepts from

strategic management

• Present the GRAAL framework as a means for alignment research

• Present case study observations about alignment in practice

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Agenda

• Goal of this presentation• Theory: alignment according to

Henderson & Venkatraman• The GRAAL project and framework• Case study observations• Conclusion

Goal Henderson & Venkatraman The GRAAL framework Observations Conclusion

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What is business/IT alignment?

• Business/IT alignment:

Allocation of IT budgets such that business functions are supported in an optimal way


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Strategy (and tactics) 1/2

• Strategy: external position of the organization– Product/market combinations– Make-or-buy decisions– Human resources

• Impact of decisions: years


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Strategy (and tactics) 2/2

• Tactical level: realizing the strategy by internal means– Impact of decisions: month(s) – 1 year– Example: organization structure

• Operational level: day-to-day decisions– Impact of decisions: day(s) – month(s)– Example: hire temps in case of sudden

increase in sales


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Beware: strategy hierarchy

• One person’s tactical problems are another person’s strategic problems– E.g., corporate tactics become strategic

goals of business units …– … and so on, and so on.


8/36Taken from: Henderson, & Venkatraman, (1993). Strategic alignment: Leveraging information technology for transforming organisations. IBM Systems Journal, 32(1):472-484.


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Henderson & Venkatraman’s take home message

• Similar to business strategy, IT strategy has to consider both internal as well as external aspects

• Both internal/external alignment as well as functional integration must be taken into account. Only one of them is not sufficient


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Agenda




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Project GRAAL

• Guidelines Regarding Architecture ALignment

• Goal: discovery of patterns in enterprise-level application architecture

• Based on case studies in Dutch financial service organizations and large government organizations

Project page: http://is.cs.utwente.nl/GRAAL


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What is a system?

• A system is an assembly of components that behaves as a whole– There is synergy between components …– … and this synergy results in emergent properties– A product is a system with properties that are

useful for someone

• Examples– The system of law– The Dutch national soccer team uses a 3-3-4

system– ‘A systematic way of working’


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System dimensions

• System aspects: externally observable properties

• Aggregation hierarchy: system composition in terms of components

• System life cycle: from conception to disposal


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System life cycle

• Typical stages in the life of a system• During design, we should deal with all stages

ConceptionAcquisition

(build or buy)Usage

Maintenance(Corrective and perfective)

Disposal

Time


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Software product aspects

• Aspects are what observers can observe• Service = interaction

– Behavior: in what sequence (time)– Communication: with whom (space)– Meaning: about what

SW product aspect

Services Quality

Behavior Communication Meaning For user For developer

Usability Efficiency Security .... Maintainability Portability ...

The only aspect peculiar for symbol-manipulating systems


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Aggregation

Aspect and aggregation are independent

Compositesystem

SystemExternalentity

Externalentity

Component

BehaviorCommunicationMeaningQuality




... ...


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The meaning of aggregation• C is a component of A if

– C provides service to A– A encapsulates C

• If we drop encapsulation, we get layering

C B CA1 A2

C

BA1 A2


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Architecture layers

• Layer structure crosses worlds• This is not possible with encapsulation

Business environment

Business

Business software

SW Infrastructure

Physical infrastructure

Primaryserviceprovision

Social world

Symbol world

Physical world


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Structure of the business system layer


Business

Applications: Functionality

SW Infrastructure



Social world

Symbol world

Physical world

Information systems: Data

Business systems serveparticular user groups


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Structure of the SW infrastructure layer


Business

Business systems



Social world

Symbol world

Physical world

Infrastructure servesall usergroups

OS, Network software

DBMS, WFMS, Directory server, Web server, ...

Middleware

Office SW, Browser, ...


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The physical world is BIG!


Business

Business software

SW Infrastructure

Processors, peripherals, UI devices, wires,electromagnetic waves, wireless access points, ....Radio network, electricity network, telephone network, water supply network, gas supply network, sewage network, road network, ....Buildings, ... machine tools, ....


Social world

Symbol world

Physical world


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The framework

ConceptionAcquisition

Usage & MaintenanceDisposal

Services

Behavior Communication Meaning

Quality

Usability ... Maintainability ...

System life

Aspects


Business

Business SW (applications & information systems)

SW infrastructure (OS, NW, MW, DBMS, WFMS, ...)

Physical infrastructure (Computers, network, access points, ...)

Ser

vice

pro

visi

on

Socialworld

Symbolworld

Physicalworld


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Agenda




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Documents studied


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Main findings• Development of application level and

infrastructure level are different– Application level:

• Event-driven• Structured according to user groups

– Infrastructure level:• Time-triggered• Structured according to technology domains

• Structure development org. should follow structure of client organization


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Application alignment


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Goals


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Problems


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Two perspectives

IT applications

Business strategy

Business processes

Business infrastructure

1

1

IT infrastructure

IT strategy

2

2


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IT development organization and client organization: observation

• Development organization before reorganization:– One department per client group– Per department: subdepartment per development

phase (account managers, architects, designers, programmers)

• Development organization after reorganization:– One department per development phase– Per department: subdepartment per client group


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Conway

• Conway’s Law:– “Structure of designed artefact is

isomorphic to structure of development team”

• Consequence of restructuring:– Structure development organization no

longer fits architecture (not isomorphic)– Clients miss their point of contact– Old structure re-emerges in ad-hoc fashion


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Agenda




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Conclusion

• GRAAL provides simple framework for studying business/IT alignment

• Case study observations:– More than one alignment perspective, this

often results in mis-alignment– Isomorphism between development

organization and client organization desirable


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Literature• ‘Strategic Alignment Model’:

– Henderson, & Venkatraman, (1993). Strategic alignment: Leveraging information technology for transforming organisations. IBM Systems Journal, 32(1):472-484.http://researchweb.watson.ibm.com/journal/sj/382/henderson.pdf

• Extension of ‘Strategic Alignment Model’:– Maes, R., Rijsenbrij, D., Truijens, O. and Goedvolk, H. (2000). Redefining

business–IT alignment through a unified framework. PrimaVera Working

Paper 2000-19, Univ. of Amsterdam, Dept. Accountancy and Inf. Mngt.http://imwww.fee.uva.nl/~maestro/PDF/2000-19.pdf

• GRAAL results:– Eck, P. van, Blanken, H. and Wieringa, R. (2004). Project GRAAL:

Towards Operational Architecture Alignment. Int. J. of Cooperative Information Systems, 13(3):235-255.

http://is.cs.utwente.nl/GRAAL/eck_blanken_wieringa_ijcis04.pdf


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Pascal van Eck

Department of Computer Science

University of Twente

P.O. Box 217

7500 AE Enschede

The Netherlands

Email: [email protected]

http://www.cs.utwente.nl/~patveck

1/36 Business/IT alignment in the GRAAL project Pascal van Eck, Roel Wieringa (Dept. of Computer Science, Information Systems Group) SIKS course ‘Information.

Documents

architecture alignment

agenda goal

henderson venkatramans

strategic alignment

businessit alignment

project graal guidelines

practice slide

netherlands slide