Enterprise Systems: People, Business and Technology-- As-is, To-Be, Here-to-There

• People -- Ethnographic concerns
• Enterprise systems are situated within the workflow of people working within a dynamic work setting, where these people identify their work (and the quality of life at their workplace) in terms of their experience in using/developing enterprise systems
• Roles people perform
• Domain Analysts--persons who knows how to analyze the focal problem enterprise system domain to determine both a reusable and specialized system solution
• Subject Matter Experts--persons most knowledgeable about the enterprise system opportunities and constraints
• Executive/internal customers--authorizes/commits resources to system development
• Internal end-user/clients--persons assigned to use system as part of their workflow
• External end-user/customers--persons who your enterprise sees as its (paying) customers
• Suppliers/Vendors--people who represent external businesses that sell/offer their products or services to facilitate system development, integration, usage or maintenance (evolution)
• Hardware--computers, network equipment, etc.
• Software--development tools, packaged application software, etc.
• Consultant--companies you pay for advice or development services, etc.
• Telecommunications or Internet Service Providers (ISPs)--companies who provide access and usage of wide-area networking services, under contract.
• Application Service Providers (ASPs)--Internet-based software vendors that provide access and usage of enterprise application systems (or system components) that are not central to the core competencies of the customer's enterprise.
• Others--public agencies or private enterprises that impinge can impinge on the routine operation of certain enterprise systems
• Government regulators--local, state or federal tax, public safety or national defense/security agencies
• Consumer rights advocates
• Etc.
• "Win" conditions--goals, objectives or outcomes different people desire from a given enterprise system development effort.
• Business -- Strategic concerns
• Goals--What do the people want to realize through the development and use of a new enterprise systems?
• Create new sources of wealth
• Create new revenue streams
• Continuously improve the efficiency and effectiveness of internal business processes, operations, or line functions
• Acquire/expand professional skills (e.g., help to get a better job elsewhere)
• Processes--what business activities or functions do you expect the system to support?
• Products--what outcomes, tangible results, reports, revenue streams,
• Business Rules--business "logic" that stipulates the policies, procedures (methods) or constraints that affect how enterprise processes (or products) will be performed (or produced), by whom, when and where.
• Resources--the money (budget), time (schedule), skills (available people), sentiment (leadership, motivation, incentives), available information technologies (possessed or to be acquired) and others (TBD) that enable enterprise processes to produce their products in conformance with enterprise's business rules.
• Strategic Business Partners--companies with whom your enterprise seeks to establish a strategic alliance in order to facilitate customer referrals (e.g., via Web buttons/links (passive) or content push (active)) and more complete customer solution product/service offerings.
• Customers--how to best engage, as well as to enlarge the population, of customers through "now, free, best" business interaction/transaction experiences
• Complementors--companies that you need to help receive revenue (payment) or deliver products (via logistics) from/to customers.
• Competitors--companies that are after the same population of customers offering similar products/services.
• Information System -- Technologic concerns
• User perspective
• End-user experience--what people "see and do" when interacting with the system?
• System-User Interface
• Look and feel of graphic (multi-media) human-computer interface
• Ease of use or usability concerns
• Navigational and visual layout of end-user interactions/transactions
• User experience "branding" (e.g., Amazon.com "one click" online purchase transaction)
• Business customer--what else does the customer want that can or cannot be addressed at this time, given the information technology that will be used in the system once developed?
• Developer perspective--what technical people need to accomplish for their efforts to be considered successful
• Technical/engineering viewpoint:
• Did we do our job effectively and efficiently?
• Did we use the best available tools, techniques or system components?
• Business viewpoint:
• Did we satisfy our internal and external customers while meeting enterprise goals?
• Reviewer perspective--technical people not involved in the development that review, test/validate, report on "defects", and certify that the developers' efforts address user/enterprise needs.
• Information Technology perspective--what are all the technological components, tools and infrastructure arrangements that are needed for the system to operate properly
• IT system components--hardware, software, networks
• Routine operations and redundant hardware
• System development tools and test platforms
• System security
• Vulnerability and exposure analysis
• Vulnerability scanning (e.g., McAfee VirusScan)
• Intrusion detection and classification (e.g., Code Red and Nimda are "worms" not viruses).
• IT security mechanisms
• Access control (passwords, authentication)
• Encryption
• Distributed file fragment sharing and recomposition
• System backup and disaster recovery
• Information infrastructure
• Telecommunications and Internet Network Access Points (NAPs)
• Anticipated bandwidth or throughput requirements
• Multiple internetwork connections
• Network/application-level protocols
• Data communication --TCP/IP, UDP, SMTP, etc.
• Business transaction -- HTTP-CGI-SQL-ASP vs. WSDL-SOAP-UDDI-XML
• Business process synchronization (within/across enterprise(s))
• Network bandwidth Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Quality of Service (QoS)
• Remote facilities and surge capacity

Enterprise System Life Cycles

    System Development Life Cycle vs. System Integration Life Cycle

• System Development Life Cycle
• (Re)Building an information system for an enterprise
• requirements, analysis, architecture design,
• detailed component design, implementation, testing, documentation,
• usage, evolution
• enhancement
• restructuring
• tuning
• debugging
• conversion
• System Life Cycle Models
• Waterfall Model (graphic view)
• Iterative Development Model
• Standards and Capability Maturity Models (e.g., ISO 12207; SEI CMM; graphic view)
• Incremental Release Model (graphic view)
• Rapid Prototyping and Rapid Application Development (RAD)
• Spiral Model (graphic view)
• Evolutionary Delivery Model
• Microsoft vs. Netscape (see Assigned Reading #1)
• Synchronize and stabilize -- daily "builds" of new system version
• Early release of evolving product to customers
• Development team with broad-based experience with multiple projects
• Major investment in design of product/system architecture -- e.g., make it easy to extend or reuse
• Make it easy for prospective customers to acquire, demostrate, use, and evaluate -- e.g., distribute via Web site download with installation "wizard"
• Open source development -- Linux and others
• Collaborative development and community support environments
• SourceForge.net and Collab.Net
• Optional: For further details, see Process Models in Software Engineering
• Optional: One (commercial vendor) view of System Development Best Practices (from Rational Inc.)
• Optional: Software Development Practices in Open Source Software Development Communities
  
 
• System Integration Life Cycle
• Integrating an information system into an enterprise
• packaging, posting, and advertising,
• deployment, acquisition, installation, testing,
• training, usage, routinization, evolution
• Challenge problem: how to distribute and integrate a licensed copy of Windows XP to 10,000 corporate PCs?