Objectives:

• Estimate, model, and manage the complexity of the roadmap projects defined within an Enterprise Architecture (EA) exercise by using a fine-grained approach.       This involves the analysis of several of the artifacts and dependencies present among the target architecture domains.
• Measure the effectiveness of an IT architecture through a projects roadmap complexity measurement
• Define and evaluate strategies to re-define the projects roadmap to reduce the complexity for implementing the projects
• Validate the Simple Iterative Partitions (SIP)  methodology [1] in real EA project
• Establish a relation between time measure units and Structural Complexity Measure (SCM) units [2] estimated for a projects roadmap in a EA project

[1] R. Sessions, “Simple Architectures for Complex Enterprises”, Microsoft Press, 2008.
[2] Sessions, R.: The IT complexity crisis: Danger and opportunity. ObjectWatch (2009).

URL:http://www.objectwatch.com/whitepapers/ITComplexityWhitePaper.pdf

Objectives:

To measure the IT business value in a simple, agile, practical and applicable way to small and medium size companies.

Specific Objectives:

-    Simplify the method / process / procedure for assessing the business impact of IT investment.
-    Propose a simple measure for IT investment scoring.
-    Use simple metrics and measures in order to calculate the business value of an IT investment.
-    Take elements from different frameworks to build a model and a methodology to assess the value of IT to the business in small and medium enterprises.
-    Framing the model and the methodology proposed above, in the process of enterprise architecture, tailored to small and medium enterprises.

The critical value path method in determining the IT business value:

The project aims to create a model that integrates some elements from different frameworks and mainly uses business, application, data and infrastructure architectures in order to identify critical value units (CVU) and the critical value path (CVP). This CVU is the identification of the key elements for each level of architecture that give value to the business. The CVP could be interpreted as the sum of the different CVU found in all four architectures (business, app, data, and infrastructure) plus the value found in the relationships between each CVU (if any). 

Also the project aims to create a method to 
-    Clearly identify the most relevant metrics or measures within a very small set of them. 
-    Identify intangible benefits in order to convert them to tangible values so they can be used in IT investments valuation.
-    Propose the value view creation based on IT BSC and IT Value Network frameworks for each CVU. 
-    Determine the CVU’s final value for each view for each IT investment.
-   Identify key business areas or business topics to be improved so they can trigger cost savings or revenue increases. Easily justify an IT investment in terms of both variables (revenues and costs).
-    Use business valuation techniques to help you determine the value of the UCV and find potential "gaps" in determining the value of the current IT investment.
-   Use the “critical value path” and “critical value unit” concepts as core pillars for building the model and the methodology for measuring the business value of an IT investment.

A Model  for measuring  nonfinancial IT value delivery:

We want to construct a proposals with IT investments as central axis, demonstrating that IT enables value delivery. On detail and taking into account the most studies are focused on enterprises for profit, this project wants to raise the importance of nonprofit organizations, making special emphasis in nonfinancial variables measurement.

Main goal:

Construct a methodology for measuring potential and real value delivery from IT investments

Objectives:

• Establish models for quantifying the dependencies between Business services and IT services  (availability, performance, quality).
• Define monitoring models to evaluate these dependencies in terms of financial aspects, risks, value delivery, resources management, and strategic alignment.
• Design and develop software tools to analyze the impact n strategic alignment.
• Model and Analyze dependencies between Enterprise Architecture and IT Governance elements.
• Validate the proposed models through real scenarios.

Evaluation interdependencies between IT solutions and business on financial services:

Financial sector is experiencing a hard competition for the customers. From perspective of product to focus on service orientation, defined as availability, coverage, price and ease of use.  These variables converge fundamentally in the service offering through electronic channels: Internet, mobile banking, ATMs and IVR.

Under this scenario, it´s essential to adapt business processes so they can be self-managed by customers, improving response times and ensuring an excellent level of usability. To achieve, IT is challenged to develop architectures that involve access to multiple platforms concurrently, with a high degree of scalability, redundancy and high availability. Maintaining high levels of security for access and use of information.

This scenario makes business processes that operate on electronic channels are highly dependent on IT and it requires the development of models that allow IT, exposing to the decision makers,  technological dependencies that exist (the risks), while gives a solid foundation to leverage the budget decision and execution required to ensure service levels that the business requires.

Main results:

Analysis of strategic alignment in terms of financial aspects
A methodology to associate strategic objectives with IT interdependencies 
Mechanisms to quantify reputational and legal risks associate IT dependency
Analysis of current and future IT capacity vs. business needs

Nowadays exists a great deal of methodologies, frameworks and tools for analyzing, evaluating and facilitate effective decision-making related to IT at the organization. IT governance, strategic IT planning, Framework for Information Strategies, IT Transformation Knowledge Base & Methodology, COBIT, ITIL, Investment Portfolio Management Framework, are some available approaches intended to analyze, qualify and quantify IT related decisions in order to maximize the company value creation processes supported on information technologies.

However, the access to advanced frameworks and tools for evaluating IT alternatives is limited for some small and medium organizations due to capital, educational and organizational constraints. It is possible to advise that small and medium organizations face similar scenarios for decision-making related to IT investment, over and over. In most cases, the IT decisions are taken in unstructured and unorganized way without taking advantage of the knowledge acquired through previous process.

Objectives:

The main objectives of this project are:

1.    Model the IT decisions that are made over and over again by different organizations (e.g. providers, platforms) and analyze the implications taking these decisions in term of time, cost, risks, IT/business metrics, among others. 

2.    Propose a structured guideline to facilitate to small and medium organizations analyzing and evaluating alternatives for IT investment. In particular, investments related to enterprise systems (ERP, CRM, SCM, etc.), business process management solutions, business intelligence solutions, cloud computing, etc.  

3.    Design and implement a simulation tool intended to conduct serious games to facilitate the analysis of different scenarios for decision-making and evaluate possible results by choosing among the different alternatives.

Main results:

Modeling and simulation of decision-making in Enterprise Information Systems:

The project is planned in three phases. The initial phase is intended to establish actual models for decision-making and to analyze real scenarios and study cases of investments process in small and medium organizations. This is done in order to characterize a typical baseline scenario for investments in enterprise systems.

The second phase is intended to establish the framework and guidelines that will allow conduct the decision making process and to take structured and well supported decisions. This phase considers the definition of measures for evaluating the IT investment decisions.

The last phase is planned for designing and implementing the software tool that will allow the organization to define base scenarios, to play with the different choices for investment, and to analyze the possible outcomes of these decisions.