Analysis Project of an Enterprise Architecture Design - Case Study Example

Introduction This report focuses on how researchers analysed and mapped the process undertaken by the Faculty of Informatics of University of Wollongong to select staff members for attending international conferences. Further, it provided the process undertaken to create the vision and mission statement for the faculty. It further details on the process of submitting nominations for attending a conference and how does the existing system works. Thereafter, the researchers undertook a detailed analysis of the system to find out the gap areas and customise it as per the current requirements. In order to customise the current system, it was also necessary to conduct a field study, therefore, the researchers describe the various methods undertake to conduct such a study. They also report about the as-is process and discusses why such a process was used. The researchers also discussed the availability of various enterprise architectures and provided a detailed analysis of these architectures. 2.2 Review of the As-is Business Process Unless and until the business process improvement and process analysis are evaluated and documented in a systematic manner, they are not deemed as complete. In order to complete the entire business process, one needs to apply the “as is” analysis that focuses on the present level of service. Thereafter, the next step, i.e. “to be” analysis that talks about the process that should be followed. This process should contain all the priorities of the assignment, the operational strategies, the choices regarding the various processes, the major decisions regarding the processes, as well as the standards to be followed to provide information to the customers. The process also needs to look after aspects such as customer satisfaction, quality, cost of the project, error detection, delivery time, safety, provision of flexibility etc (Jeston and Nelis 2006). The programmer also needs to evaluate the process design lifecycle by understanding basic premises such as what, when, who, where and how the process design would be done. Once one is able to answer these questions, it would be easier to know why such a process needs to be undertaken. For instance, in this case, an enterprise architecture design study was undertaken to analyse and map the process of attending a conference by university’s staff of the Faculty of Informatics. However, even before undertaking the design, the researchers tried to understand the process and its impact on the organisation and find out about the insight of the larger organisation, which in this case was the University of Wollongong. Thereafter the researchers documented and evaluated the process through a four-stage evaluation. These stages include the review, editing, production evaluation and process design documentation. During the initial stages, the researchers used various techniques such as process charts, simulation models and flow charts. The flow chart focuses on how the information is processed, and how the various stakeholders are affected by the process. On the other hand, the process chart records the various activities conducted by the stakeholders, which in this case are the university staff who attended the conference and the lecturers who gave speeches during the conference. Such a chart provides an understanding about the changes taking place during the conference and also adds or creates value to the entire process. This chart helped the researcher to understand about the movement of the university staff, details about how attentive the staff was and how they reacted during the entire conference. This later on helped in analysing and benchmarking the staff members against each other to find out about the highest performing members (Jeston and Nelis 2006). Simulation models also helped the researcher in understanding the behaviour of the staff during the conference. Such models are particularly useful to measure performances, to understand resource utilisation etc. Further, simulation models help in improving the process as well as pointing various bottlenecks that might cause poor performance (Jeston and Nelis 2006). Thus, the as-is business process is reviewed with the help of various charts and simulation models which helped the researchers in understanding not only the existing processes undertaken by the university while sending staff for conferences, but also aided in finding out the various bottlenecks and issues that the staff might be facing while at a conference. The researchers documented these issues and tried to solve them in their enterprise architecture design. 2.3 Review of As-is Enterprise Architecture An enterprise architecture design consists of three parts i.e. the baseline architecture, the target architecture and the transition plan. The baseline architecture is also known as as-is enterprise architecture. This type of architecture helps in documenting the current system followed which includes the business processes, the organisational structure, the facilities provided etc. along with the information technology used in the process. This kind of documentation further helps in finding out the issues in the system, the relationships within the processes and the opportunities that can be found in the system (Lyytinen et al 1998). In this case as well, the researchers were able to find out about the various issues plaguing the staff members who had to attend the conference. Further, they were able to identify the relationship between the staff members who were given the opportunity to attend a conference with the management, students and other staff members. This sort of as-is enterprise architecture helps in creating a future for the process. This means that as-is architecture provides a base on which the future strategies would be drawn. Therefore, this process became one of the important processes in the entire enterprise architecture design. However, while creating baseline architecture, it was also important to analyse the present state of affairs and undertake a bottom-up approach. The researchers were required to gather evidences in order to prove their hypothesis into a fact. Thus, the researchers tried to understand the efficacy of the staff members not only in the conference, but also during their classroom lectures to find out whether they were consistent in their performance or not. The researchers took care to find out evidences to support their hypothesis which would help them in providing recommendations by the end of the paper. As a business process that cannot be carried onwards in the future has no value, therefore, it was important to analyse the situation and find out solutions that are practical and can be implemented on a continuous basis (Lyytinen et al 1998). Further, the researchers also re-used the existing processes so that not much customisation would be required and hence saving on the cost and time. Further, this also helped in providing informed decisions for the next step, i.e. the target business architecture. 3. Target Enterprise Architecture 3.1 Vision of Future Business Operations Every organisation requires a vision to be followed to create a desired world. Such a vision is always written in present tense, although not being achieved at that point of time. The vision statement always puts emphasis on the aspiration of the organisation, the central purpose of an institution, its goal, its mission and larger role in the society. With regards to enterprise architecture, the vision is created in the initial phase of development. It takes into consideration the scope of the project, the major steps required to complete the project, the methods and the information required to complete the cycle etc. It not only provides a view of how the things are working at present, but also portrays how the institution intends to work in the next five to ten years. It also draws the various stages through which the vision can be realised. However, a vision does not provide a complete roadmap or a plan to transit to the desirable result or solution. Such a vision only provides the primary objectives and goals that the institution wishes to fulfill in the near future (Davenport 2000). For this project the researchers brainstormed with each other as well as the members from the Faculty of Informatics to come out with the vision statement - “The faculty of informatics is recognized as a national and international centre of excellence for teaching and research”. It was found that the university wants to develop the knowledge base of its academic staff and in order to do so are sending them to various international conferences. However, the university also wants to understand whether such conferences are helping the staff members or not and wants to award those people who are top performers. Therefore, the vision for the faculty is to be recognised a top centre that provides excellent learning curve to its staff, and thereby, develops the students as well. Thus, the vision provides a bridge between the application of the project and the intended development. 3.2 Desired Capability The target architecture should also include various features that would enhance the business process and operations in order to meet the future requirements and desired capability of the business operation and information needs. This means that in order to acquire the vision for the business process on need to enhance the capability of the target architecture. This desired capability has to be achieved within a certain amount of time. Further, the capability has to be maintained as well for an indefinite period of time. It should also be at par with the goal, objective and vision of the business process as well (Grant 2005). In this case, the researchers understood the desired capability of the project, i.e. finding out the efficacy of the staff members during the conference and benchmark them against the highest performing member. 3.3 Information Needs The project also required the researchers to understand about each functional needs of the unit, how, when and by whom such functions would be undertaken, what information needs to be used to undertake such a task, and what sort of opportunities do the project bring out for improving the process. In order to understand the above mentioned points, the researchers had to gather a lot of information, and thereafter, review, edit, update and delete them accordingly. The level of information detail required was totally dependent on the objectives discussed in the baseline architecture (Davenport 2000). For this project, the researchers defined the information architecture, prepared a framework on the information needs, on how to find out the required information and who would undertake what tasks. The researchers divided the task among themselves to carry out the project in a seamless manner and within the given time frame. However, it was also important to integrate the information together by allowing the information to flow through various software applications. This is a critical step in a business process as any error in this process would result in getting incorrect or incomplete information. Further, this process required the researchers to consider factors such as cost, time and flexibility of implementing the solution and managing it on a long run (Davenport 2000). Explaining the overall contribution of these technologies and concepts Process level and EA level Organizational unit level It is also important to understand whether the organisational units have their own goals and strategies or are following the strategies developed by the organisation. An enterprise architecture design help in making organisational units to take into consideration a common framework to undertake a decision at the commencement of every process. This helps the organisation head to take decisions and implement it in a similar fashion throughout the organisation. This also ensures that all the units within the organisation are following a similar framework. Further, such a process and EA level helps in providing real-time information to the organisation head and aid him to identify whether all the organisational heads are implementing similar strategies. Therefore, the organisational units need to be aligned with each other and their development needs to be maintained through the EA. Further, such levels also help in measuring the business value of each of the units within an organisation. Thereafter, it becomes easier to also measure the success of the business strategy employed on an organisational level as well. Such levels also aid in executing the roadmap, delivering the information technology initiatives and measuring the returns (Lankhorst 2009). University level On the university level, these technologies and concepts helped in enhancing the quality of the research papers written by the academic staff. Further, it helped in supporting both the school administration and the RIS system by providing them with measurable returns on the performance of the teachers during international conferences. The system helped in approving the process of identifying the right candidates for the conferences as well as checking whether the papers presented by the members were genuine or not and can be uploaded on the database for the future researchers. Further, these processes also helped in validating the quality of the paper, the approval to participate for the conference and the formal requirements to travel to the conference destination (Lankhorst 2009). Conclusion Through this paper, the researchers analysed the various processes undertaken by the Faculty of Informatics to select staff members to attend international conferences. Thereafter, they conducted a detailed analysis of the existing system to find out a best possible solution that can be used to create an enterprise architecture design that will not only help the university to select the proper candidate but also choose quality papers to be presented during the conference. This paper also discussed the various steps taken by the researchers to undertake this project, describing right from conceptualising of a vision and mission statement for the faculty, to finding out the relevance of the various technologies used in the project to come out with an enterprise architecture design. Reference: Davenport, Thomas H. 2000, ‘The Future of Enterprise System-Enabled Organizations’, Information Systems Frontiers, 2(2), 163 – 180. Grant, Robert M. 2005, ‘Contemporary strategy analysis’, Wiley-Blackwell. Jeston, John and Nelis, Johan 2006, ‘Business process management: practical guidelines to successful implementations’, Butterworth-Heinemann. Lankhorst, Marc 2009, ‘Enterprise Architecture at Work: Modelling, Communication and Analysis’, Springer. Lyytinen, Kalle, Mathiassen, Lars, Ropponen, Janne and Datta, Anindya 1998, ‘Automating the Discovery of As-Is Business Process Models: Probabilistic and Algorithmic Approaches’, Information Systems Research, 9(3), 275 – 301. Read More