First of all we need to model the Business Strategy domain which describe the company vision and what the company want to achieve in the medium and long term; it include Business Drivers, Objectives, and Capabilities. It includes the following entities:
- Business Drivers are the company-wide vision and related guidelines on business evolution (e.g. Company Xyz wants to deliver low-cost Cloud Services)
- Business Objectives represent the specific target (sometimes including quantifiable KPOs) that each Business Unit defined, aligned with the Drivers (e.g. BU Abc wants to increase sales revenues of Cloud Product Zwy by 20% in 3 years)
- Business Capabilities define the macro-functionalities delivered by IT which can support Business Process in reaching the business objectives (e.g. a Product Configurator to support pre-sale process for improving Sales revenues). Each of the Business Capability is detailed in a set of Business Requirements.
Second we have to describe the Business Operational Model which describe how the company is organized and operate in order to achieve the above Business Strategy; it includes the following entities:
- Business Processes define the set of manual and IT supported Process Activities required to perform a business task (e.g. Order Acquisition process and related steps, actors, systems involved) by the Business Organization composed by Business Departments organized in a hierarchy view
- Customer Journey describe the business lifecycle from customer perspective in terms of sequence of Customer Journey Steps
- Product Types, Customer Segments, Interaction Channels describe the company business model in terms of which product it sell, to which customer segments and through which channels.
Third we need to describe the existing or future IT architecture which support the Business Operational Model in terms of IT principles and logical components (modules, data, interfaces) and physical ones (sites, server…); it includes the following entities:
- IT Principles are the IT-wide guidelines and standards which drive the overall IT architecture and Operational Model (e.g. collapse all product information in a single Catalogue)
- IT Module define the application modules (e.g. Order Capturing application) that are used by business users and customer to perform some activities of the business processes and/or deliver the business capabilities/requirements; each of the IT Module we provide this support through one or many IT Services.
- Interface define which connection and data flows are available across the IT Modules in order to transfer data between them; these data are described in terms of key information, known as Data Entity (e.g. Customer Profile, Orders, Invoices…), relevant to handle one or more business process
- Infrastructure define the infrastructural elements (e.g. front-end web server running the Order Capturing application, equipment…) required to run one or many IT Modules; these infrastructure elements are grouped together in Sites the physical location where the elements are hosted
- Issues describe the open problems and pains on each IT module (e.g. performance issues, technical issues, functional issues…)
Fourth we need to describe the running or future IT Initiatives (Projects or Programs) which aims to deliver new or modified Business Capabilities through changes or new IT Modules or Infrastructure (e.g. Order Improvement project) ; it includes the following entities:
- Initiative describe the project required to deliver new or improve existing capabilities in IT modules. These initiatives are described in terms of Impacts on IT and Business side (see later) and in terms project features like Phases, Risks, Key Decisions, Issues and Actions require to overcome Risks and Issues
Fifth we need to describe the IT Operational model required to run the business as usual in terms of maintenance and operations of running applications/infrastructure and follow IT Initiatives required to implement new modules/infrastructure; it includes the following entities:
- IT Organization composed by IT Departments organized in a hierarchy view
- IT Persons which are the IT department people required to run application and initiatives; they are linked to a specific Role and has a set of Skills
Sixth and final we need to describe the financial impacts (in terms of external spending or internal FTEs involved) for running systems and initiatives or for launching new initiatives in order to implement capabilities/requirements; it includes the following entities:
- IT Activities which describe the usual activities performed inside the IT department in order to run the current systems (e.g. Monitoring Order Mgmt app) and proceed with planned initiatives (e.g. Functional Analysis for Project A). For each of these activities related Internal FTEs and external Budget allocation (and related Suppliers) are defined
- Business Impacts define which IT and Business actions (and related effort) are required for the introduction of new capabilities (e.g. Review a GUI of an application or add a new interface) or a subset of their requirements. For each of the business Impact and estimation of costs is defined in order to estimate the overall effect of all impacts related to a common initiative
IT Strategy made easy 