Sustainable IT Architecture: the way to assess your Information System

Sustainable IT Architecture is connected to the "Smart-up" think tank. You can download their introduction poster here, and visit their website here.

Lessons learned using architecture frameworks

Click on the image on the left to download the speech by Pierre Bonnet, delivered on December 16, 2016 during the Praxeme Symposium

"... Unfortunately, in short: the architecture frameworks remain, on the whole, documents, studies… very intelligent, very precise… but whose availability to the real life of the enterprise in its business processes hardly exists at all. This is all the more true, as I mentioned in my introduction, from 2011. The data movement in enterprises really swept away certain work that was too technical in order to bring these problems and questions of data to the forefront. And the fact is that these frameworks, like Zachman and TOGAF, when they were first created, did not allow a specific enough place for data architecture or for the way in which enterprises may conduct their activities to tackle this new economy and the digital economy..." Pierre Bonnet, 2016

Our goals
Sustainable IT Architecture promotes a rating of Information Systems to evaluate organizations on their abilities to leverage the value of their IS Assets based on Reference and Master Data (MDM), Business Rules (BRMS) and Processes (BPM).

This approach relies on a IS Foundation based on three stages: modeling IS Assets, governing and executing them.

In this video, Pierre Bonnet gives a quick overview of the Sustainable IT Architecture Community's goals.
Duration: 04 minutes.

Executive summary in 5 pages.
Download it right now (PDF, 980 Kb).

IS Rating Tool on line introduction - In this webminar, we provide an introduction of the IS Rating Tool used to assess Information Systems. We show how the three types of IS Assets (Data, Rules and Processes) are measured through the three domains of assessment (Knowledge, Governance functions, IT Integration). Duration: 30 minutes.

IS Rating Tool quick tour - This video is a quick tour in the IS Rating Tool spreadsheets.
Duration: 10 minutes.

See also IS Rating Tool implemented in the Cloud MDM here (video, duration 6:47)

Data management maturity level - Find out with this video a quick presentation of the data management maturity level process. It relies on the IS Rating Tool, data assessment part.
Duration: 10 minutes

Our ecosystem
This blueprint shows how the IS Rating Tool complements with other IS and financial initiatives in order to master intangible IS Assets.
(click the figure to enlarge).

Beyond the measurement of processes provided by COBIT, EA and CMMI, time has come to measure IS products companies build and maintain.

Check list of the questions to
assess the Data Intrinsic Value (click to enlarge)

Check list of the questions to
assess the Rules Intrinsic Value (click to enlarge)

Check list of the questions to
assess the Process Intrinsic Value (click to enlarge)

These check-lists provide about 100 questions. Every question is studied with help from 5 situations (low to optimize), it means that the IS Rating Tool relies on about 500 measurement points to assess the Intrinsic Value of Information System. Find out these measurement points by downloading the tool.

Your targeted IS/IT Foundation

The right integration of the three business repositories MDM, BRMS and BPM is the only approach to really improve IS/IT traceability and agility. This integration is not an IT concern mainly as it provides all company's stakeholders with functional and operational features allowing a full and unified governance of shared data (reference and master data), rules and processes: version management, permission management, auditability, traceability, reporting, querying, authoring, etc. The path to implement these repositories is first Data (Master Data Management), second Business Rules (Business Rules Management System) and then Processes (Business Process Management).

Processes rely on business rules which reliability and traceability must be ensured, and these latter consume data which quality and auditability must be enforced : this is a chain of traceability and agility. The implementation of this chain is established thanks to an iterative lifecycle integration starting with the MDM. This is what we call the Agility Chain Management System (ACMS).

The framework to measure your IS/IT

To leverage their IS/IT Governance companies should assess the quality of their IS Assets based on their shared data (reference and master data), Business Rules and Processes. To achieve this goal, we deliver the IS Rating Tool. This framework complements with best practices tackling IS/IT governance such as CobiT (Plan and Organize Processes), CMMi and accounting methods.

1- Types of IS Values: what a company DOES, GAINS and OWNS
2- Assess your IS based on your data, rules and processes
3- How to convince your executive staff? (dialogue CEO - CIO)
4- The targeted IS/IT foundation (Agility Chain Management System)
5- How your CobiT initiative should be associated with the IS Rating
6- Find out the IS Rating framework

Maturity Model of IS Intrinsic Value

"A": high-end system secure and sustainable for the future.
"B": Healthy system with opportunities for futher improvements.
"C": Risky system with pains to takle with care to remove risks.
"D": Very risky system that hinders the performance.

(click the figure to enlarge)

Depending on the matury level computed, IS stakeholders should enforce operations as defined in the figure below.

(click the figure to enlarge)

Measurement points to assess IS Intrinsic Value

3 types of intangible assets: Data, Rules and Processes,
3 domains of measurement: Knowledge management, Governance functions and IT Architecture,
About 100 questions x 5 situations, it means about 500 measurement points to fully assess the Intrinsic Value of your Information System.

(click the figure to enlarge)

Fifteen consolidated marks are computed to provide a full analysis of the IS Intrinsic Value (a consolidated mark is translated into a letter from A to D).

(click the figure to enlarge)

Two words to understand our goals

At Sustainable IT Architecture, we promote a new way of implementing Information Systems and its underlying IT Architecture to improve auditability and traceability of Information: Shared Data, Business Rules and Processes. It means a more open, readable, sustainable approach to govern information within complex organizations. This is a key point to enforce a better risks management in relation to new businesses and the green growth. Indeed, this new way of doing business required a huge growth of informations systems: more databases, more real-time and responsive information management including the Internet of Objects (RFID) and the Global Positioning System (GPS).

Rather than using an approach of hard-coding software meaningful to IT specialists only (IT programing languages, opaque and rigid databases, etc.), companies have a strategic interest in using Business Repositories as the foundation of their IS/IT. It means using Master Data Management (MDM), Business Rules Management System (BRMS) and BPM (Business Process Management) as the spine of their systems.

Thanks to these repositories, business users and auditors benefit from governance features allowing a better management of their ref/master data, business rules and processes: authoring, quering, permissions management, version management, auditability, etc.

To succeed in this new way of building IS/IT, we state that the linking value of these three repositories must be taken into account: the value of processes depends on the value of business rules, and the value of business rules depends on the value of ref/master data. Thererfore, this is a chain of IS Assets: the strenght of this chain is equal to its weakest link. In other words, it is not valuable to have a strong BPM approach if rules carried out by processes are hard-coded in opaque software. And it is not valuable to author rules in a BRMS if ref/master consumed by these rules are scattered and duplicated within many legacy databases with a low data quality.

To enforce new businesses and the green growth (i.e. sustainable economy), we believe that companies must rely on a more sustainable Information Systems. In an increasingly virtual economy in which fuel is the knowledge, managing intangible assets in a more sustainable way (traceability, auditability...) is essential. We also promote a new rating framework (IS Rating Tool) to measure these IS Assets (Master Data, Business Rules and Processes) and obtain a kind of:

Standard and poor's applied to Information Systems.
This approach should be a regulatory goal to support new businesses and the green growth.

Thanks in advance for sharing your opinions with us
and we wish you a good journey to the Sustainable IT Architecture.

Best regards
Pierre Bonnet
Founder of the Sustainable IT Architecture

Use case: what is its IS Value?

Its Use Value
How do you use it to contact your customers? What is the process to achieve this goal? What is the effectiveness of this process?

Its Business Value
How do you leverage your business with your customers thanks to it? What would be your financial losses if you cannot use it?

Its Intrinsic Value
Do you have the data model of the contacts database? Can you add new attributes to enrich the pre-built data model? Do you have a version management to track contacts modifications over time?

When assessing the value of IS/IT, these three types of value must be studied otherwise the assessment becomes a real nightmare and generates huge ambiguities. The Use Value is measured with help from frameworks such as ISO900x, cobiT, CMMi. The new accounting frameworks such as IAS-IFRS are the field of the Business Value.

The IS Rating Tool published by the Sustainable IT Architecture is dedicated to assess the IS Intrinsic Value. It brings a complete set of questions to measure the performance level of intangible IS Assets regardless of how people work together (use value) and financial aspects (business value). The IS Intrinsic value provides companies with a rating of their performance levels applied to the management of their shared data (ref/master data), business rules and processes.

To restructure their IS/IT in a progressive and sustainable way, companies have to enforce a straightforward approach to measure their IS Intrinsic Value. Based on this assessment, all IS Stakeholders can better understand why and how it becomes vitally important to invest in their IS/IT. The Sustainable IT Architecture provides companies with the right targeted IS/IT foundation (based on the linking value of MDM, BRMS and BPM) and the IS Rating Tool to tackle the IS Intrinsic Value. The more this targeted IS/IT foundation is achieved, the more the IS Intrinsic Value goes up.

Lost in your IS/IT restructuring journey?
Keep in your pocket this passport and you will always have answers to these questions:

- How to assess the actual value of your IS?
- What is the targeted IS/IT foundation?
- What is the IS Intrinsic value?
- What is the IS Use value?
- What is the IS Business value?
- What is the IS linking value?
- What is the IS holistic value?

You can download your passport here.

Our Manifesto
Countries and organizations are facing with a Big Bang in Information Management. Find out how to support the fast-growing digital economy with a suitable Information System architecture. Access to the manifesto.