This Inventory/Analysis process is the basic starting point for determining the objectives for a given application area and establishing a plan to meet those objectives. It makes no sense to initiate a full scale Inventory/Analysis effort without clear objectives and without a concise plan. The specific objectives to achieve these include the following:
Develop a baseline application overview as follows:
· Identify organizational impact of the subject application
· Overview the functional condition of the subject application
· Identify the general technical quality of the subject application
Determine specific objectives for the proposed Inventory/Analysis as follows:
· Identify short-term maintenance requirements
· Identify long-term strategic requirements
· Establish potential alternative hypotheses to achieve these requirements
Determine overall scope of effort as follows:
· Determine systems to be included in overall assessment
· Determine systems to be excluded from assessment
· Determine specific level of analysis to be performed on each system
Identify the Inventory/Analysis activities to be performed as follows:
· Specify the detail assessments to be performed
· Identify the steps to be performed within each assessment
Develop a proposal to perform an in-depth Inventory/Analysis as follows:
· Establish a complete assessment work structure breakdown
· Produce a work plan and proposal for each required Inventory/Analysis task/step
· Finalize the assessment work plan
· Gain commitment from the users responsible for the application area
In order to proceed with the objective setting/proposal development effort, an organization must have senior management commitment and direction setting involvement.
The entrance criteria for the objective setting/proposal development task are listed below.
· Identification of the applications of interest as defined in the Inventory/Analysis Overview
· Support and commitment from senior IS management to perform an objective assessment of current applications in a given business area
· A basic understanding as to how an application area wishes to evolve
Optional entrance criteria are identified below.
Note: Enterprise level planning assists with scoping and scenario definition.
· Completion of enterprise analysis planning or related Enterprise Redevelopment Planning tasks
The personnel and skill requirements necessary to meet the objective setting/proposal development task objectives are identified below.
· Redevelopment Expert
- Planning support, interview analysis, objective setting and proposal development
· Current Systems Expert
- Knowledge of existing environment and user service requests
- Completion of planning form and interviews
· Target System Functional Expert
- Knowledge of the target environment and architecture
- Completion of planning form and interviews
· IS Management/Executives
- Knowledge of information migration strategies
- Availability for interviews
· Project Manager
- Knowledge of information migration strategies
The system components and related inputs required to initiate and complete the objective setting/proposal development task are listed below.
· Comsys-TIM Inventory/Analysis Executive Planning Form 001
· A copy of the Software Option Strategy Matrix as illustrated below:
The Software Option Strategy Matrix figure was adopted from Prism, an organization formed in conjunction with CSC Index and Hammer & Company. It articulates strategies that drive information initiatives based on three categories. Organizational impact identifies the strategic value of the application. Functional condition indicates how well the system meets current and future user requirements. Technical quality reflects overall structure, complexity and architectural condition of the application.
This level of analysis is based on a preliminary examination of an application area. It provides a prerequisite overview for IS executives to move forward with an in-depth Inventory/Analysis effort. It also facilitates user participation in the high-level direction setting process.
This is an analytical task that involves more interviews than technology. Certain basic automated office tools are useful in managing the data gathering and proposal development process.
Spreadsheet
If there are multiple sub-systems or systems involved in the proposed assessment, some of the data being gathered could get voluminous. A spreadsheet analysis tool, which will become even more important in subsequent assessment efforts, is useful to summarize data analysis.
Project management tool
Since a key deliverable from this effort is an Inventory/Analysis work plan and proposal, a project management tool to help manage project work assignments, time frames and cost projections is almost essential.
Word processor
This is essential to produce the final proposal for the project and a required tool throughout the remaining Inventory/Analysis tasks.
The objective setting/proposal development task is comprised of the following task steps:
