E-BUSINESS VALUE WEB

• US 20120226516A1
• Filed: 05/15/2012
• Published: 09/06/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 08/20/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated (Kyndryl Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: AHERN, Marybeth, LAW, Michael J.
• Granted Patent: US 9,811,790 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7.22
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06312 Adjustment or analysis of established resource schedule, e.g. resource or task levelling, or dynamic rescheduling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06375 Prediction of business process outcome or impact based on a proposed change
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/783 Distributed allocation of resources, e.g. bandwidth brokers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/83 based on usage prediction

Abstract

A method and system is provided to manage and track changes in enterprise architectures. The invention provides a hierarchical visual management tool to manage and update relational information within an enterprise in a controlled fashion. The relationship may be maintained in a database and displayed via graphical user interface. Enterprise assets are categorized into such categories as goals, customer values or requirements, capabilities, resources, and the like. A hierarchy is constructed so that relationships between these various categories are identified and captured using the invention. Weights may be assigned to each element of the categories so that any proposed change to an enterprise architecture may be viewed so that a value can be ascertained and compared between other values of other proposed changes. In this manner, tracking and management of evolutionary changes to an architecture may be accomplished using relational information.

Claims

1. A method for providing a service for tracking and managing changes, the method comprising the steps of:

establishing at least one goal for establishing an endpoint of an evolutionary change to an enterprise architecture;

associating one or more values that define requirements of the evolutionary change with the at least one goal;

affiliating with the one or more values, one or more strategic capabilities that represent functions that are present to support the one or more values;

identifying one or more resources that represent enterprise components with the one or more strategic capabilities; and

hierarchically maintaining relationships of the at least one goal, the one or more values, the one or more strategic capabilities and the one or more resources.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

tracking and managing the evolutionary change using the maintained hierarchical relationships; and

ensuring the one or more values align with the at least one goal.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of ensuring the one or more values align with the at least one goal.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of:

defining a relationship between the one or more values and the one or more strategic capabilities; and

defining a relationship between the one or more strategic capabilities and the one or more resources.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the affiliating step identifies and affiliates one of a new workforce capability and a new technology capability with the one or more values.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the affiliating step identifies and affiliates one of a new workforce capability and a new technology capability with the one or more values; and

the identifying step includes identifying and affiliating with the one or more strategic capabilities at least one of a process, a personnel skills/competencies, an information technology, a system component, information, and an infrastructure component.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising maintaining a database reflecting the hierarchically maintained relationship of the at least one goal, the one or more values, the one or more strategic capabilities and the one or more resources.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising the steps of establishing weights for the at least one goal, the one or more values, the one or more strategic capabilities, and the one or more resources, the weights providing a relative priority of importance.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of determining a cost factor for at least one alternative evolutionary change.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the determining step includes comparing a cost factor for more than one alternative evolutionary change for optimum value.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein in at least one of the steps the relationship of the at least one goal, the one or more values, the one or more strategic capabilities and the one or more resources are hierarchically maintained in a database and are viewable via a graphical user interface.

12. A system for providing a service for tracking and managing changes, the system comprising:

a means for establishing at least one goal for establishing an endpoint of an evolutionary change to an enterprise architecture;

a means for associating one or more values that defines requirements of the evolutionary change with the at least one goal;

a means for affiliating with the one or more values, one or more strategic capabilities that represent functions that must be present to support the one or more values; and

a means for identifying one or more resources that represent enterprise components with the one or more strategic capabilities, wherein the relationship of the at least one goal, the one or more values, the one or more strategic capabilities and the one or more resources are hierarchically maintained to provide tracking and managing capabilities of the evolutionary change.

13. The system of claim 12, further comprising a means for ensuring the one or more values align with the at least one goal.

14. The system of claim 12, further comprising a means for defining a relationship between the one or more values and the one or more strategic capabilities.

15. The system of claim 12, further comprising a means for defining a relationship between the one or more strategic capabilities and the one or more resources.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein the means for affiliating provides a means for the one or more strategic capabilities to identify and affiliate one of a new workforce capability and a new technology capability with the one or more values.

17. The system of claim 12, wherein the means for identifying one or more resources identifies and affiliates at least one of a process, a personnel skill/competency, an information technology, a system component, an information, and an infrastructure component.

18. The system of claim 12, further comprising a means for maintaining a database that reflects the hierarchical relationship of the at least one goal, the one or more values, the one or more strategic capabilities and the one or more resources.

19. The system of claim 12, further comprising a means for establishing weights for the at least one goal, the one or more values, the one or more strategic capabilities and the one or more resources, the weights providing a relative priority of importance.

20. The system of claim 12, further comprising a means for determining a cost factor for at least one alternative evolutionary change.