Method, system and program product for determining the value of a proposed technology modification

• US 6,526,387 B1
• Filed: 08/30/1999
• Issued: 02/25/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 11/02/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: ServiceNow Incorporated
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Jayaram, Kristin R., Temple, Joseph L. III, Morrison, Timothy I., Ruffin, Michael, Preston, Allen H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Dixon, Thomas A.
• Application Number:
  US09/386,046
• Time in Patent Office: 1,275 Days
• Field of Search: 705/7, 705/8, 705/10, 705/26, 705/400, 705/37, 700/28, 702/186, 706/51, 706/59
• US Class Current: 705/7.29
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• 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 10/06315 Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06375 Prediction of business process outcome or impact based on a proposed change
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06393 Score-carding, benchmarking or key performance indicator [KPI] analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange

Abstract

A method, system and program product for determining the value to an enterprise of a proposed technology modification is presented herein. The information technology resources of an enterprise are partitioned into segments along any number of various lines such as business process, geography, etc. The partitioning creates one or more sets of partitioned segments. Within a given segment the resources are profiled in accordance with the information technology priorities of the enterprise and mapped against the complexity of the proposed modification to derive an opportunity score. The opportunity scores for the profiled segments are examined to determine if the partitioning has been effective and if not, the process is repeated. Once an effective partitioning has been effected the opportunity scores of the segments indicate a measure of the respective value of the proposed modification within each segment.

Claims

1. A method for determining the value to an enterprise of a proposed information technology modification, the method comprising the steps of:

a. partitioning the information technology resources of said enterprise into a first set of segments;

b. creating a profile of the information technology resources included within each of said partitioned segments, said profiles for said segments including information on the information technology priorities of the enterprise;

c. deriving an opportunity score associated with the implementation of said proposed information technology modification within each profiled segment and matching the information technology priorities of the enterprise with the complexity of implementing the proposed modification for each segment; and

d. assessing the opportunity score for each segment to determine whether the partitioning was effective and if not repeating step a-d, partitioning said information technology resources into a second set of segments in step a.

2. A method according to claim 1 wherein each of said partitioned segments possesses at least one common property, said common property facilitating the analysis of the segment independent from said other segments.

3. A method according to claim 2 wherein said common property for each of said partitions is selected from the set of:

geographic location, business process, business organization, financing, applications, hardware platform, skills, and user sets.

4. A method according to claim 1 wherein said profiles for said segments include information regarding the computer hardware, computation workloads, network infrastructure and skilled personnel within each of said partitioned segments.

5. A method according to claim 1 wherein said derived opportunity score for each segment represents the relative value to the enterprise from the proposed information technology modification for said segment.

6. A method according to claim 1 wherein step c further includes the step of creating a qualitative assessment for at least one of the scored segments.

7. A method according to claim 1 wherein if the proposed information technology modification is a consolidation of machines within one of said partitioned segments, the method further includes the steps of:

generating an industry average estimate of savings for a similar consolidation;

generating an estimate of savings based upon the profile of information technology resources within the partitioned segment; and

comparing said estimate with said industry average estimate.

8. A method according to claim 1 further including the step of:

selecting at least one of said partitioned scored segments for implementation of said proposed modification.

9. A method according to claim 8 wherein said selecting step can be premised upon qualitative aspects of said selected segments irrespective of the opportunity scores thereof.

10. A method according to claim 1 wherein in step d, said determination that said partitioning has not been effective may be reached, if said opportunity scores for said segments do not differ sufficiently.

11. A method according to claim 1 wherein said partitioning step includes partitioning the information technology resources of said enterprise into a plurality of sets of segments and choosing at least one of said plurality of sets of segments and wherein if in step d it is determined that the chosen sets are not effectively partitioned then step d includes choosing at least one of said remaining sets and repeating steps a-d.

12. A method according to claim 11 wherein each information technology resource of said enterprise may be designated as a member of one of said segments in any number of said plurality of sets of segments.

13. A method according to claim 1 wherein said partitioning includes the creation of all possible sets of segments and wherein the opportunity scores for each segment in all of said sets of segments are compared to determine the most valuable segment for said proposed modification.

14. A program storage device readable by a digital processing apparatus and tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the digital processing apparatus to perform method steps for determining the value to an enterprise of a proposed information technology modification, the method steps comprising:

a. partitioning the information technology resources of said enterprise into a first set of segments;

b. creating a profile of the information technology resources included within each of said partitioned segments, said profiles for said segments including information on the information technology priorities of the enterprise;

c. deriving an opportunity score associated with the implementation of said proposed information technology modification within each profiled segment and matching the information technology priorities of the enterprise with the complexity of implementing the proposed modification for each segment; and

d. assessing the opportunity score for each segment to determine whether the partitioning was effective and if not repeating step a-d, partitioning said information technology resources into a second set of segments in step a.

15. A program storage device according to claim 14 wherein each of said partitioned segments possesses at least one common property, said common property facilitating the analysis of the segment independent from said other segments.

16. A program storage device according to claim 15 wherein said common property for each of said partitions is selected from the set of:

geographic location, business process, business organization, financing, applications, hardware platform, skills, and user sets.

17. A program storage device according to claim 14 wherein said profiles for said segments include information regarding the computer hardware, computation workloads, network infrastructure and skilled personnel within each of said partitioned segments.

18. A program storage device according to claim 14 wherein said derived opportunity score for each segment represents the relative value to the enterprise from the proposed information technology modification for said segment.

19. A program storage device according to claim 14 wherein method step c further includes the method step of creating a qualitative assessment for at least one of the scored segments.

20. A program storage device according to claim 14 wherein if the proposed information technology modification is a consolidation of machines within one of said partitioned segments, the method steps further include:

generating an industry average estimate of savings for a similar consolidation;

generating an estimate of savings based upon the profile of information technology resources within the partitioned segment; and

comparing said estimate with said industry average estimate.

21. A program storage device according to claim 14 further including the method step of:

selecting at least one of said partitioned scored segments for implementation of said proposed modification.

22. A program storage device according to claim 21 wherein said selecting method step can be premised upon qualitative aspects of said selected segments irrespective of the opportunity scores thereof.

23. A program storage device according to claim 14 wherein in method step d, said determination that said partitioning has not been effective may be reached, if said opportunity scores for said segments do not differ sufficiently.

24. A program storage device according to claim 14 wherein said partitioning method step includes partitioning the information technology resources of said enterprise into a plurality of sets of segments and choosing at least one of said plurality of sets of segments and wherein if in method step d it is determined that the chosen sets are not effectively partitioned then method step d further includes choosing at least one of said remaining sets and repeating steps a-d.

25. A program storage device according to claim 24 wherein each information technology resource of said enterprise may be designated as a member of one of said segments in any number of said plurality of sets of segments.

26. A program storage device according to claim 14 wherein said partitioning includes the creation of all possible sets of segments and wherein the opportunity scores for each segment in all of said sets of segments are compared to determine the most valuable segment for said proposed modification.

27. A system for determining the value to an enterprise of a proposed information technology modification, the system including:

a partition containing the information technology resources of said enterprise into a first set of segments;

a profile for each of said partitioned segment of the information technology resources included within each of said partitioned segment, said profiles for said segments including information on the information technology priorities of the enterprise;

an opportunity score associated with the implementation of said proposed information technology modification within each profiled segment, the opportunity score matching the information technology priorities of the enterprise with the complexity of implementing the proposed modification for each segment; and

a second set of segments partitioned from said information technology resources when the opportunity score for each segment was not effective.