Aurona Gerber

A new paradigm for the continuous alignment of business and IT

We propose a new paradigm for next generation enterprise information systems for the continuous alignment of business and IT for the agile enterprise.The metamodelling approach supports both human-interpretable enterprise architecture models and machine-interpretable enterprise ontologies.Semantic lifting transforms metamodels for the enterprise architectures into machine-interpretable enterprise ontologies.Semantic metamodels express the semantics of all modelling concepts by an ontology. The ontology is extended by a metamodel, which defines the notation and syntax of the graphical modelling language.Examples of next generation enterprise information systems are described, which embed modelling tools and algorithms for model analysis, identification of adaptation needs, and risk assessment. The paper deals with Next Generation Enterprise Information Systems in the context of Enterprise Engineering. The continuous alignment of business and IT in a rapidly changing environment is a grand challenge for todays enterprises. The ability to react timeously to continuous and unexpected change is called agility and is an essential quality of the modern enterprise. Being agile has consequences for the engineering of enterprises and enterprise information systems. In this paper a new paradigm for next generation enterprise information systems is proposed, which shifts the development approach of model-driven engineering to continuous alignment of business and IT for the agile enterprise. It is based on a metamodelling approach, which supports both human-interpretable graphical enterprise architecture and machine-interpretable enterprise ontologies. Furthermore, next generation enterprise information systems are described, which embed modelling tools and algorithms for model analysis.

Exploring the future of enterprise architecture : a Zachman perspective

Abstract Today, and for the foreseeable future, organizations will face ever-increasing levels of complexity and uncertainty. Many believe that enterprise architecture (EA) will help organizations address such difficult terrain by guiding the design of adaptive and resilient enterprises and their information systems. This paper presents the “Grand Challenges” that we believe will challenge organizations in the future and need to be addressed by enterprise architecture. As a first step in using enterprise architecture as a solution for overcoming identified challenges, the Zachman Enterprise Architecture Framework is used to guide and structure the discussion. The paper presents the “Grand Challenges” and discusses promising theories and models for addressing them. In addition, current advances in the field of enterprise architecture that have begun to address the challenges will be presented. In conclusion, final thoughts on the future of enterprise architecture as a research field and a profession are offered.

A framework for the identification of reusable processes

A significant challenge that faces IT management is that of aligning the IT infrastructure of an enterprise with its business goals and practices, also called business-IT alignment. A particular business-IT alignment approach, the foundation for execution approach, was well-accepted by practitioners due to a novel construct, called the operating model (OM). The OM supports business-IT alignment by directing the coherent and consistent design of business and IT components. Even though the OM is a popular construct, our previous research detected the need to enhance the OM, since the OM does not specify methods to identify opportunities for data sharing and process reuse in an enterprise. In this article, we address one of the identified deficiencies in the OM. We present a process reuse identification framework (PRIF) that could be used to enhance the OM in identifying process reuse opportunities in an enterprise. We applied design research to develop PRIF as an artefact, where the development process of PRIF was facilitated by means of the business-IT alignment model (BIAM). We demonstrate the use of the PRIF as well as report on the results of evaluating PRIF in terms of its usefulness and ease-of-use, using experimentation and a questionnaire.

An exploratory survey of design science research amongst South African computing scholars

The debate ensues as to whether the traditional focus of computing research on theory development and verification and therefore has adequate immediate practical relevance. Despite increasing claims of the potential of design science research (DSR) to enhance the utility of the IT artifact and consequently practical relevance of research, many computing researchers seem to be reticent to accept this paradigm as a legitimate form of scholarly research. DSR is a relatively new paradigm in computing and little is known about its uptake in South Africa. In this paper, we investigate the opinions about DSR among South African computing scholars. Findings from a survey of 53 respondents indicate low adoption rates. The paper also investigates some of the key barriers preventing the uptake of DSR. The paper concludes with some implications as well as suggestions for building a local DSR community.

Extending the enterprise evolution contextualisation model

ABSTRACT Enterprise engineering (EE) emerged as a new discipline to encourage comprehensive and consistent enterprise design. Since EE is multidisciplinary, various researchers study enterprises from different perspectives, which resulted in a plethora of applicable literature and terminology, but without shared meaning. Previous research specifically focused on the fragmentation of knowledge for designing and aligning the information and communication technology (ICT) subsystem of the enterprise in order to support the business organisation subsystem of the enterprise. As a solution for this fragmented landscape, a business-IT alignment model (BIAM) was developed inductively from existing business-IT alignment approaches. Since most of the existing alignment frameworks addressed the alignment between the ICT subsystem and the business organisation subsystem, BIAM also focused on the alignment between these two subsystems. Yet, the emerging EE discipline intends to address a broader scope of design, evident in the existing approaches that incorporate a broader scope of design/alignment/governance. A need was identified to address the knowledge fragmentation of the EE knowledge base by adapting BIAM to an enterprise evolution contextualisation model (EECM), to contextualise a broader set of approaches, as identified by Lapalme. The main contribution of this article is the incremental development and evaluation of EECM. We also present guiding indicators/prerequisites for applying EECM as a contextualisation tool.

Towards an enterprise evolution contextualisation model

Enterprises that exist today came into being mostly in an ad-hoc manner rather than being systematically designed. A piece-meal design of enterprise components led to a lack of coherence and consistency between numerous components of the enterprise. At present, both researchers and practitioners acknowledge the need for an overall view of the enterprise, as well as a new paradigm to understand and redesign the enterprise.

The nature of the enterprise engineering discipline

Enterprise engineering originated as a practice with most publications focusing on the practical facets without the underlying scientific foundation. Foundational works emerged from different authors in recent years, including Dietz, Hoogervorst and Giachetti. According to Gregor, the bodies of knowledge or theories encompassed in a discipline need to address questions related to four classes namely: the domain, structural or ontological, epistemological, and socio-political. As a departure point for setting a research agenda for EE, we argue that the four classes of questions could also serve as a basis to determine an EE research agenda. In this paper we argue that a research agenda for EE should start with the first class of questions, concerning the domain of the discipline and suggest that an existing model, the Enterprise Evolution Contextualisation Model (EECM), could be used to define the domain of the EE discipline.

Documenting open source migration processes for re-use

There are several sources that indicate a remarkable increase in the adoption of open source software (OSS) into the technology infrastructure of organizations. In fact, the number of medium to large organizations without some OSS installations, is surprisingly low. This move to open source (OS), as well as the obvious advantages thereof, have motivated the CSIR of South Africa to investigate the adoption of OSS across the institution for all aspects of its operations. In launching this endeavor, it became apparent that there are very limited resources available, locally or internationally, that documented process related information about organizational OS migrations. This lack of information provides the motivation for this research that investigates the use of process reference models to capture the process related information for an organization wide migration from proprietary software to OSS. In order to develop the necessary process reference models, the specific process models for the CSIR OS migration were captured, and, using a repeatable method based on reference model criteria, the generic process reference models for an organizational OS migration were extracted and documented. It is our firm belief that these process reference models would provide a baseline for the processes needed when any organization considers open source adoption or organization-wide OS migration.

A method for identifying process reuse opportunities to enhance the operating model

Staying competitive in the 21st century requires enterprise unity and integration, allowing for agility to accommodate swift changes in strategy as markets evolve and new opportunities emerge. The foundation for execution approach acknowledges the volatility of strategy and suggests the use of an operating model (OM), which is a commitment to a way of doing business. The OM creates a company-wide vision for process standardization and data centralization and guides decisions about how a company implements processes and IT infrastructure. Although the OM provides senior management with a powerful decision-making tool in evolving the current IT landscape, the selection of an appropriate OM requires additional guidance. This article elaborates on current OM deficiencies, requirements for enhancement and a new method, mechanisms and practices to enable an enterprise architecture practitioner to identify the required process reuse opportunities for a specific OM.

Visual Syntax of UML Class and Package Diagram Constructs as an Ontology

Diagrams are often studied as visual languages with an abstract and a concrete syntax (concrete syntax is often referred to as visual syntax), where the latter contains the visual representations of the concepts in the former. A formal specification of the concrete syntax is useful in diagram processing applications as well as in achieving unambiguous understanding of diagrams. Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a commonly used modeling language to represent software models using its diagrams. Class and package diagrams are two diagrams of UML. The motivation for this work is twofold; UML lacks a formal visual syntax specification and ontologies are under-explored for visual syntax specifications. The work in this paper, therefore, explores using ontologies for visual syntax specifications by specifying the visual syntax of a set of UML class and package diagram constructs as an ontology in the Web ontology language, OWL. The reasoning features of the ontology reasoners are then used to verify the visual syntax specification. Besides formally encoding the visual syntax of numerous UML constructs, the work also demonstrates the general value of using OWL for visual syntax specifications.