Solutions – Where it all comes together
Solutions are where your information strategy meets and supports your business strategy and business process. Without solutions your information strategy and data strategy are just philosophical exercises that do not add value to the organization. Your solution strategy is documented by your roadmap. The roadmap contains all major deliverables with timelines, costs and dependencies. It should also document when specific tools will come into play within the architecture. The roadmap incorporates all elements within your information and data strategies. It is important that your solutions are delivered in a cohesive manner and all required elements such as the source systems, resources, architecture, tools, metadata, master data and most critically business process are aligned for the ultimate solution delivery.
Solutions can be viewed in different ways. First you need to understand what is being delivered. This generally includes master data, metadata and business intelligence along with reporting, analytics and data mining. The second view is how the solution is being implemented. Is the solution being delivered all at once or over multiple phases? The third view focuses on prioritization and timing. Are there solutions that deliver significantly higher return on investment or solve critical pain points for the business? The last view communicates the level of business support that will be needed for the critical areas of testing and change management. If these two areas are not delivered correctly they can significantly diminish the overall solution’s effectiveness.