Select the first letter of the word from the list above to
jump to appropriate section of the glossary. If the term you are
looking for starts with a digit or symbol, choose the '#' link.
- A Priori
A taken-as-given statement on which the
plausibility of a contribution is based, but whose truth
is not yet established. (See also: assumption)
Source: DMR
-
-
- Applications
Applications are the computer programs the
organization uses. They may be purchased or developed by
the organization.-
- Applications
Architecture
Applications Architecture is defined as the
underlying set of rules and descriptions of relationships
that govern how the major kinds of applications manage
the data and support the business processes of the
enterprise.-
- Architecture
Architecture is the description of the set of elements of
a system, their interrelationships, and behavior over time.-
- Architecture is a set of rules and elements
(building blocks) for the purpose of building a product
or service. Rules include styles, methods, metrics, and
relationships between elements.
-
- An architecture is a description of the components and
relationships of a system. The description has the
following characteristics:
- It identifies each component and its types.
- It states the architecture principles that apply to
each component or component type. These principles
describe what a component is assembled from, what
components are connected to each other, or interact
with each other and with what results.
- It states the architecture standards that apply to
each component or component type. These standards
detail how the components interact in terms of
precise pre-conditions and post-conditions.
- It demonstrates how the interactions between
components support the system purpose.
- Source: DMR.
-
- Architecture
component
An architecture component is a clearly
identifiable part of the organization. Typical components
include:
- The resources of the organization, including the
human, physical, information, application,
technology, and financial resources.
- Management control components, including mission,
goals, objectives and policies.
- The products and services which are a result of the
business processes, including those products and
services which are provided to internal as well as
external customers.
- The external agents (e.g., customers, suppliers,
competitors).
- The environmental factors (e.g., political, economic,
technological)
- The processes which are the result of component
interaction.
-
- Attribute
A data value, either primitive or another object.-
- Business process
- A business process is the execution of a series of
activities which leads to the achievement of a measurable
business result. The result may be the creation of a
product or service, or an intermediate component which
contributes to the creation and delivery of products or
services, either directly or indirectly. A business
process has the following characteristics:
- The critical business result may be provided
internally within the organization.
- The business process does not own the resources used
in the change.
- The business process is associated with a separate
management control process acting as a feedback
mechanism.
- Source: DMR
-
- Business
rules
- Business rules are programmatic implementations of the
policies and practices of a business organization. For
example, business rules would control the following
aspects of a business.
- Whether or not to hire (or fire) an employee
- When to restock inventory
- Whether or not to extend credit to a customer and how
much to extend
- Whether or not to enter a new market or build a new
product
- Whether or not to build a new information system
Implementing business rules within applications enables
businesses to automate their policies and practices. For example,
business rules can control the flow through the tasks of a
business process; the next task is performed only when the rules
that permit ending the previous task and those that determine
that the next task should be entered have been satisfied.
Business rules can also assist in decision-making.
Source: Patricia Seybold Group's Distributed Computing
Monitor. May 1997, p. 3.
-
- Business scenario
A business scenario is a view of a possible
future external environment based on a set of assumptions
about important uncertainties which face the business and
which may affect organizational performance. The business
scenario is described as a set of events, external to the
organization, which result from interactions, within and
between, external agents and environmental factors. These
events result from assumptions taken to address
uncertainty in:
- The behavior of external agents: such as customers,
competitors, suppliers, and regulators.
- The behavior of environmental factors: such as, the
economy, government policy, technological
development.
- Description of a postulated future organizational
environment in terms of benefits scenarios and variants
adopted by the organization as the basis of its benefits
management program.
Source: DMR
See also Peter Swartz’s book, The Art of the Long View.
- Business system
- A business system is the organizational delivery
mechanism for providing a general class of products and
services to customers (external to the organization) in a
specific market. A business system has the following
characteristics:
- It is managed exclusively by an organizational unit.
- It is accountable for significant business results,
such as profit and revenues, which align directly to
the organizational objectives.
- It owns the resources required to deliver its
products and services and meet its performance
targets.
- It provides a well defined set of products and
services.
- It can select its own suppliers from which it
purchases resources.
- It targets a well defined external market.
Source: DMR
- Client
/ Server Model (Architecture)
- A concept of application deployment that functionally
supports the notion of "application execution"
as dispatchable units of work that are assigned to a
network of servers (resources) that respond to the
initiating client. Client / Server embodies the general
concepts of cooperative processing, distributed
processing, and networked processing. File and print
servers are a crude form of the client / server model. In
the full implementation, the client / server model will
provide a data processing and networking environment that
offers:
- Hardware, software, and network platform independence
(i.e. transparency)
- Application delivery to an intelligent workstation
(X-Terminal like device may suffice)
- A consistent user-interface
- Physical topology flexibility
- Technology breakthroughs required to deliver the full
model include:
- Application development tools that support
application deployment to a dynamic network of
hardware / software platforms (e.g. IBM's AD/Cycle)
- Centralized network management of LANs
- Centralized management of distributed relational
databases
- Networked security
- Workflow management that balances workloads and
coordinates the execution of units of work among
disparate products (e.g. a two phase commit of a
database update that involves the action of products
from several different vendors
- The client / server model is essentially a
software-defined method of computing. The remote
procedure call (RPC) is a critical enabling technology,
and the selection of the RPC to use is critical.
-
-
- Context
(organization)
- Set of elements describing the state of an organization
at a point in time, in terms of some or all of the
following:
- organizational mission, values, vision, goal,
objectives
- organizational resources (physical, human,
information, financial, etc.)
- organization change constraints
- organization profile change program
- performance targets
- products and services
- external agents
- environmental factors
- business scenarios
- change implementation constraints
- strategic plan
- strategic investment program
- steering issues
Source: DMR 1997
- Culture
- Culture is the pattern of basic assumptions which a given
group has invented, discovered, or developed in learning
to cope with its problems of external adaptation and
internal integration, which have worked well enough to be
considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new
members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel
in relation to those problems.
Source: E.H. Schein, "Organizational Culture and
Leadership" (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985).
- Customer
-
- A customer is the recipient of a product or service (such
as information or data) from the organization.
- Data
- Data is the company's information. The collection of
facts about a business: its products, markets,
distribution channels, resources, transactions, and
events.
-
- Note: Data follows a life cycle which parallels the life
cycle of the object(s) or event(s) it describes.
-
- Data Architecture
- Data Architecture is defined as the underlying set of
rules and descriptions of relationships that govern how
the major kinds of data support the business processes
defined in the business architecture.
-
-
- Domains
- Domains are areas of interest or areas to be managed.
They are relatively arbitrary, but suggested domains
include the organization, infrastructure, applications,
and data.
- Electronic Commerce
- Electronic commerce is a system that includes not only
those transactions that center on buying and selling
goods and services directly to generate revenue, but also
those transactions that support revenue generation, such
as generating demand for those goods and services,
offering sales support and customer service, or
facilitating communications between business partners.
-
- Source: Microsoft 1997.
- End User
- The user or recipient of products or services (such as
information or data).
-
- Enterprise
- An enterprise is an organization that commercially
provides products and services in a competitive
marketplace.
- Enterprise
architecture
- An enterprise architecture describes the design of the
components of an enterprise, their relationships and how
they support the objectives of that enterprise.
Source: DMR
- External agents
- External agents are objects not under the direct control
of the organization but which participate in the
processes of the organization and which may influence the
outcome and performance of that organization. The primary
agents considered external are customers, suppliers,
owners, regulators, collaborators, and society.
- (empty)
- (empty)
- Inertia
- Inertia is the tendency to remain in a fixed condition
without change. For example, resistance to change.
-
- Information
- Information is processed (analyzed, synthesized,
summarized) facts so as to be useful to decision makers.
-
- Information
Engineering
-
- Information Engineering is the application of an
interlocking set of formal techniques for the planning,
analysis, design, and construction of information systems
on an enterprise-wide basis or across a major sector of
the enterprise. Whereas software engineering applies
structured techniques to one project, information
engineering applies structured techniques to the
enterprise as a whole.
-
-
- Infrastructure
- Infrastructure includes the number and types of computers
the organization uses, the operating system software,
communication networks, and common tools and utilities.
-
-
- Initiative
- An action that can contribute to the production of one or
more outcomes. It always refers to an element that can be
acted upon directly.
-
- Judgment
- Judgment is assessment, discrimination, and choice. The
selection of an appropriate or optimal course of action,
based on knowledge and understanding.
Note: The general progression is data, information, knowledge,
understanding, to judgment.
Source: James Martin, "Information Engineering Book
III".
- Knowledge
- Knowledge is information associated with rules which
allow inferences to be drawn automatically so that the
information can be employed for useful purposes.
- Knowledge management
-
- Knowledge workers
- Knowledge workers are those individuals who really
understand the components which are likely to be modeled
as part of an architecture project, i.e., the business
processes and event participants within those processes.
Knowledge workers have often been involved in earlier
efforts to identify and deal with the issues which have
sparked the architecture design activity.
Source: DMR 1997
- Leadership
-
- The art of influencing other people to achieve shared
goals.
-
-
- Method
- A procedure (In contrast to conventional programming
languages, methods are a property of the class, not of
the application code, and hence can be shared by many
applications).
-
- Models
- Models are pictures or diagrams, emphasizing what goes
where and how it is all connected.
-
- (empty)
-
- Organization
A consciously coordinated social unit, composed
of two or more people, that functions on a relatively
continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals.
Source: Stephen Robbins, Organizational Behavior.1993.
-
- Organizational
capability
- Capability of the organization expressed in terms of
availability of:
- human resources (quantity, skills, etc.)
- physical and material resources (real estate,
equipment, etc.)
- financial resources
- information resources
- time
Source: DMR 1997
Organization behavior
- A field of study that investigates the impact that
individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior
within organizations, for the purpose of applying such
knowledge toward improving an organization's
effectiveness.
Source: Stephen Robbins, Organizational Behavior.1993.
- Organization
Development
- Organization development is about people and
organizations and people in organizations and how they
function. OD is also about planned change, that is,
getting individuals, teams, and organizations to function
better.
Source: French and Bell. Organization Development.
1995.
-
-
- Policies
- Policies are general guidelines for making decisions.
They establish boundaries around decisions including
those that can be made and those that cannot.
- Procedures
- Procedures provide a detailed set of instructions for
performing a sequence of actions.
- Principles
- Principles are simple, direct statements of an
organization's basic beliefs. They are written in present
tense. They should be simply stated. The need to be
rationalized. The implications of adopting a principle
should also be identified.
- Process
- 1. Business process: a set of related business tasks.
2.
Software process: an executable program or a separately
executable sub task of a program.
- (empty)
- Rules (business)
- Four principal types of rules. Source: Warren Selkow,
IBM. Published in Database Newsletter, July / August
1994.
Mandate. These are rules that may not be broken.
Mandate implies consequences if the rule is violated. These
rules are published.
Policy. These are rules that determine exactly how
the corporation will behave. Policy implies a predicted
behavior where an occasional exception may be tolerated and
permitted. These rules usually are published, including how
authority to obtain an exception is granted.
Guidelines. These rules are generally published,
but much leeway is granted in their interpretation and use.
Corporate Folklore. These rules rarely are
published, but they are understood implicitly by all in the
organization.
Business rules are programmatic implementations of the
policies and practices of a business organization. For
example, business rules would control the following aspects
of a business.
- Whether or not to hire (or fire) an employee
- When to restock inventory
- Whether or not to extend credit to a customer and how
much to extend
- Whether or not to enter a new market or build a new
product
- Whether or not to build a new information system
Implementing business rules within applications enables
businesses to automate their policies and practices. For
example, business rules can control the flow through the
tasks of a business process; the next task is performed only
when the rules that permit ending the previous task and those
that determine that the next task should be entered have been
satisfied. Business rules can also assist in decision-making.
Source: Patricia Seybold Group's Distributed Computing
Monitor. May 1997, p. 3.
- Standards
- Standards are the specific rules or guidelines for
implementing the principles or models.
-
- There are three types of standards:
· Technical - "Base"
technical standards are generated as specifications by a
recognized standards setting body, such as the American
National Standards Institute (ANSI). Vendors may also
generate proprietary technical standards and may place the
specifications of the standard in the public domain (e.g.
IBM's SNA).
· Product - A product standard
is a specific hardware or software product which is selected
for a specific function and operating environment.
"Preferred" product standards are those which
implement the approved technical standards.
· Process - Process standards
refer to ways of doing business which an organization wishes
to accomplish in a specific and consistent manner.
- Stewardship
- The owner of the process that creates or first imports a
data element becomes the Steward of that data element.
-
- A data element Steward owner is responsible for defining
the data element and is also responsible for the
integrity of the occurrences of the data element. This
includes the accuracy of the data and the security aspect
(i.e., what level of security is applicable to the data
and who may have access to the data).
-
- Strategic Planning
- The process by which the guiding members of an
organization envision its future and develop the
necessary procedures and operations to achieve that
future.
-
- Source: Goodstein, L., Nolan, T., and Pfeiffer,J.W.
(1993). Applied Strategic Planning.
-
- Supplier
- A supplier is the provider of a product or service (such
as information or data) to the organization.
-
- System
- Systems Thinking
-
- Team
- A team is a small number of people with complementary
skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance
goals, and approach for which they hold themselves
mutually accountable.
Source: Katzenbach and Smith, The Wisdom of Teams --
1993
- Technology
Architecture
- Technology Architecture is defined as the underlying set
of rules and descriptions of relationships that govern
how the major kinds of technologies needed provide an
environment for the applications that manage data and
provide support for the business processes of the
enterprise.
-
-
- Understanding
- Understanding is the identification of the significance,
interpretation, or explanation for certain data or
information. Information and knowledge associated with
models, computational or mental, which enable the causes
underlying the facts to be perceived.
- Values
- Basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct or
end-state of existence is personally or socially
preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or
end-state existence.
Source: Stephen Robbins, Organizational Behavior.1993.
-
- Virtual Teams
-
- Teams whose primarily means of interaction is electronic.
Virtual teams may be distributed within a single
building, regionally, or even around the world.
-
- (empty)
- (empty)
- (empty)
- (empty)
