Service-oriented Cost Allocation for Business Intelligence and Analytics: Who pays for BI&A?

Quantifying and designing the cost pool generated by Business Intelligence and Analytics (BI&A) would improve cost transparency and invoicing processes, allowing a fairer, more exact allocation of costs to service consumers. Yet there is still no method for determining BI&A costs to provide a base for allocation purposes. While literature describes several methods for BI&A cost estimation on an ROI or resource-consumption level, none of these methods considers an overall approach for BI&A. To tackle this problem, we propose a service-oriented cost allocation model which calculates BI&A applications based on defined services, enabling a cost transfer to service consumers. This new approach specifies steps towards deriving a usable pricing scheme for an entire BI&A service portfolio – both for allocation purposes as well as improving cost evaluation of BI&A projects. Moreover, it prevents BI&A departments from being considered as the sole cost driver, increasing customer understanding and cost awareness

An analysis of the benefits and issues in the development of an Enterprise Data Catalogue

Purpose – The purpose of this case study is to examine the rationality for taking an enterprise approach towards metadata’s development. It outlined and discussed the benefits and challenges involved from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Methodology – The data for this case study is collected through a one on one interview method. The findings were discussed and analysed with other literature. Findings – Taking an enterprise wide approach towards the development of metadata offers both short-term and long-term benefits to the Ministry. In particular, the short-term benefits include efficiency in time to answer, re-use and re-purposing of existing information. The long-term benefits are the ability to operate at a strategic level with its data and information. On the other hand, the different level of understanding towards the concept of metadata at present, in addition to a lack of a clear guardianship from a data perspective has lead to challenges in gaining a level of active contribution and ongoing maintenance. This report suggested that it is essential for the Ministry to maintain a constant marketing style of communication to promote the understanding of the metadata and to incorporate the principle of data stewardship in managing the component of metadata mapping. Value – This case study provides value by explaining the concept and outlining the key benefits and issues involved to those organisations discovering the topic of metadata management for the first time. This case study adds additional value by offering rare insights into taking an enterprise approach towards the development of a business metadata, offering practical learning and suggestions for other organisations that are embarking on a similar journey

Service-oriented Architecture Projects in Practice: A Study of a Shared Document Service Implementation

Published version of an article in the journal: Procedia Technology. Also available on Science Direct: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.protcy.2014.10.017This paper reports on a case study focusing on service-oriented architecture (SOA) projects in practice. The aim of these projects has been to develop a shared document service supporting different business divisions in a large Norwegian governmental institution. The research question guiding this research is: How are SOA projects carried out in practice? What are the challenges of developing shared services in service-oriented architecture? SOA projects are accompanied by a complex socio-technical system development environment. In the present study we followed parallel system development processes and identified several issues associated with competence requirements, distributed coordination principles and control, lack of communication, tuning of parallel projects, and selection of appropriate project management approaches and system development methods. Clearly, there was a difference between undertaking a system development project within one organizational unit (silo) compared to the development of shared services to provide support across a large organization. Findings demonstrate that the complexity of SOA projects was underestimated by the project managers, and ad hoc governance was practiced in terms of control, coordination, and communication. To capture the entire system development context of an SOA project, a holistic approach and mind-set comprising time management and fine tuning of all parallel SD activities is necessary. Organizational maturity to carry out SOA projects is also of significance. The study has implications for SOA adopters in general and for system developers and project managers working in an SOA context in particular

Extensibility of Enterprise Modelling Languages

Die Arbeit adressiert insgesamt drei Forschungsschwerpunkte. Der erste Schwerpunkt setzt sich mit zu entwickelnden BPMN-Erweiterungen auseinander und stellt deren methodische Implikationen im Rahmen der bestehenden Sprachstandards dar. Dies umfasst zum einen ganz konkrete Spracherweiterungen wie z. B. BPMN4CP, eine BPMN-Erweiterung zur multi-perspektivischen Modellierung von klinischen Behandlungspfaden. Zum anderen betrifft dieser Teil auch modellierungsmethodische Konsequenzen, um parallel sowohl die zugrunde liegende Sprache (d. h. das BPMN-Metamodell) als auch die Methode zur Erweiterungsentwicklung zu verbessern und somit den festgestellten Unzulänglichkeiten zu begegnen. Der zweite Schwerpunkt adressiert die Untersuchung von sprachunabhängigen Fragen der Erweiterbarkeit, welche sich entweder während der Bearbeitung des ersten Teils ergeben haben oder aus dessen Ergebnissen induktiv geschlossen wurden. Der Forschungsschwerpunkt fokussiert dabei insbesondere eine Konsolidierung bestehender Terminologien, die Beschreibung generisch anwendbarer Erweiterungsmechanismen sowie die nutzerorientierte Analyse eines potentiellen Erweiterungsbedarfs. Dieser Teil bereitet somit die Entwicklung einer generischen Erweiterungsmethode grundlegend vor. Hierzu zählt auch die fundamentale Auseinandersetzung mit Unternehmensmodellierungssprachen generell, da nur eine ganzheitliche, widerspruchsfreie und integrierte Sprachdefinition Erweiterungen überhaupt ermöglichen und gelingen lassen kann. Dies betrifft beispielsweise die Spezifikation der intendierten Semantik einer Sprache