Experimenting a Modeling Approach for Designing Organization's Strategies in the Context of Strategic Alignment

National audienceAligning information systems (IS) to businesses hasrecently become a top-level concern in organizations.Several activities can be undertaken to deal withstrategic alignment: elaboration of key indicators,target definition, monitoring, analysis, impactpropagation etc. Working on strategic alignment, orcorrespondence between business and IS, requires torepresent and document these two elements. Indeed,documenting strategy is necessary to evaluate the ISability to satisfy the fundamental requirements oforganizations. Different works have demonstrated thatevaluating, documenting and analyzing IS alignmentcalls for modeling the elements to align. In the contextof strategic alignment, the problem is that there arevery few modeling techniques available to documentorganizations' strategic objectives with the level offormality needed to achieve this task. Within these few,even fewer are compatible with the ones used to defineIS functionalities. This paper explores the usability ofa goal modeling technique, already used in ISengineering, to model organization's strategy and tofacilitate strategic alignment analysis. An applicationexample is given, based on the well-known SevenEleven Japan case study

Palaeogenomics of Upper Palaeolithic to Neolithic European hunter-gatherers

: Modern humans have populated Europe for more than 45,000 years1,2. Our knowledge of the genetic relatedness and structure of ancient hunter-gatherers is however limited, owing to the scarceness and poor molecular preservation of human remains from that period3. Here we analyse 356 ancient hunter-gatherer genomes, including new genomic data for 116 individuals from 14 countries in western and central Eurasia, spanning between 35,000 and 5,000 years ago. We identify a genetic ancestry profile in individuals associated with Upper Palaeolithic Gravettian assemblages from western Europe that is distinct from contemporaneous groups related to this archaeological culture in central and southern Europe4, but resembles that of preceding individuals associated with the Aurignacian culture. This ancestry profile survived during the Last Glacial Maximum (25,000 to 19,000 years ago) in human populations from southwestern Europe associated with the Solutrean culture, and with the following Magdalenian culture that re-expanded northeastward after the Last Glacial Maximum. Conversely, we reveal a genetic turnover in southern Europe suggesting a local replacement of human groups around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, accompanied by a north-to-south dispersal of populations associated with the Epigravettian culture. From at least 14,000 years ago, an ancestry related to this culture spread from the south across the rest of Europe, largely replacing the Magdalenian-associated gene pool. After a period of limited admixture that spanned the beginning of the Mesolithic, we find genetic interactions between western and eastern European hunter-gatherers, who were also characterized by marked differences in phenotypically relevant variants

Palaeogenomics of Upper Palaeolithic to Neolithic European hunter-gatherers

Publisher Copyright: © 2023, The Author(s).Modern humans have populated Europe for more than 45,000 years1,2. Our knowledge of the genetic relatedness and structure of ancient hunter-gatherers is however limited, owing to the scarceness and poor molecular preservation of human remains from that period3. Here we analyse 356 ancient hunter-gatherer genomes, including new genomic data for 116 individuals from 14 countries in western and central Eurasia, spanning between 35,000 and 5,000 years ago. We identify a genetic ancestry profile in individuals associated with Upper Palaeolithic Gravettian assemblages from western Europe that is distinct from contemporaneous groups related to this archaeological culture in central and southern Europe4, but resembles that of preceding individuals associated with the Aurignacian culture. This ancestry profile survived during the Last Glacial Maximum (25,000 to 19,000 years ago) in human populations from southwestern Europe associated with the Solutrean culture, and with the following Magdalenian culture that re-expanded northeastward after the Last Glacial Maximum. Conversely, we reveal a genetic turnover in southern Europe suggesting a local replacement of human groups around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, accompanied by a north-to-south dispersal of populations associated with the Epigravettian culture. From at least 14,000 years ago, an ancestry related to this culture spread from the south across the rest of Europe, largely replacing the Magdalenian-associated gene pool. After a period of limited admixture that spanned the beginning of the Mesolithic, we find genetic interactions between western and eastern European hunter-gatherers, who were also characterized by marked differences in phenotypically relevant variants.Peer reviewe

Modeling Strategic Alignment Using INSTAL

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Proposition d'une modélisation conceptuelle d'alignement stratégique : La méthode INSTAL.

Strategic alignment with Information Systems (IS) occurs when the enterprise goals are in harmony with business processes and systems that support them. As shown by reports and surveys, the alignment between IS and strategy is a top issue for which CIOs expect more maturity from practice. Actually, even if it is possible to construct efficient information systems and to define the organization strategy, it is essential to align these two entities in order to optimize the organization performance. The interest of alignment may be well recognized, however, too often, its implementation remains sadly limited. The INSTAL (INtentional STrategic ALignment) method deals with a new situation in IS engineering. It does not correspond to the traditional lifecycle in requirements engineering, which uses requirements propagation to construct a solution, or to a matching between requirements. It represents a different situation in which a set of linked objects have to evolve conjointly (co-evolution). Evolution is triggered by a change in business models (strategy) or by IS analysis. The method proposed for this new engineering situation is based on modeling the set of linked objects, guiding, analyzing, then defining evolution requirements in order to improve alignment. Unlike other approaches, which represent the strategic alignment in terms of dependencies between individual goals or elements, it is the alignment intentions shared by both levels to align (strategic and operational) that represent the strategic alignment. This is a distinctive characteristic of the INSTAL method, whose originality lies in the explicit modeling of alignment. The modeling of strategic alignment in INSTAL allows (1) modeling strategic alignment in terms of intentions shared by the elements to align, in a pivot model, (2) defining complex alignment links between the alignment intentions and the existing elements of the organization, in specifying the role played by each element in the link, and (3) defining metrics and measures that complete the alignment links. INSTAL proposes a methodological process that guides the evolution of strategic alignment in taking into account new alignment requirements and in analyzing current alignment (As-Is) (i.e. pivot models, alignment links, metrics/measures). The As-Is analysis allows discovering evolution requirements on the operational level (IS and business processes) required to obtain a To-Be situation which will be better aligned. This research has been validated through several case studies including the BNP Paribas French Retail Banking one, which has sponsored this thesis.L'alignement stratégique des Systèmes d'Information (SI) existe lorsque les buts de l'entreprise sont en harmonie, en correspondance, avec les processus métier et les systèmes qui les supportent. Comme le montrent différents rapports, la problématique de l'alignement du SI avec la stratégie représente une des principales préoccupations des Directions des SI depuis une dizaine d'années. C'est une préoccupation importante au sujet de laquelle les entreprises s'attendent à plus de maturité de la pratique. En effet, même s'il est possible de construire des SI performants et de définir la stratégie de l'entreprise, il est indispensable que ces deux ensembles soient alignés afin d'optimiser la performance de l'entreprise. Si l'intérêt de l'alignement est largement reconnu, sa mise en œuvre reste trop souvent limitée. La méthode proposée, INSTAL (INtentional STrategic ALignment), s'intéresse à une nouvelle situation d'ingénierie des SI, qui ne correspond ni au cycle de vie traditionnel en ingénierie des exigences (avec une propagation des exigences sur la solution), ni à une mise en correspondance d'exigences, mais à une situation différente dans laquelle on s'adresse à un ensemble d'éléments liés que l'on cherche à faire évoluer ensemble (coévolution). L'évolution est déclenchée par le changement de modèle du business (stratégie) ou l'analyse des SI et des processus métier (niveau opérationnel). La méthode proposée pour cette nouvelle situation d'ingénierie des SI propose une modélisation de l'ensemble des éléments liés et guide la démarche de modélisation, d'analyse, et d'évolution de l'alignement stratégique. Contrairement aux autres approches, qui représentent l'alignement stratégique en termes de dépendances entre des buts ou des éléments individuels, ce sont les intentions d'alignement partagées par les deux niveaux à aligner (stratégique et opérationnel) qui représentent ici l'alignement stratégique. Ceci est une caractéristique tout à fait distinctive de la méthode INSTAL, dont l'originalité réside dans cette modélisation explicite de l'alignement. La modélisation de la méthode INSTAL permet (1) de modéliser l'alignement en termes d'intentions partagées par les éléments à aligner dans un modèle pivot, (2) de définir des liens d'alignement complexes entre les intentions d'alignement et les éléments existants de l'entreprise en précisant le rôle joué par chaque élément dans le lien, et enfin (3) de définir des métriques et mesures qui complètent les liens d'alignement. INSTAL propose une démarche méthodologique qui guide l'évolution de l'alignement stratégique en prenant en compte de nouvelles exigences d'alignement et en analysant l'alignement actuel (As-Is) (i.e. les modèles pivot, les liens d'alignement et les métriques / mesures). L'analyse du As-Is permet de découvrir des exigences d'évolution du niveau opérationnel (du SI et des processus métier) nécessaires à la mise en place d'une situation To- Be "mieux" alignée. Cette recherche a été validée à travers plusieurs cas d'études dont celui d'une entité de la Banque De Détail France du groupe BNP Paribas, qui a financé cette thèse

Documenter l'alignement des objectifs stratégiques de l'entreprise et du SI avec la méthode INSTAL

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Proposition de mesure de l'alignement stratégique du système d'information dans la méthode INSTAL

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Enterprise Architecture: des problèmes pratiques à l'innovation

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