I am consistently finding myself challenging assumptions about the role of IT and information systems in business. I’m also finding that I’ve not been able to consolidate my ideas in a way that provides the value of aggregation and integration, and I’ve decided that thinking my way to a comprehensive belief system and approach on this blog is as good a place as any.
Perspective
The most fundamental asset in IT planning, as well as one of the most important deliverables from IT to its customers including itself, is perspective.
Information
The most valuable asset in gaining perspective is information. Information, as distinguished from data, is the product of analysis of data.
Service
Service is about providing information — whether interactive views of real-time data sources, analytics of user behavior, usage reporting, billing data, user authorization information — in a usable format, reliably and predictably. Service orientation isn’t just about SOAP and Web Services. It’s about providing access to retrieve, store, or modify information and data, and providing a service level agreement for that access.
Data
Data is the heart of IT. Before it was called Information Technology, it was called Data Processing. Collection, storage, management, performance, and availability of data are essential to generate the information required to run IT and provide value to the larger business. Core business entity data, metadata (data about data), service and access data (logging), and authorization data are core business assets and are required to provide information and services and perspective. Effective structuring of business data should be considered a core responsibility of the IT department.
Having laid out some of my principles (and I welcome comments and discussion), I’m looking forward to the next post in this series, where I will start to look at the value chain within IT.