For product designers, tools and techniques are essential in driving the design cycle. Nevertheless, their employment usually is implicit, while passing over e.g. the design and project environments empowering their adequate use. This publication presents an overview of approaches in structuring and using tools/techniques, based on the effectuation of creativity and decision-making in the design environment. In elaborating on characteristics of tools/techniques and ensuing ways of selecting them, the designer's portfolio of tools/techniques is characterised. Representative problems of tool/technique usage are depicted and contextualised by illustrating their industrial application. Prospects for future developments are also reviewed

Tools and techniques for product design

A major stream of information systems (IS) research examines the topic of control, which focuses on attempts to affect employee behavior as a means to achieve organizational objectives. Despite a rich history of IS control research, approximately 90 percent of the publications focus on only three IS processes: managing information systems development, managing IS outsourcing, and managing security. However, the emergence of new IS processes and technologies with distinct control challenges, such as managing enterprise architecture and managing innovation, highlights a need to consider the wider applicability of past control insights. In this paper, we first integrate existing IS control constructs and relationships into a comprehensive IS control model. Second, we apply this model to emerging IS processes to guide future research and practice. We review 65 influential IS control-related journal papers and identify five control dimensions. We then consolidate these dimensions into a single, integrated model to apply past IS control findings to the challenges of emerging information systems by posing a series of related propositions. With this paper, we position current IS control research to be increasingly applicable and relevant to tomorrow’s emerging IS opportunities and challenges.

/pdf/information-systems-control-a-review-and-framework-for-2y35mv8txx.pdf

Information Systems Control: A Review and Framework for Emerging Information Systems Processes

The value of and myths about enterprise architecture

Enterprise architecture (EA) is widely employed to reduce complexity and to improve business–information technology (IT) alignment. Despite the efforts by practitioners and academics in proposing approaches to smoothen EA development, it is not easy to find a fully successful EA. Because EA development is a complex endeavour, it is important to understand the obstacles that practitioners face during EA development. With the grounded theory, we studied how obstacles during EA development emerged from practitioners’ point of view in 15 large enterprises. The study identifies lack of communication and collaboration as the core obstacle that can explain many other obstacles. Communication and collaboration were also harmed by other perceived EA development obstacles, including lack of knowledge and support inside organization and issues imposed by external parties, hesitation in training personnel, setting too ambitious goals, constant change of management, (lack of) clarity in EA development process, lack of budget, forcing personnel to adopt EA, lack of motivation, organizational culture, and organizational structure deficiencies. The lack of communication and collaboration caused several undesired effects to organizations, such as being unable to set common goals and achieve a shared understanding, personnel’s distrust, endangered EA governance, lack of innovation capability, lost competitive edge, and ineffective EA outputs. The study highlights that organisations should improve their communication and collaboration before embarking on EA to encounter fewer obstacles. We provide four recommendations for practitioners to improve communication and collaboration in EA development.

/pdf/lack-of-communication-and-collaboration-in-enterprise-1sczgavb3k.pdf

Lack of Communication and Collaboration in Enterprise Architecture Development

A systematic literature review: Critical Success Factors to Implement Enterprise Architecture

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a set of concepts and practices based on holistic systems thinking, principles of shared language, and the long-standing disciplines of engineering and architecture. EA represents a change in how we think about and manage information technologies (ITs) and the organizations they serve. Many existing organizational activities are EA-type activities, but done in isolation, by different groups, using different tools, models, and vernaculars. EA is about bridging the chasms among these activities, from strategy to operations, and better aligning, integrating, optimizing, and synergizing the whole organization. This article: (1) posits that EA is about the architecture of the entire enterprise including its ITs; (2) describes an ontology for the information needed to holistically define and represent that architecture; and (3) asserts that this raises significant challenges for information system (IS) professionals, educators, and researchers who, like those in most other discip...

The Enterprise and its Architecture: Ontology & Challenges

Seven years ago the senior leadership at SIL International (see Chart 1), a not-for-profit whose purpose is to facilitate language-based development among the peoples of the world, determined that it was time to build an integrated Enterprise Information System. There were three precipitating factors: mission critical IT systems were almost twenty years old and on the verge of obsolescence, their landscape was dotted with dozens of silo systems, and commitments to new strategic directions demanded significant business re-engineering.

Enterprise Architecture as Language

/pdf/using-language-to-gain-control-of-enterprise-architecture-3ab3cvbop4.pdf

John A. Zachman

Papers

The Enterprise and its Architecture: Ontology & Challenges

Enterprise Architecture as Language

Using Language to Gain Control of Enterprise Architecture