Issue #17 [June 12-June 16]
Enterprise Master Plan Development: The Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step
Since childhood, we have heard about the benefits of positive influences on mental growth. For example, a proper farming plan is a must for better agricultural production. The enterprise is not an exception to the proverb, ‘Morning shows the day’. Enterprise Architecture is a journey, not a destination. This journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step called the Enterprise Master Plan. Depending upon business requirements, the management’s SWOT analysis and a forecast of the economic climate, the Enterprise Master Plan can vary. Moreover, the type of the industry, its functional variance (ISV versus Consulting versus. Product Show Case) and the size of its units also influence the creation of an Enterprise Master Plan.
The Driving Forces Behind the Enterprise Master Plan
The PERA Master Plan is not a sugar capsule that gives the patient a boost mentally, nor is it a dietary supplement. It is a healthy diet plan meant for health-conscious enterprises. There are various driving forces behind the Enterprise Master Plan. The PERA Master Plan Handbook [PERA] outlines the following:
- Rapid system integration and realization of the most significant enterprise integration benefits of:
- Increased customer service and heightened awareness of customer and market demands
- Reduction and/or reorientation of indirect labor and overheads
- Improved responsiveness to technical, economic and environmental changes
- Improved product quality and robustness at lower costs
- A total organizational understanding and commitment to the company’s strategies
- Improved probability of a truly integrated information and control system being achieved
The PERA Master Plan depicts a one-to-one relationship between each enterprise business entity, as shown in Figure 1:
Enterprise Master Plan Deliverables
The PERA Enterprise Master Plan is neither an abstract concept nor a consulting jargon. The PERA Master Plan emphasizes three deliverable artifacts for Enterprise Integration Development Programs. Table 1 summarizes these three artifacts:
The Enterprise Master Plan is influenced collectively by the enterprise stakeholders, the economic climate and available standards, as depicted in Figure 2:
Thus, the Enterprise Master Plan is an abstract asset reusable across enterprise portfolios. It acts as a standard template for each descendant enterprise business entity enterprise integration program and enterprise architecture development initiation.
Enterprise Master Plan Key Players
The Enterprise Master Plan is the chessboard designed for various players from the management. The concepts of per threat/reward model leadership and management are synonymous. However, the mistake of making the ‘weakest link’ the ‘critical link’ is common in most enterprises. This results in the wrong persons working on the Enterprise Master Plan.
There are three key players in an enterprise:
- Upper Management
- Steering Committee
- Upper Planning Team
Figure 3 depicts these players within the layers of the Enterprise Master Plan:
From the diagram, it is clear that the Enterprise Master Plan is related to the term ‘management’. However, this relationship may lead us to concentrate more on the management than on the Enterprise Master Plan itself. It is, therefore, important to understand the key players in the Enterprise Master Plan formulation. They are as shown in Figure 4:
These key players supply the life blood to the Enterprise Master Plan and channel it to every corner of the enterprise. We will discuss the personalities of these key players in the forthcoming issues.
Conclusion
In the next issue, we will familiarize ourselves with the economic analysis process and learn its methodologies.
References
- PERA AND GERAM--ENTERPRISE REFERENCE ARCHITECTURES IN ENTERPRISE INTEGRATION by Theodore J. Williams, Institute for Interdisciplinary Engineering Studies, Purdue University and Hong Li, Senior Consultant, Claremont Technology Group, Inc
- [PERA] A HANDBOOK ON MASTER PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION FOR ENTERPRISE INTEGRATION PROGRAMS Based On The Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture and the Purdue Methodology Purdue Laboratory for Applied Industrial Control Edited by Theodore J. Williams, Gary A. Rathwell, Hong Li. February 2001 (Revised from July 1999 PERA website version)
- http://www.pera.net
- [Becoming a Technical Leader] Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach (Paperback) by Gerald M. Weinberg, Dorset House Publishing, ISBN: 0-932633-02-1=
