Integrated IT Architecture

I believe I found the answer for last trimester Professor Maria José Trigueiros' question "What's an integrated IT architecture?" It's not like I've discovered gunpowder or anything, it's actually quite simple.

And the answer is... The Balanced Scorecard!

If well designed and implemented, a Balanced Scorecard system can be the key integrating element for the whole organization, articulating strategy, people, systems and procedures, not just a new management fad.

From a top-bottom approach, on the top, we have mission, vision and strategy, wich can generally described as classic decision problem acording to Herbert Simon's description:

• Mission: Who are we and where are we today? What do we beleive in, and keep on believing, no matter what? What's our overall purpose?

• Vision: Who do we want to be tomorrow, and where do we want to go?


• Strategy: How do we get there?

Here is where the real wisdom of the organization resides. No IT system can answer these questions. The answers have to be provided and communicated by the (hopefully...) wise top leaders in the organization.

Right below, we have the Balanced Scorecard, wich monitors and integrates strategy execution across all significant dimensions (perspectives) of the organization, through a carefully selected set of key indicators from all perspectives.

The Balanced Scorecard indicators can be fed by the corporate Data Warehouse and departmental Data Marts, which, in turn, are fed by the operational systems.

The Balanced Scorecard is the element that integrates all these different systems, and can be an effective way to communicate the organizational strategy across the different levels of the organization, and to ensure that everyone in the organization is aligned with that strategy and understands his/her contribution to the overall strategy.

One key issue: transparency and communication. It's very important that the systems on the upper levels communicate their conclusions to the lower levels. For instance, it would be very appealing for a retail store to have, in the point of sale system, the information on the probability of a certain costumer buying a certain product.

balancedscorecard.blogspot.com