Dovetail Software Blogs

"BI gives an agency a unified Relevant Products/Services view, or big picture, of what data might signal. Until recently, few applications, short of a spreadsheet, could analyze large amounts of information in a timely manner and provide insights. But now, business intelligence gives agencies a more sophisticated way to look at data using complex modeling that provides deep interpretations. BI builds on tools developed for data mining, the process of finding information stored in a system that may not be easily identifiable."

"'We're in a world where one person, by their actions, can make a company look bad, and it can get echoed and amplified over and over again,' said Josh Bernoff, an analyst at Forrester Research and coauthor of 'Groundswell,' a book about business and social technologies. 'The power Relevant Products/Services has shifted, [so] that big companies now have to be worried about one individual with a microphone called a blog."

"Requirements elicitation is a critical, yet under-appreciated, activity.  A core capability of business analysts, the ability to get the customers to describe what they want, and need, is both a science and an art.  Requirements elicitation requires equal measures of careful planning, situational awareness, acute listening skills, business acumen, and a kind of optimistic tenacity. I have long taken for granted two basic principles of requirements elicitation."

"So does this mean that Global EA is even more abstract than traditional EA? I don't think so. In some areas they will be, in other they might go deeper. For example, I see business and information architecture having more of an emphasis in Global EA. The reason for this is  when you go across national borders technology is the least of your problems. You must deal with massive transformations of currency, numerical systems and languages. This isn't a trivial task. To compound the issue you have different regulations in each country. Some of which conflict with others."

"In general, many aspects of a traditional SDLC do apply when using EDM. There is 'infrastructure' required that must be developed by IT such as glue code and definition of complex rules or rule templates. Once IT has completed this development, users have a way to make changes to the system without going through the usual SDLC, but building the environment to do this requires a proper software process. You do need this second, shorter and simpler process that goes from business requirement to the business user making and testing the change Users can also be allowed to push these into production but most IT departments still want at least a partial release cycle."