Resources
Quick picks
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IT Planning
Every large company today has a reliable Enterprise Resource Planning system in place to drive and integrate business processes as well as build and maintain a high-quality information base for making business decisions. IT Planning is no different. To be successful the same approach is required: a centralized information base that is fed by integrated processes, updated with every plan made and every decision taken. This allows for accurate information to be provided to stakeholders at the time of decision-making.
Three conditions need to be met in order to plan and manage an organization’s IT so that it can optimally support the business: (i) access to all relevant information regarding the enterprise architecture; (ii) well-defined and integrated processes and workflows to avoid redundant efforts and ensure seamless user interaction; and (iii) collaboration and communication between relevant stakeholders. planningIT supports an organization in meeting these requirements.
In this section we’ve put together some of our top picks on the subject of IT planning.
White Papers
- IT Planning That Works
- Effective IT Planning As a Weapon in Challenging Economic Conditions
- Introducing Process to IT Planning
- Planning IT from Demand to Budget
- Planning for SOA Using Enterprise Architecture Management Best Practices
- IT Master Planning
- Integrative IT Planning
Featured Articles
- ERP for IT
- Effective IT Planning: A Weapon in Challenging Economic Conditions
- Informed Investment Planning Cuts Inefficiency and Wasteful Spending
- Learning the A-B-Cs of Strategic IT Planning
- Business Technology Quarter Interviews Erik Masing on the Dos and Don’ts of Strategic IT Planning
Product Information
Webinar
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Business IT Management
IT is an investment. It is a business investment and as such warrants the due diligence performed on any business venture. IT investment planning too often focuses on planning projects in terms of resources and budget. Its shallow consideration of the architectural impact of changes to the IT leads to investment decisions that don’t leverage existing architectural strengths. More critically, it can lead to discordant development projects that eventually clash causing schedule overruns, scope changes and failed projects. Against the backdrop of corporate governance, planningIT delivers the complete story on IT and corporate performance to better understand how effectively and efficiently IT is supporting business goals and where processes can be improved.
Providing functionality for strategy operationalization and business capability assessment in an architectural context, planningIT helps find the “hot-spots” for business improvement and thus ensures business-relevant IT investment. planningIT lets an organization define roles, responsibilities and processes within IT and between IT and business to ensure every stakeholder’s participation in the strategic IT Planning process. This promotes business/IT alignment and accountability for architectural issues and domains. Supporting the corporate and IT planning activities at all levels of management, planningIT ensures integration of the strategic and operational layers of management.
In this section we’ve put together some of our top picks on the subject of Business IT Management.
White Papers
Featured Articles
- Effective IT Planning: A Weapon in Challenging Economic Conditions
- Aligning IT Cost Optimization with Business Strategy
Product Information
Webinar
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Project Portfolio Management
One of the biggest challenges facing CIOs and IT planners today is balancing the proportions of the IT budget that support operations and innovation.
The good news is that since alfabet’s planningIT, enterprises are finally in a position to take control of IT activities across the board from initial planning and decision making to design and implementation to operations management. The missing piece has been the bridge linking the way of thinking and vocabulary of the business with that of IT and allowing both to work from the same content and collaborate without endless meetings or armies of consultants. planningIT’s helps IT organizations to achieve reliable scope change impact analysis, effective decision-making and optimized budget allocation. The payoff is tremendous: Businesses can finally begin to dig their way out of huge recurring expenses and reallocate more spending to high return projects.
In this section we’ve put together some of our top picks on the subject of Project Portfolio Management.
White Papers
Featured Articles
- Balancing IT Budgets to Support Operations and Innovation
- Informed Investment Planning Cuts Inefficiency and Wasteful Spending
Product Information
Webinar
- Webinar - "Driving Productive IT Investments With Business Capabilities"
- Webinar - "Reducing IT Operating Expenses and Prioritizing Capital Investments"
Podcast
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Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) has moved to the center of attention of IT and business strategists. What was once purely an IT exercise for understanding how existing assets fit together is quickly being acknowledged by business and IT leaders alike as the keystone for ensuring smart IT investment and effective alignment with the business. New approaches and technology for planning and managing the enterprise architecture (EA), such as that provided by alfabet, turn Enterprise Architecture Management from a static “photo album” of architecture models into a dynamic, process-driven IT Planning application enabling IT to keep pace with changing business needs.
While it is becoming clear that the EA is an integral part of IT Planning, it is essential to understand that only a data-driven, process-oriented approach to EA Management can support planning effectively. Changes in corporate strategy and technology result in frequent new demands on the architecture despite best-effort planning. Decisions need to be made on how to adapt the existing and planned future IT in order to fulfil those demands – quick decisions involving the relevant stakeholders and based on the most up-to-date information.
In this section we’ve put together some of our top picks on the subject of Enterprise Architecture.
White Papers
- Decision Support for Managing the Enterprise Architecture
- The Value of Enterprise Architecture
- Architecture Framework Support
- Using Enterprise Architecture to Achieve Effective IT Cost Management
Featured Articles
- In EAM, the Keyword Is Enterprise
- What Can IT Learn From Traditional Structural Design?
- Applying Enterprise Architecture Management to SOA
Product Information
Podcast
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Service Oriented Architecture
In implementing Service Oriented Architecture, enterprises are challenged by many issues: the full integration of existing applications and systems, restructuring the organization into business domains, identifying SOA - relevant business services, composing SOA processes and measuring SOA performance. Enterprises realize that their SOA efforts will provide a significant return on investment only when basic enterprise architecture and SOA governance procedures are firmly in place.
This is the catalyst for improvements in EAM, causing the EA team to intensify focus on certain issues, including understanding the business better and identifying the truly mission critical business processes; improved IT/business alignment by advocating an EA approach to SOA which anchors business into the IT landscape; and strategic IT planning involving an evolutionary process with a vision and intermediary steps to get there.
In this section we’ve put together some of our top picks on the subject of Service Oriented Architecture.
White Papers
Featured Articles
Podcast
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IT Governance
When corporate IT and Business meet, misunderstandings are often unavoidable. Due to conflicting demands in the field of development and costs, it is natural that different priorities arise for Business and IT and different vocabularies are used to communicate.
planningIT lays the groundwork for lively and successful IT governance as on the one hand it provides a framework for achieving business goals with IT while on the other hand it is necessary to realize far reaching architectural changes, such as implementing a SOA. Organizations that have an accurate overview of how IT is used in the enterprise are in a position to better estimate what level of freedom is possible and necessary for employees and administrators. This allows them to successfully balance innovation and efficiency.
In this section we’ve put together some of our top picks on the subject IT Governance.
White Papers
Product information
Webinar
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IT Compliance
As IT becomes more pervasive in the enterprise, so too are the regulations that govern it. These regulations ensure that standards are being properly met to support streamlined operations and security of business processes supported by IT.
In this regard IT’s range of tasks are broad: scoping compliance relevant systems, eliminating any risks posed to the systems, determining responsibilities for compliance evaluation, continuous monitoring, documentation and assessment of the compliance-relevance of system changes, and reporting changes to the compliance or risk management office. It is an on-going exercise in controls assessment in the evolution of a corporation’s IT landscape. By setting control processes into the IT architecture, organizations can better keep pace with the on-going demands for controls assessment in the evolution of an organization’s IT landscape.
In this section we’ve put together some of our top picks on the subject IT Compliance.
White Papers
Featured Articles
- Solution monitors IT systems for strict regulatory compliance
- Does Constant Change Equal Constant Risk in Your Enterprise?
Product Information
Webinar
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IT Consolidation
An organization’s drive for fast growth often overrides IT’s ability to keep system proliferation on a short leash. At some point in time, however, cost inflation will force recognition of wasteful spending, or pressure from the business for higher availability and faster delivery will motivate a deeper look into IT consolidation potential.
The opportunities to reduce redundancies and eliminate unnecessary heterogeneity in the IT landscape are abundant: ERP consolidation, application portfolio optimization, computer center consolidation, platform standardization are some of these. In these areas planningIT is particularly effective as it furnishes organizations with consolidation analytics; support for planning the consolidation project phases; as well as processes for managing execution of the consolidation project.
In this section we’ve put together some of our top picks on the subject IT Consolidation.
White Papers
Featured Articles
Product Information
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IT Process
It goes without saying that most organizations have a process set up for IT Planning. However, the question is how effective and efficient the planning process is. This will determine IT’s agility in supporting business change. For a process to be effective it has to be carried out in the prescribed manner (the manner decided upon which is best suited to bring about the desired result). In order to achieve the desired result the processes have to be firmly established in the enterprise. Automated workflows are a way to anchor processes into the enterprise. In an environment of constant, inevitable disruption, automated workflows furnishes IT with a measure of stability, reliability and control. They also deliver the ability to evaluate and measure the efficiency of processes. planningIT is the only solution that implements automated workflows for key IT processes such as demand planning; project proposal planning; new technology acquisition; technology roadmap change; and risk and compliance assessment.
In this section we’ve put together some of our top picks on the subject IT Processes.
White Papers
Featured Articles
Product Information
