User:Konichiva

Business Systems Planning is a method for analyzing, defining and designing an information architecture of organizations. It was first issued by IBM in 1981, though the initial work on BSP began in the early 1970s. At first, it was for IBM internal use only. Later it was made available to customers and this method became an important tool for many organizations. It is very complex method dealing with data, processes, strategies, aims and organizational departments which are interconnected. BSP brings new approach to design an information architecture and its goals are to:


 * understand the issues and opportunities with the current applications and technical architecture
 * develop a future state and migration path for the technology that supports the enterprise
 * provide business executives with a direction and decision making framework for IT capital expenditures
 * provide information system (IS) with a blueprint for development

The result of a BSP project is an actionable roadmap that aligns technology investments to business strategy.

BSP procedure contains of 15 steps which are classified into three main sections according to their functions.

Obtain authorization for the study
The very first step of BSP is to obtain authorization for the study from management or a department interested in this study. There is no use to proceed in the study without this document. There is number of roles which have to agree on purpose and range of the study. The roles are following:


 * Management member (Director)
 * can also operates as a sponsor or a team leader
 * verifies and approves final results of the study


 * Sponsor
 * provides with the financial support for the study


 * Team leader
 * chooses and leads the team members (apr. 4-7 persons)
 * coordinates activities
 * guarantees early documentation
 * has 8 weeks to carry out the study (it is usually more)
 * presents final results to the management


 * Team member
 * is usually a leader of certain organization department
 * analyses and determines information needs of organization
 * recommends future content of IS
 * presents final results to the management


 * Secretary
 * guarantees documentation of the study
 * is also an assistant of the team leader

Study preparation
Second part of BSP is study preparation. The team leader is responsible for this part and its goal is to: There is usually final product of this step, a book called Leading study book which contains all the necessary information mentioned above. It also contains concrete study schedule, documents relating to IT, diagrams, etc.
 * set time plan
 * get all the necessary documents
 * choose managers for interview
 * ensure meeting and interview space
 * inform team members about:
 * fundamental functions of the organization
 * data processing level of the organization

Study beginning
At the beginning of the study there is so-called Kick-off meeting where: After this meeting the preparation part of the project is finished and we can proceed to the analytical part of the study.
 * sponsor presents
 * the main purpose of the study
 * expected results of the study
 * team leader presents
 * results of previous part
 * plan of the study
 * IT manager presens
 * the present state of IS
 * role of IS within the organization

Analytical part
Analytical part is the most important part of BSP. Team searches for appropriate organizational structure and defines business strategy, business processes, data classes and analyses current information support. From these for steps goes out all the the others.

Define the business strategy
This step serves to define the strategic targets and the way how to achieve them within the organization as: Team is responsible for creating the main processes from these strategic targers. The final output of this step is a matrix called Strategy / OU. Strategy contains particular strategic targets mentioned above. Organizational units are particular departments of the organization (i.e. production, business, marketing, etc.). Every single department is considered to have a responsibility for each strategic target. There is a cross written down in the matrix in case of primary responsibility. There is a slash written down in the matrix in case of partial responsibility.
 * Adaptation to the customer´s desires
 * Centrally planned reservations, stock, customer´s payments
 * Check-in improvement
 * Material movement improvement
 * New customers
 * Noise reduction
 * Paperless processes
 * Product portfolio expansion
 * Presentation improvement
 * Advertising improvement
 * Reduction of commitment losses
 * Reduction of material costs
 * Relations with business partners improvement
 * Stock management impovement
 * Simplification customer´s order cycle
 * Transport coordination
 * Upgrade of production line
 * Up-to-date information


 * MM improvement = material movement improvement


 * This is only a part of a large BSP analysis considering Aircraft cosporation


 * Matrices can be adjusted to get the important information (crosses in the matrices are usually adjusted crossways)


 * Crosses and slashes in all the matrices can be marked in many other ways then it shows my example

Define the business processes
There are several business processes (activities) within every organization. The most important is to choose the most relevant ones which are profitable for the organization and select the department which is responsible for the particular process. There is usually about 40-60 business processes depending on the size of the organization. There are some examples of them: The final output of this step are two matrices called Processes / OU and Processes / Strategy using the same describing system as the matrix Strategy / OU.
 * Contacts creation
 * Hangaring
 * Invoicing
 * Monitoring
 * Plane coordination
 * Plane service
 * Registration of a new customer
 * Service Catalog creation
 * Service reservation
 * Employee training
 * Transfer
 * Car rental

Define the data classes
It is necessary to create data classes (DC, Entities) which represent data classes of the particular organizational units. There is usually about 30-60 data classes depending on the size of the organization. Future IS is about to use databases based on these data classes. There are several examples of data classes: The final output of this step are three matrices called Data classes / Processes, Data classes / Strategy and Data classes / OU using the same describing system as all the matrices mentioned above.
 * Accommodation
 * Branch
 * Corporation
 * Customer
 * Employee
 * Invoice
 * Load
 * Plane
 * Purchase order
 * Service Catalog
 * Supplier
 * Vehicle

Analyse current information support
The main aim of this part is to check all the applications used by organization which has to consider information support of each application and think of its importance. The final output of this step is so-called Informational cross which contains some of the matrices mentioned above: Processes(Activities) / OU (functions) and Data classes(Entities) / OU. During this step are also defined information subsystems which plays an important role in the other two matrices called IS / Entities and IS / Activities. There are now four matrices which are used to create the informational cross. Its main aim is to catch the most important dependencies and responsibilities within the organization and can also lead to appropriate elimination of redundancies.

Discuss the analysis results with management
This step should be the last during the analytical part. Team debates on up to now achieved results with the management. The main purpose of this step is to: The final output of this part strongly depends on the quality of prepared question.
 * consider all the matrices and informational cross
 * confirm presumptions relatind to processes and datas
 * fill in the missing information
 * reveal deficiencies within the organization
 * establish future priorities

Issue the analysis results
There are gathered all the documents created during the preceding analysis. These documents server as a base for the future information architecture. The organization clasifies and dissects all the came out problems. There is prepared a list of causes and their effects for each problem and all the problems are put into the relation with the future IS.

Define the information architecture
The main goal of this step is to define the information architecture of the organization. It is necessary to connect all the information subsystems to the logical complex. There is usually used the matrix Processes / Data classes in order to find appropriate subsystems. Organization then generally:
 * reorder processes according to the product or service life cycle
 * reorder data classes to get the squares "creates" along the main diagonal
 * eventually aggregates processes and data classes into logical groups which then create particular information subsystems

Establish priorities for IS development
Which IS implement first? There are criteria (i.e. costs, development time, etc.) which should lead to establish the right order of system implementation. There are always subsystems with the highest priority which are about to be analysed more deeply. The information are presented to the sponzor who can decide which information subsystems will be developed and which not.

Verify the impact of study to IS managing
There should be carried out a study about IS from the view of their planning and managing. Once the organization has finished the work on processes and data classes it should explore the main functions of the system and their goals. There can arise unexpected difficulties which are about to be eliminated. The final output of this step is:
 * a list of requested changes in particular departments
 * a calculation of costs necessary to re/built the IS

Next procedure proposal
There are made final recommendations and realisation plan for the organization during this step. It considers information architecure, IS managing and the sequence of information subsystems development. An important part of the plan procedure is are expected costs, profits a schedule for future activities.

Results presentation
This step contains the final agreement of all interested parties (team, management, sponsor). All the interested parties should agree on the future actions.

Next procedure
This is the final part of BSP. The organization should establish all the particular responsibilities during the project implementation. There is usually a controling commission which ensures the consistency across the IS.

BSP, in addition to its value for IS planning, also made two other important intellectual contributions:


 * It helped introduce the process view of the firm. The popular Business Process Re-engineering of the 1990s was built on this concept.
 * It pointed out the need to de-couple data from the applications that use these data, i.e., data independence. This supported the database approach to systems development.