Fitting System Functionality to Business Needs: Exploring the Fitness Relationship (Invited talk)
Résumé
One of the major concerns in System Engineering is to establish that the 'whys' of the system to be developed fit the 'whats' of the delivered system. The aim is to ensure the 'best fit' between organization needs (whys) and system functionality (whats). Aligning information systems to business objectives is equally considered important by professionals. Indeed, there is large corpus of empirical and theoretical evidence that alignment improves organizational performance. Furthermore, studies highlight the lack of alignment as a major cause for business processes failure in providing return on investments. In the engineering as well as in the management community, alignment/fit clearly appears as desirable. However, both communities acknowledge that, despite a considerable amount of efforts carried out, some issues still remain unsolved as for example: (i) the achievement of alignment and, (ii) its management over time, (iii) the identification of non fit and, (iv) its evaluation. This talk aims to explore those issues involved with both establishing (what we will refer as) the fitness relationship and preserving it in the face of change. Indeed systems, once developed, undergo changes and it is of prime importance that the changed need and the changed system functionality continue to preserve the 'best fit'. Engineering the fitness relationship requires to understanding it and the talk will first, deal with this topic. It will pursue with an overview of the state-of-the-art and the presentation of the author's personal position on the two engineering topics, namely establishing and preserving the fitness relationship. Whereas the former (understanding) represents the static point of view, the latter (engineering) follows the dynamic viewpoint.