Understand the meaning of the information system and guide arbitration with the blueprint

Contrary to sales talk, replacing your information system with the latest best solution on the market is not enough for everything to suddenly go for the best in the best of digital worlds!

First of all, most companies having a past,?the information system?is?often?a complex set of interfaced applications which it is not possible to?clean slate. Secondly, you have to have an idea of where the company is going.

The?blueprint?of an IT domain?is defined as the roadmap over several years that frames the evolution of an information system. It's a reference document that:

• Describes the?system architecture?at different stages over a 2 to 3 year horizon,
• Formalizes the?system urbanization, i.e. its evolution to reach the target described at the end.

Company policy?is the starting point of the information system blueprint because it helps to determine on-system properties. For example, if the company wants to give great autonomy to its subsidiaries, the information system should not be centralized. Conversely, if the company wants to offer a universal digital experience to its employees regardless of the country where they work, the information system will have to offer homogeneous services everywhere in the world. Very often, the requirements of the stakeholders are antagonistic and require arbitrations which the blueprint summarizes to guarantee the coherence of the information system.

The master plan constitutes the?reference framework?for the company's information system with:

• An?inventory of the existing information system,
• A description of the?architecture,?characteristics?and?properties?of the target information system to support the?company's policy,
• A?diagnosis?of the capacity of the existing information system to respond to the challenges of company policy,
• Possible?scenarios?for correcting and/or improving the level of response of the information system to the requirements of the company's policy under conditions of?quality,?cost?and?deadlines?in line with expectations,
• The detailed?roadmap?of the selected scenario(s) with the arbitration points to reach and/or evolve the target,
• The?projects?for installing and deploying information system applications with their implementation methodology (Agility, V cycle, etc.), their schedules, budgets including the main investments and expected returns on investments, calls for offers and recruitments to be made or anticipated difficulties.

Because it contains the elements of reflection that led to its development, the blueprint:

• Constitutes the?guide to make arbitrations?along the way when an unforeseen event occurs,
• Enables stakeholders who need to refer to it, to?understand its meaning.