SPSD assignment

8/10/2019 SPSD assignment

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Strategic Planning and Systems Development

Abstract

The purpose of this research paper is to attempt to find out existing facts and

concepts of aligning the development approaches with the application portfolio. The

research is aimed at identifying the current issues preventing the adaption of the

development approaches in the development such as the organization and management

issues in addition to the flaws and inappropriateness of several development models

within the context of development. This essential research to certain extends will

contribute to the nowadays IS/IT business entities that are facing with the side effects of

utilizing and developing the applications to support the business process and strategic

values. The main deliverables of this research paper are the identification of missing

areas of the existing and past research and the recommendation for the unidentified areas

to be enhanced and to be researched further in depth.

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1. Introduction

"ost of the today business organizations are influenced by the IS/IT. IS/IT can

help organizations to directly and indirectly maximize the profits and benefits through the

appropriate usages of the IS applications that are engineered to meet the organization

needs and business re#uirements. $s stated by Porter %&''!( the industry structure has

been shaped due to the impact of the factors which Porter calls five forces. "any of the

concrete examples given by Porter %&''!( showed both the success of organizations that

could see the benefits and )now how to exploit IS/IT in order to survive and gain

competitive advantages and failure of several organizations that neither have the

strategic vision brought by the IS/IT nor develop IS/IT in the right direction. The failure

in the later case is very common as the number of application portfolio including the

legacy system has increased from time to time which is obviously emphasized by *ard

and Peppard %&''&(.

$s stated in one of the I+" white papers ,$pplication Portfolio "anagement-

rom assessment to transformation it stated that 0Application development is often

based upon tactical considerations rather than on an enterprises strategic directions,

making it difficult to realize both short- and long-term goals, %I+" &''1(. "ost of the

organizations failed to see pros and cons of applying development models to application

development which adversely leads to the long period of development and failure during

the development before applications are delivered. To cope with this problem some of

researchers such as *ard and Peppard suggested that not only the IS/IT and business

strategy should be aligned but the development approach and application portfolio also.

2owever *ard and Peppard illustrated only the big picture of what and what to be

aligned with. They had little elaboration on what can prevent the alignment from being

adapted and which circumstances the existing alignment strategy should be re3considered

to deal with upcoming future especially when the business is scaled up or scaled down.

This is the general fact that the growing organization can be scaled down to certain size

inevitably due to financial issues.

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researchers and scholars will be used instead. $nyways the ob7ectives of this research or

its hypotheses must be clearly formed first before going through so that it will minimize

the ris) of misleading and loo)ing at the irrelevant resources.

The following are the research ob7ectives to be achieved.

!. 8larifying the actual definition of application portfolio and setting up the

baseline for investigation

&. Identifying the strength and wea)ness of common development approaches in

relation to the application portfolio development

1. inding the environmental issues preventing the alignment of development

approaches with application portfolio

9. 8ritically explore and evaluate the existing research on the alignment and

identify the missing areas

3. Research Analysis and Evaluation

3.1 Issues in defining application portfolio

$n understanding of what the application portfolio is and how it contributes to

both business processes and strategies should be clearly made at all since it can reduce

the ris) of developing the wrong applications that do not return any certain benefits to the

business but additional cost to the maintenance in the long run. There are several different

definitions of application portfolios in different contexts of business. +ecause of the word

,portfolio some of the definitions are restricted to only the collection of the IT

infrastructures hardware and software owned by a business entity. 2owever these

definitions do not answer the #uestion whether or not these collections of IT stuffs will

bring bac) :4I in what way they support the business and why great deal of investment

should be put in it. This section will loo) into various views of application portfolio and

identify its types and nature which is crucial in preparing the baseline for researching the

alignment of development approaches to the application portfolio.

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$pplication Portfolio "anagement %&'!'( defined application portfolio as 0It is a

collection of logic, data access, and user interface of course, but it is more than that. It

supports complex business processes, it is supported b large teams across geographies,

it operates on sensitive customer data, and it is sub!ect to a variet of regulator burden.6

%$pplication Portfolio "anagement &'!'( views the application portfolio as the general

system which emphasizes on the business process. It characterizes the nature of the

information system which needs supports and maintenance from team. 2owever this

definition is not sufficient enough to illustrate the clear picture of business application

portfolio. Today business involves more than 7ust the ongoing business process. Some

applications even offer values to not only business process but the customers who are

ones of the )ey figures in bringing bac) the return of investment to the organization. +y

ta)ing $pplication Portfolio "anagement %&'!'( definition into practice the collection of

legacy system and IT infrastructures such as computers and email system for routine

business functions without being integrated can be viewed as the application portfolio.

The number of IT facilities may not be the )ey in enhancing the business functions

because those facilities are not built in mind with the business process uni#ue to each

organization. or example giving a collection of computers with "icrosoft ;xcel to the

staffs to wor) with the inventory in contrary with giving a central database and process

oriented software pac)ages to the staffs wor)ing in the same function area can obviously

result in different performance and #uality. The later system will perform better than the

former one. +y defining the application portfolio limited to only the collection of IT

assets may #ualify only the definition of IT portfolio. "he I" Infrastructure portfolio

includes those common applications that everone uses on a da-to-da basis, primaril

for office automation. #xamples include$ e-mail, calendaring, and document

management, %5asa &''riffiths !


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now and in the future based on its industry impact. "cfarlans strategic grid categorized

information system into 9 #uadrants. $n application can be defined as a strategic

%application that are critical to future business success( turn3around %innovative

applications which may create opportunities to gain a future( )ey operational

%application that sustain the existing business operations( and support %application which

improve business efficiency and management effectiveness( depending on its current or

expected contribution to business success. Similar with Steria %&''


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Developing the application portfolio re#uires the proper selection of the approach

or methodologies since application portfolio consists of different types of applications

with their own values. Strategic applications may re#uire fast delivery to the mar)et to

gain competitive advantages and to put the barrier to the mar)et entry from the

competitors while the operational system may cope with the functional re#uirement

changes amid to the current system being used. Developing approaches come in different

models and framewor)s which inherently carry their own strength and wea)ness and

which do not address all the application portfolios. "ost of the development approach

gives the strong emphasis to how the system can be developed and how to get the

products done. $s stated from I+" nited Eingdom Bimited Application development

is often based upon tactical considerations rather than on an enterprises strategic

directions, making it difficult to realize both short- and long-term goals. %I+" &''1(

They neglect to pinpoint how the system can be developed with the priority of the

immediate business needs and for ta)ing the current competitive advantage

opportunities.

The system development life cycle is the overall process of developing

implementing and retiring information systems through a multi3step process from

initiation analysis design implementation and maintenance to disposal %Shirley :adac)

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appropriate approach because waterfall is time consuming which is strategic application

needs speed of development in order to provide competitive advantage that business

environment )eep changing. Poor flexibility of waterfall model also becomes an obstacle

to meet the re#uirements. 4nce re#uirement change need cost and time to redevelop the

system once passed one phase can not bac)ward to previous phase.

$nother model of SDB8 is the Spiral "odel. Spiral model was developed by

+arry +oehm in !


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2ighly customized limiting re3usability

$pplied differently for each application

:is) of not meeting budget or schedule

Possibility to end up implemented as the waterfall framewor)

Several development processes or methodologies have been derived from the

classical waterfall models. Since waterfall model does not provide or strictly provides the

rooms for business re#uirement changes developing certain applications in the

application portfolio may suffer from the lac) of flexibility when process changes or new

business strategic concepts have to be implemented immediately. The modern

development models have been customized to provide the high level of efficiency and

effectiveness when moving bac)ward or forward across the development stages.

Pressman %&''F( categorized the prominent evolutionary models into incremental model

and spiral model.

$ccording to Pressman incremental model ta)es the view of the application

development as a set of components or features which carries their own deliverables.

;ach component is chun)ed into different incremented versions which are developed

incrementally and independently. or one of its examples from Pressman %&''F( &ord-

processing soft&are developed using the incremental paradigm might deliver basic file

management, editing, and document production functions in the first increment) more

sophisticated editing and document production capabilities in the second increment)

spelling and grammar checking in the third increment) and advanced page laout

capabilit in the fourth increment. %Pressman &''F p.1A(. +y subdividing the

components in the application into various versions development can be prioritized and

the critical version of the application can be highly focused. This model may be suitable

for upgrading the operational system in the application portfolio. That is because the

critical or prioritized versions will be developed in the fast manner since their sizes are


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smaller as compared to the full versions and users can start using the critical version as

soon as the deliverables are complete which leads to the decreasing of down time in

waiting for the whole system to be complete. urthermore application portfolio varies in

size. If the application is large the development will face with the biggest challenges of

high cost and insufficient man power. Incremental model can help relieve this situation in

which the big scale application can be developed on demand basis with the amount of

sufficient and affordable resources. $s pointed out by 8"S in their report Selecting a

Development $pproach %&''A( incremental model is appropriate in large pro!ect &here

the re*uirements are not &ell understood or are changing to the external changes,

changing expectation, budget changes or rapidl changing technolog. %8"S &''A(

Unlike waterfall model, iterative development approach enablesdevelopment to loop until the applications or products meet the

demands. According to Summerville (2001, iterative model consists of

a few manageable stages of development, basicall! the anal!sis and

design and implementation. "he implication from (Summerville, 2001

is that iterative model gives prides to customer views on the s!stem,

which means that the development will go iterativel! until the

customers accept the application. "he characteristics of iterative

model ma! be useful in developing the uncertain application,

turnaround application or the products that target the customers, or

the customer value added application. #n term of application portfolio

management, iterative model allows the business entit! to decide to

continue or stop the development in each revisiting. "his is true in the

business environment where the products can get out of demands at

an!time receiving the additional pressure from the competitor$s

products. %ontinue putting the investment in developing the

application portfolio will result in low &'# since the application being

developed gained little popularit! from customers. "he white paper

done b! #) in their white paper The Future of IT application

development (200* supported the fact that +Iterative development

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allows organizations to smoothly blend resources across the project

lifecycle, making more eective, ecient use of business analysts,

subject matter eperts and developers! "nd it enables organizations to

leverage global resources as needed to outsource basic, functional

tasks!# (#), 200* #t also highlighted that +In addition to iterative

approaches, organizations will increasingly adopt lean development

models that minimize waste!#

As found in (Summerville, 2001 &apid

Application evelopment (&A is one of methodologies, which

conforms to the iterative model. ased on the characteristics and

strengths of iterative model mentioned, iterative model should be best

aligned to applications that target in providing added values to

customers for the fact that it centers on the customer views of demand

and satisfaction and that it accelerate the speed of development.

-owever, since great anal!sis and evaluation are put on customer

perspectives, man! eperienced anal!sts and skillful developers are

re/uired which ma! possibl! lead to the high cost of developing such

an application. #t ma! not be appropriatel! aligned to the application

portfolio running under the small or medium organiation at all if the

sie of the application is too large.

$nother modern development approach mentioned by Schach %&''F( is the incremental

and iterative model. This model incorporates both incremental and iterative nature into

application development. $ccording to Schach %&''F( applications developed using this

model pass through different stages. ;very stage has the same development phases which

consist of basic flows analysis design implementation and testing. ;ach stage

emphasizes different phase. The developing products are increasingly modeled and

invented until they reach the transition stage. This hybrid mode is superior in term of

re#uirement changes and strategic application development as compared to classical

approaches such as waterfall or linear models. The waterfall models li)e SS$D" do not

allow the rooms for re#uirement changes. In classical approaches all the re#uirements

must be defined and specified at the early stages. If the re#uirements are modified or

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changed the development must move bac)ward from the current stages to the analysis or

re#uirement stages which lead to complexity and time consuming. In developing the

strategic application one of the applications in the portfolio incremental and iterative

model may contribute the most in helping the development successful since this model

allows developing the application little by little and ta)e into account all the changes on

demand. The strategy of the business must be flexibly changed overtime in order to

counter the product entry to the mar)et from the competitors. Seeing this fact the

structure or waterfall model might not be best aligned with this type of application.

$ccording to *ard = >riffiths %!


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3.3 Issues in applying develop!ent approaches to the application portfolio

$lthough most of the existing researches such as those mentioned in previous

sections imply the suitability of aligning the development models with different types of

applications in the portfolio there are some constraints that act as barriers preventing the

adaption of development models which leads to the side effects of alignment. This

research section will attempt to loo) at how organization and business structure influence

the alignment and the issues in aligning the development models to complex application

portfolios.

*ard and Peppard %&''&( pointed out the survey of &' S companies done by

Bederer and "endelow regarding the contribution of management to the successful IS/IT

development. The survey showed that 0top-management commitment &as a prere*uisite

for success, but it &as often difficult to obtain. "op management lacked a&areness of the

impact I(I" is having generall and did not understand ho& I(I" offered strategic

advantages. "he tended to see omputers in purel an operational context,6 %*ard =

Peppard &''& p. !&?(. It stated that top management loo)ed at computers as 7ust the

operational or functional support system ta)ing for grated its benefits in other types of

application portfolio such as strategic application. The top management point of view can

indirectly lead to adapting strictly and only the formal approach of application portfolio

development. Since the formal approaches such as SDB8 can wor) fine for the

operational system the decision to adapting the other flexible development models such

as iterative and incremental model might be bottle nec)ed in the top level management

since it traditionally falls into the fallacies that application portfolio is 7ust the

computerized system that re#uires only a particular development approaches such as

waterfall model and structure approaches.

In addition to the top management fallacies resource constraints and length of

time or time and cost constraint in development can also possibly and largely contribute

to the inflexibility of adapting the development models which is evidenced in the ;arls

survey of &! E companies %*ard = Peppard &''&(. +ased on the lesson learned in

;arls research it is difficult to 7ustify solely the suitability of the development

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approaches in relation to the application portfolio if the applications to be developed are

large scaled and the resources to support the development are inade#uate. In this case the

development approach alone may not help but the proper pro7ect management

methodologies such as P:I58; should be invo)ed in the alignment so that the available

resources can be properly allocated and the development schedule can be effectively

managed.

$nother issue in developing the application portfolio is that some sets of system

are redundant. In a corporate strategy each unit of business may have different strategies

applied- low cost differentiation or targeting the niche mar)et. $gain as mentioned by

Prepard and *ard two business units within a corporation may use the same types of

system but their strategic visions of the system might be uni#ue. or exampleadministrative wor) can use the common software pac)ages 0'anufacturing and

financial services organizations &ill re*uire different sstems, but several tpes of retail

companies in different market sectors could easil use common accounting

sstem,%*ard = Peppard p.119(. The important thing to consider is whether or not the

system should be developed independently. To avoid developing redundant system

aiming different strategic values in business units the development approaches should

model the system as one component that can be later distributed to the different business

units. In previous section 44P paradigm with the incremental and iterative model can

address this problem and provide the solution. $nyways tailoring the component to

absolutely suit the business unit may ta)e time and cost which can result in down time.

So the priority setting for critical components to be developed should be ta)en into

consideration. This is the point where the invocation of the effective pro7ect management

methodologies should be invo)ed again.

The research on alignment between business and IS strategy done by %Sabherwal

= 8han &''!( implicitly indicated that the business types inherently had potential

influence on the application portfolio development. Sabherwal and 8han %&''!( used

%"iles = Snow !


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organizations with different types of business had different degrees of emphasis on each

IS attributes or application portfolio in this current study context. or example in term of

alignment the Defender tends to give application development priority to the operational

support system and decision support systems because it targets the specific core products

with less attention to differential strategyH whereas $nalyzer loo)s for the mar)et

information system inter3organizational system and decision support system. The study

shows the relatively accurate probability of '.? at least for each alignment.

+ased on Sabherwal and 8han %&''!( research the development models in certain

organizations may constraint to the characteristics of the business types. The Defender

which produces the core products may not have any ma7or issues in development models

or methodologies because the application portfolio is designed particularly for internal oroperational uses within the organization 7ust to enhance the product development process

and to speed up product delivery. The strategic application may not be the area of interest

in this type of business. The waterfall model and structure methodologies which give

prides to full details and high #uality of products should be aligned well to its application

portfolio since the Defender does not suffer the pressure of the strategic re#uirement

changes and the turn3around effects. Therefore it can be concluded that the rest of

business types also influence on the adapting or aligning the development approaches

with the application portfolio.

3.# "evelop!ent approach and application portfolio align!ent

There are some certain researches on the alignment of the development

approaches with the application portfolio. "ost of the researches do not explicitly

address the issues of alignment but only the surrounding issues in the alignment process

specifically the alignment of the application with the business strategy. Interestingly this

actual research area was brought in by *ard and Peppard %&''&( who presented the

details of the alignment recommendation and its suitability. $vison and itzgerald %&''?(

also came up with the suggestion of the methodologies for application development in the

business context. 4ther various researches also have contribution to this area. This

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section will present schools of thought and facts of aligning the development with the

application portfolio from various existing researches.

*ard and Peppard %&''&( pointed that alignment should be dynamically based on

the criteria of complexity speed of development cost #uality and the strategic values of

the application not solely on the characteristics of development approach.

irst the applications in the strategic areas should be developed using the

incremental model iterative model or prototyping model since development process will

be extremely accelerated %*ard = Peppard &''&(. *ard and Peppard %&''&( 7ustified

that strategic applications need to be developed in the fast manner and re#uire the flexible

design which is crucial in )eeping the competitive advantages. This should be reasonable

because strategic applications are targeted for the competitive advantages in which cost is

not the big issue. 4n one hand the alignment of strategic applications with the mentioned

models sounds logical as some of the first IS/IT movers such as $merican $irline and

"cEesson did by putting considerable investment in developing the applications and

they were successful but on the other hand the Small and "edium ;nterprises %S";s(

may argue that they cannot afford such an investment because these models re#uires

s)ilful analysts developers and expensive tool sets li)e 8$S; tools. $s a result this

alignment does not address all the surrounding issues. There is a need to tolerate the cost

of investment in development. To minimize the cost Steria %&''


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and large IT team to support it. rom their points of view the operational application

should be aligned well with 7ust the formal structure approach if the business process will

not change very often. $nyways what if the other models such as incremental model and

iterative model are put into practice $ccording to $vison and itzgerald %&''?(

incremental model is crucially utilized when certain application demand is immediate

and iterative model is commonly used when the re#uirements often change and the

re#uirements are not clearly identified. $s a result the formal structure approaches

should gain the pride because in this era the business process will not be harshly changed

because of the globalized and standardized process. or example it is the fact that the

ban)ing processes in most of the ban)s conform to the standard which hardly change.

Third most of the support applications nowadays do not re#uired the in3housedevelopment at all. $s stated in the *ard and Peppard %&''&( considerable software

pac)ages in the mar)et are ready to be used to support the functions or individual tas)s in

the process. 0"he package should not be customized$ business processes and procedures

should be amended to fit the package, %*ard and Peppard &''&(. or example

purchasing "icrosoft 4ffice to facilitate the function in the business is obviously cheaper

than developing the whole 4ffice software pac)age. Pressman %&''?( also supported the

idea of purchasing the off3the3shelf pac)age to be used if it really 7ustifies the cost and

time of software development which is termed as not reinventing the &heel.2owever in

some situation the pac)age may need to be tailored to fully support the functions. If it is

the case *ard and Peppard %&''&( again suggested that the organization should see if the

tailoring can be outsourced using the appropriate outsourcing models avoiding

investment in the in3house development. Therefore for the support application it is

strongly emphasized that in3house development should be in low priority.

inally for the high potential or turnaround application it is advised to align it

with the development models that minimize the cost and accelerate the speed of

development %*ard = Peppard &''&(. That is because this type of application is

uncertain for the future investment and the opportunity of getting the acceptance from the

customers and users are ambiguous. $ccording to *ard and Peppard %&''&( again high

potential application should be viewed as the independent unit during the development so

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that when the application is going to be abandoned it will not have impact to the existing

application in the portfolio. In this sense the development approaches for the high

potential application should be iterative model prototyping and incremental models. The

waterfall model or structure model should not be used in developing this application

because this model wal) through all the details of development processes which are very

costly and if the application is going to be abandoned all the invested efforts and cost

will be totally wasted. $nyways the opportunity of waste can happen also when the

application to be developed is complicated and technical research is greatly involved. To

alleviate this problem the development approaches should ta)e into account not only the

characteristic of the model but also surrounding factors that contribute to the success or

failure of the development. Pressman %&''?( came up with the matrix for measuring the

opportunity of success in application development. 2e suggested that before the

development process ta)es place the 9Ps %People Process Pro7ect and Product( should

be deeply analyzed. 2e pointed that the product to be developed should be compared

with the similar past pro7ect to see the rate of possibility and applicability. This fact draws

into the conclusion that for the uncertain applications li)e high potential application the

development approach should incorporate with 9Ps or similar past pro7ect matrix and

should be invo)ed late after 9Ps are deeply analyzed.

#. $onclusion

To sum up various issues including the problems in defining the application

portfolio have been identified and brought into discussion and analysis. +ased on this

research definition of application portfolio was defined as the collection of applications

that support business process and create the strategic values to the business. The

characteristics of the development approaches have been explored and critically analyzed

in the domain of business needs and values. This research concludes that all thedevelopment approaches such as waterfall model iterative incremental and those

mentioned in the analysis section have the e#ual weight although some are old because it

still can be functional and bring bac) success to the application development and

business needs but the context of aligning them to the application portfolio must be ta)en

into 7ustification before adapting any of them by loo)ing at the surrounding factors such

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as organizational factors size of the business li)e S"; top level management support

resource constraints and application redundancy. Suggested methods of loo)ing at them

could be P;ST analysis and 9Ps. The missing areas of the previous researches were

explored in depth using the deductive ways. 2owever these missing areas were based on

the deductive approach which is not very accurate. The further research should

encompass the inductive approach where the empirical analysis should be held until the

relatively accurate artifacts are found. or the final conclusion it is recommended that to

align the development approach with the application portfolio the organization should

consider all the mentioned issues. "oreover currently there are several new and practical

methodologies such as agile and JP. It is suggested that the later research should ta)e a

loo) into these methodologies whether or not they can be aligned effectively within

different application portfolios in different contexts of business.

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References

$pplication Portfolio "anagement %&'!'(0o& to 1se Application 2ortfolio

'anagement K4nlineL. $vailable from%

http-//www.applicationportfoliomanagement.com/how3to3use3application3portfolio3management.aspx.K$ccessed &! $pril &'!'L

$vison D. = itzgerald >. %&''?(.Information (stems +evelopment. 9th;d.E-

"c>raw32ill Publishing 8ompany.

$zad $. +arnard ". = @ohnson E. %&''F(. "he future of I" application development.$vailable from- http-//www3raw32ill Publishing 8ompany.

:adac) S. %&''


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Sabherwal :. 8han N.;. %&''!(Alignment bet&een %usiness and I( (trategies$ a stud

of prospectors, analzers, and defenders. Information Systems :esearch

Schach :. %&''F( /b!ect-/riented 7 lassical (oft&are #ngineering Fth ;d S-"c>raw32ill.

Sommerville I. %&''!( (oft&are #ngineering ?th ;d ;ngland- Pearson ;ducation

Bimited.

Steria %&''riffiths P. %!

SPSD assignment

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