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Invisible Architecture: The Benifits of Aligning People, Processes & Technology
Our JIT (Just-in-Time) manufacturing systems are working fine in Germany, Why don't they work in Brazil? The technology is the same - so what's the difference? CEO of a German-Brazilian car maker. The biggest problems faced by those responsible for designing, managing and integrating computer systems are often not technical - they are 'socio-technical.'
The greatest costs (and the greatest benefits) lie in harnessing the dynamic forces associated with organizational and human as well as technical aspects of IT systems. Systems managers are largely technically trained, but are coming to realise that the commercial performance of the systems they manage and roll out across different countries, require support in the form of training and practical help in order to effectively achieve this. Invisible Architecture identifies strategies for designing software around the cognitive, social, cultural, political, economic, organizational and business processes affecting companies and their IT systems. This book provides an introduction to the design and management of 'socio-technical systems' using examples of portals, supply chains, ebusiness and elearning systems across different industry contexts. Invisible Architecture raises awareness and understanding of business systems as 'socio-technical systems.' It demonstrates why and how 'socio-technical' dimensions impact on competitiveness, and provides a general frame of reference, and practical examples as a basis for understanding, developing or managing these complex systems. Invisible Architecture is a primer aimed at the gap in resources for training identified in computing, engineering and management courses. Taking examples from across industry sectors Invisible Architecture highlights the potential for harnessing 'soft' processes to competitive advantage in distributed networked systems, and the pitfalls of ignoring them. It offers a range of strategies for mapping, sharing and managing these to an organization's competitive advantage. With approximately 100 pages, Invisible Architecture is a practical 'starter' to the subject. What makes this book different? It is aimed at the big cross disciplinary gap in the market for the many professionals involved in the design and management of ebusiness and elearning systems. It shows managers that many of their problems are common to other industries, identifying both successful strategies and serious failures in tackling them. It features a range of practical case studies to raise awareness of recurring issues and scenarios. The research underpinning Invisible Architecture was the direct result of concerns from managers and CEOs across oil and gas, automotive manufacturing and financial services industries who felt that the problems (and the costs) associated with networked systems were increasingly people-related, rather than technology related. This book looks at the strategies that seem to work. It demonstrates how some system designers and managers have been able to cut cost, risk and time and increase performance and competitiveness by creating systems which align the technical and the human architecture, whether at a cognitive, social, cultural or a political level.
Contents:
Section 1: Contextualising the Problem System managers, design managers and CEOs of global companies operating across multiple sectors are dependent on networked systems to mediate a range of two-way processes in a very competitive market
A surprising number of these are recurrent - yet companies often have to 're-invent the wheel' in finding solutions to problems which could have been anticipated if these scenarios were in the public domain
Section 2: Case Studies The initial short cases provide examples of real scenarios in different industry contexts, looking at the problem in context, identifying some of the issues, and pulling together the implications for system design or management with indications other work in this area
The second set of cases are more detailed analyses based in the context of the manufacturing supply chain - illustrating how small misalignments between cultural/social processes and technical or organizational ones can generate real problems
Managers with an IT or an engineering background, often find that the effectiveness of the 'technical' system they are managing is dependent on their ability to map and manage knowledge of social, economic, political, organizational and geographical dynamics on the ground, and feel their training has not equipped them for this
These cases are designed to raise awareness of the real problems faced in an applied environment, where the costs and benefits will often come from their ability to map and manage both the 'soft' and the 'hard' architectures of these extended systems Section 3: A ToolBox of Strategies Enhancing system design and system performance in extended enterprise systems is an ongoing process
While work is still being developed to improve the mapping of requirements in the initial design stage there is a particular lack of support for managers attempting to manage and improve existing systems across distributed systems where 'standard' assumptions cannot be made, and knowledge of local dynamics is hard to communicate.
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