BiSL® Next - A Framework for Business Information Management 2nd edition

Brian Johnson, Gerard Wijers, Lucille van der Hagen, Walter Zondervan

• Publisher: Van Haren Publishing
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9789401803410
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book describes the framework of the next generation of Business Information Services Library, BiSL®. BiSL Next is a public domain standard for business information management with guiding principles, good practices and practical templates. It offers guidance for digitally engaged business leaders and those who collaborate with them, with the ultimate goal to improve business performance through better use of information and technology.Twelve elements - four drivers, four domains and four perspectives - are the basis of the guidance in BiSL Next. Target audience of this book are business managers, business information managers, business analysts, CIO's and IT managers, as well as consultants in this field.While describing the twelve elements, the book offers them insight in the best way to manage, execute and profit from business information management in their enterprise. The book is also the official literature for the BiSL® Next Foundation exam.

1. WHY DO I NEED BIM?

▪ 1.1 INTRODUCTION

The capabilities associated with managing the digital information assets of an enterprise, or government body are many and diverse. Increasingly, however, enterprises take the view that information is an asset of the enterprise; information should not be treated differently to the financial resources, capital equipment and building/estate assets of the enterprise. Digital assets, properly deployed and employed, create additional value with a measurable and demonstrable return on investment. Forward-thinking enterprises take this view a step further, considering information as a strategic asset that can be exercised as a competitive advantage in the markets they serve.

There is a significant difference between the terms ‘data’ and ‘information’. Superficially, information results from the processing of raw data. However, the specific issue is getting the correct information to the right person on a timely basis and in a usable form. Thus, perhaps the most critical issues facing information managers is requirements definition, and aligning the focus of the information services with the enterprise goals. And requirements definition means becoming involved in the process of designing a business service, digital, IT-driven or not. Leaving things to a semi-random, non-coordinated approach leads to an ad hoc culture of requirements definition.

And of course, ad hoc requirements may result in a fragmented set of information services and data sets (often known as islands of automation). Islands of automation are usually a result of multiple organizational units operating without a central coordinating unit. Data is often then incompatible, contains duplicate or inconsistent information, and omits critical components of information.

Digitization

Digitization is often beyond the traditional borders of IT and data. A number of enterprises include the management of telephones and other voice communications systems, intellectual property and other knowledge assets as part of the information ecosystem. And legislative issues can also drive the digitization of information; for example, in the USA medical prescriptions must be communicated electronically between the prescribing physician and the issuing pharmacist. Why? The government wants to reduce the risk of issuing the wrong prescription, whilst the widespread practice of prescribing pain killers is considered a major problem and moving to electronic information with its intrinsic capability of tracking prescriptions more accurately is seen as a tool that can provide information to change healthcare for the better.

The scope of the information management organization or unit will inevitably vary between enterprises. Quite often it will include the origination or acquisition of data, whether it arises in digital or other form, secure storage, processing to create (often) more valuable data and reports via applications, and the transmission of the data or resulting reports.

▪ 1.2 WHAT IS BIM?

Information management in general is considered to be the collection and management of information from one or more sources and the distribution of that information to one or more sources. In this book, the scope also includes technology (increasingly difficult to separate from information and data gathering) and the construction and operation of software applications that process data.

The short definition of information management is: the management of the information services comprising functionality, data and technology.

Business information management (BIM) is the management domain responsible for all of the tasks and activities that are aimed at governing, defining, improving and supporting the use of information services needed for running the business and reaching the enterprise goals.

Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you.

Satchel Paige

Most often, IT is the delivery mechanism of how business information is captured, processed and stored; using IT means that information services based on IT need to be designed with the user of the data in mind. BIM then, is wide ranging and its implementation will vary, possibly covering an enormous spectrum of scope, from enterprise to enterprise.

IT may be the foundation of modern enterprises, but it is not necessarily the reason for being in business; an enterprise serves customers (no matter if these are government or private sector) and managing information services requires that strategic, tactical and operational staff fully understand all aspects of business information capture, processing, retrieval, securing and management. Services designed and built within technology environments for technology environments are therefore not business information services.

BiSL is primarily focused on information driven business services, (perhaps an even better description is data-driven business services, since business information management should clearly be responsible for information and data….), and given the ubiquity of IT this really means that a good practice should be adopted that supports the entirety of the business services provided today.

Where does business information arise? Depending on your way of working, information appears via surveys, it comes from internal records, social media, articles, books, references and search engines, or through customers purchasing services or products, or communicating with government departments or agencies; depending on the source and what you do with it, the information is used to guide planning to create revenue or perhaps to provide government services.

Information arises in all sorts of ways, via the Internet of Things, from customers, information and supply chain partners, even from social media friends. Published sources may be the web, blogs, newspapers, magazines, databases, government statistics, directories, technical manuals, and many, many more. Information is often defined by context rather than by content, which is why many information specialists claim that information becomes knowledge because you know what to do with it.

Business information services produce and use ‘business information’ to achieve business goals. And business goals differ from one market sector to another, and are markedly different between government and private sector enterprises.

Business analysts usually agree that there are two primary sources of business information: external and internal. External information is publicly available, and can be used (with specific reservations depending on information rights such as copyright and trademarks) by any enterprise. Internal information usually comprises data created for the particular use of the enterprise in which it is processed, or for sharing within their exclusive chain of information partners.

Why does the world need another good practice framework? Because reliance on a single framework, good practice or standard fails to address the entirety of managing information and data capture, security, retrieval, processing and outcomes. The perspectives of IT and the enterprise need to be rationalized and often interpreted to ensure business outcomes. We will discuss good practices that are part of BIM such as governance, security and risk management, knowledge and data management and budgeting, but BIM is not the key good practice for these disciplines and you might find other frameworks which deliver more specific practical guidance.

This book does not discuss Gateway^TM, ITIL^®, COBIT^®, TOGAF^®, portfolio, programme or project management, or risk management or Agile/Scrum good practices in any detail; these should be referenced from other books published, for example, by The Stationery Office under the SWIRL logo, owned by AXELOS. Where these good practices are referred to, it is as a reminder to source the information from the appropriate guide; some information is provided that will be of value in placing BiSL into context as far as enterprise good practice is concerned. A white paper is provided at www.aslbislfoundation.org (White paper ‘Complementary frameworks’) for those wishing to gain an overview of some of the most useful complementary good practices.

DATA DRIVEN SERVICE

AN ADDICTIVE SERVER

▪ 1.3 WHAT IS BiSL?

What then is BiSL about? BiSL is an abbreviation of Business Information Services Library. It is a vendor independent public domain library for the implementation of business information management. The library consists of publications describing the process framework for business information management and a large number of best practices, white papers, articles and presentations. This book describes the next generation of the framework for business information management.

BIM is about the governance, strategy, improvement and operation of information services from a business perspective. The BiSL framework describes the activities which are necessary to establish many of the responsibilities of BIM. The relationships between these activities are described from a conceptual perspective and examples used to illustrate their practical application. De Wit and Meyer demonstrated that enterprise capabilities should be developed around a holistic system of management structures, management processes and people aspects; BiSL provides such a system for the management of business information services.

BiSL was created to provide a tool for the information management aspects of IT-driven business services. Previous incarnations of BiSL covered ‘automated’ and ‘non- automated’ information supply. But in modern times how much information is not automated? Even procedure manuals are automated, though who is responsible for creating them and ensuring they exist and help users of information services may not always be clear. Consider also the issue of structured and unstructured data. Enormous volumes of data exist ‘somewhere’ and most of this is unstructured and difficult to identify or search, one of the principal reasons that data is so important to BIM.

The BiSL model is simple and can be explained fairly easy because it comprises twelve...