LINKING IT AND BUSINESS PROCESSES FOR ALIGNMENT

A Meta Model based Approach

Matthias Goeken, Jan C. Pfeiffer

Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, Information Systems, 60314 Frankfurt, Germany

Wolfgang Johannsen

It’s okay Ltd., 60314 Bensheim, Germany

Keywords: Alignment, COBIT, BPMN, IT Governance, SAM.

Abstract: Methods to optimize alignment between an enterprises business strategy and its IT strategy has been on the

agenda of IS research since the beginning of last decade. Recognizing the growing impact of IT on the

revenue side and on the cost side of P&L, it has become one of the most pressing issues of strategic IT

management since then. One promising approach in gaining best results for alignment is to synchronize

similar and related processes in both the business and the IT domain. In this contribution we present an

approach for identifying components of processes in both domains on the basis of existing meta models. We

consider this as a first step in developing a method based coherent view on both domains which finally will

allow us to create a systematic and comprehensive alignment method.

1 INTRODUCTION

Until recently, IT departments quite often were

perceived by the business management as black

boxes full of technology and hard to understand. In

their view IT departments were merely cost centres,

which were managed by setting budget targets.

However overstated this might be, due to soaring IT

costs CIOs are asked to prove the contribution of IT

to the business results of the whole enterprise.

Therefore there is a high need for methods which are

supporting a value oriented management of IT. As

we can find in Talon and Kraemer (2003), there

should be a relation between the level of strategic

alignment and the business value of IT examined at

the process level of an enterprise.

In case of ‘management by objectives’, goals

will be set or agreed on between the board and the

departments of a company. These goals should be in

line with the strategic goals of the enterprise. To be

able to reach its specific goals the IT strategy has to

be in line (aligned) with the company’s strategy too.

Chan defines alignment as: The “bringing in line” of

the IS function’s strategy, structure, technology, and

processes with those of the business unit so that IS

personnel and their business partners are working

towards the same goals while using their respective

competencies (Chan, 2003).

In literature, some authors argue that alignment

is more than just the goal oriented bringing in line of

strategy, structure, technology and processes. They

discuss cultural, social or cognitive aspects in the

relation to alignment (Chan & Reich, 2007; Reich &

Benbasat, 1996). There is a further discussion

whether alignment is just a state respectively a result

(Reich & Benbasat, 2000) or a dynamic process

which has to be continued (Burn, 1997) via the life

cycle of an enterprise (Chan, 2003).

2 RELATED WORK

The strategic alignment model (SAM) separates

areas of an enterprise into four domains (see fig. 1):

These domains are business and IT horizontally and

strategic (external) and infrastructural (internal)

vertically. Regarding this model, alignment is “a

balance among the choices made across all four

domains” (Henderson & Vankatraman, 1993).

383

Goeken M., C. Pfeiffer J. and Johannsen W. (2009).

LINKING IT AND BUSINESS PROCESSES FOR ALIGNMENT - A Meta Model based Approach.

In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - Information Systems Analysis and Speciﬁcation, pages

383-388

DOI: 10.5220/0002003303830388

 SciTePress

Figure 1: SAM.

This definition means not only a direct

adjustment between neighbouring domains. Also

indirect relations spanning the domains have to be

considered in the alignment process. Starting with

the business or IT strategy, the chain of causation

will be initialized and driven to the next horizontal

and vertical neighbour domain.

To achieve alignment, a holistic planning process

is required which explicitly considers the linkages

between business and IT. Reich and Benbasat (2000)

used the idea of SAM with a focus on “intellectual”

and “social” aspects. They define the linkage

between business and IT - necessary to achieve

alignment - as the “degree to which the IT mission,

objectives, and plans support and are supported by

the business mission, objectives and plans.” (Reich

& Benbasat, 1996). By following this definition the

term objectives refers to goals of an organizational

unit which sounds quiet close to the alignment

definition of Chan (2002).

Reich and Benbasat examine the linkage between

business and IT in two dimensions, A) the

intellectual and B) the social dimension. The effect

of a sense making linkage between business and IT

in the intellectual dimension should be consistent

and externally valid business mission, objectives and

plans. In the social dimension this effect will cause a

higher level of understanding of business and IT

mission, objectives and plans by IS and business

executives.

The original SAM and also its extensions are

descriptive and not directly usable for practical

purposes of planning and aligning an enterprise. But,

it can be helpful to solve alignment questions on an

abstract level of research. Furthermore, alignment

has to be operationalized at the process level of an

enterprise because business and IT strategies are

represented by business and IT processes and their

holistic collaboration (Winter, 2003).

Supporting linkages between business and IT

forms the basis for an improved process for aligning

business and IT. Therefore one next step is to

identify “synchronisation points” between both,

business and IT. These synchronisation points have

to be controllable in real life operations and have to

be useful to establish linkages.

Our next step should be to examine, if there are

conceptualizations of standard business and standard

IT processes which can be represented by

standardised components. An analysis of these

standard components can give us general insights

about the existence of major synchronisation points

between IT and business.

Identifying synchronisation points between

business and IT can be helpful to expand SAM for

an operationalized support of alignment using the

process level view. If we are able to identify

synchronisations points for a sense making linkage

between business and IT inside of SAM, we will

maybe be able to introduce the idea of supporting

the operational part of alignment between the

different domains of SAM for practical purposes.

3 IDENTIFYING STANDARD

BUSINESS AND IT PROCESSES

To identify possible linkages between ‘standard IT

processes’(SITP) and ‘standard business processes’

we will divide further proceeding into three steps.

We refer to standardized processes when using

standards, frameworks, best practices etc. as a

broader used abstraction to real processes.

In the first step we will identify a standard IT

process and its components by analyzing the IT

governance best practice framework COBIT

(Control Objectives for Information and Related

Technology). In a second step we take a look at the

components of a standard business process by using

an enhanced meta model of a standard business

process derived from the business process modelling

notation (BPMN). In a third step we identify

linkages between the components of SITP and

standard business processes.

3.1 COBIT as Framework for

Standard IT Processes

COBIT is an IT governance framework with can be

used independently of the branch or the size of

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enterprises. It contains internationally accepted

controls and goals for the IT departments of

enterprises. It supports the management of an

enterprise by providing methods for an efficient and

effective use of its information technology. COBIT

contains standard IT processes, goals and metrics

which should typically used by IT organizations. It

especially addresses the aspect of IT business

alignment to make sure that the IT supports the

business (Johannsen & Goeken, 2007).

Alignment will be provided by following a top

down procedure which is based on the bringing in

line of the IT strategy with the corporate strategy of

an enterprise. IT processes are triggered by other IT

processes.

In previous research we analyzed COBIT and

developed a meta model of the COBIT IT processes

which represents the components of COBIT and

how they are related (Goeken & Alter, 2008). The

core part of the model (see appendix A) is the

component process. The entity process can be

defined as the connecting entity which has direct and

indirect relationships to all entities represented by

the model. In our case the COBIT meta model will

be used as a descriptive model which represents the

basic components of a so called standard IT process

developed by consolidating best practice experiences

of several executive practitioners.

3.2 The BPMN Meta Model of a

Standard Business Process

Koherr and List (2007) developed an extended

BPMN meta model with performance measures

using UML. The meta model (BPMNMM) was

developed in order to represent the main components

of the BPMN. Initially the BPMN was developed in

1999 by the Business Process Management Initiative

(BPMI). The main intention of its developments was

to fit the gap between business process design and

its implementation on an easily understandable and

usable level for business users using graphical

components.

The meta model developed by Koherr and List

(2007) is based on the core components of the

BPMN enhanced by process goals and performance

measures (see appendix B). Therefore they expanded

it by further classes. We preferred to use this model

because in accordance to introducing argumentation

we assume that process performance measures are

very important for alignment purposes and IT

business process synchronization.

‘Activity’ is the core component of the model

which is related to several other components (Koherr

& List, 2007). In their core model they specified the

(A) type level and the (B) instance level with the (A)

cost and quality and (B) cycle time – as further

specializations – to measures the performance of a

standard business process. We prefer to replace

these measures by an component called metrics to

give the model a wider range for further kind of

measures.

3.3 Analyzing SIP and SBP to Identify

Linkages

By analyzing both models we identify different

kinds of classes which can be classified as potential

synchronisation points (linkages) between standard

business and standard IT processes. In the following

two sub chapters we will introduce the components

we have identified as primarily relevant for linking /

synchronisation purposes.

3.3.1 Classes for Alignment Purposes in

Standard IT Processes

To find classes in a SITP which can be related to

classes of a standard business process, we will

analyze each class given by the COBIT meta model

using the following methodology.

As H0 hypothesis we declared all classes shown

by Figure 1 as relevant for a sense making linkage

between BP’s and ITP’s.

As H1 hypothesis we declared all classes shown

by Figure 1 as non relevant for a sense making

linkage between SBPs and SITPs.

To find out which of them are relevant and

which are not we will use deductive argumentation.

Therefore we try to falsify the non relevance (H1

hypothesis) of the whole set of components by

finding logical reasons (arguments) that they are not

useful for aligning SBP’s and SITP’s for each

component of the set.

For sample argumentation we will use the

strategic planning process as standardized by

COBIT process PO1 because the business and IT

domain of an enterprise should have their own

strategy and therefore a strategic plan. This helps us

to bring our argumentation on a similar base.

3.3.2 Entity Types for Alignment Purposes

in Standard Business Processes

Classes of the standard business process meta model

given by Koherr and List (2007) were analyzed

following the same methodology as described in

chapter 3.3.1 for standard IT processes. By

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excepting arguments and classes which would

(significantly) mirror results of our prior

examination, we were only able to identify the class

‘Data Objects’ for linking purposes on the business

process side.

4 RESULTS

We identified eight classes of our meta models as

primary relevant synchronisation points (see Table

1) which should be synchronised to link business

and IT processes in order to achieve the positive

effects of social and intellectual linking respectively

alignment.

Therefore we falsified the H1 hypothesis for all

those components in table 1 by identifying reasons

for their relevance in case of alignment purposes.

Also classes and other components which can be

described as secondary relevant were found by

looking for falsification arguments. Discussing the

relevance of this kind of secondary relevant

components should be a further step in research and

is still in progress.

Also we found a lot of components interesting

for modelling purposes like ‘message flows’ and so

on. Message flows are used to show the flow of

messages between two separate process participants

(Koherr & List, 2007). But this kind of well known

information is not relevant for us because we tried to

identify synchronisation points for linkage in real

life. Flow objects are no sync. points. Important in

our kind of view is e.g. the data object, which can be

an e-mail that contains information which has to be

synchronised because information can contain links

to other messages, process activities or issues for

example.

Table 1: Components Identified as Potential Interfaces

between IT and Business Processes.

COBIT BPMN

 Process Goal

 Information Criteria

 Input

 Output

 Role

 Data Objects

 Process Goals

 Roles*

By identifying the primary synchronisation

classes listed in table 1 we got useful insights to

develop an idea of how alignment can be

operationalized by explicitly considering intellectual

and social aspects using a process based approach.

As a conclusion of former research we will

introduce an idea of how to expand SAM in

operationalizing alignment in a process based way.

As shown in the original SAM represented by

figure 1, requires a vertical and horizontal alignment

also as a crosswise alignment via all four domains.

To perform this kind of alignment, a process based

approach can be used as we have depicted by figure

2. By establishing standardised strategy governance,

guided by a standard business strategy development

process, the components identified in our research

have to be synchronised to link business and IT and

align business and IT strategy. At the IT side a

holistic IT governance framework like COBIT can

be used to establish strategic alignment by the

strategic alignment process PO1 for example. By

implementing COBIT, IT governance will also take

effect to the infrastructural and process domain

because vertical alignment will be fully

implemented by using COBIT.

Figure 2: SAM with process based linkages between

business and IT.

5 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE

RESEARCH

To improve current methods to align business and

IT, we argued for synchronizing processes on both

the business and the IT side of an enterprise. We

identified synchronisation points using meta models

of standard business and IT processes based on the

BPMN with expansions and the COBIT IT

governance framework. We applied meta models in

order to establish our approach on a broadly

accepted basis. We exemplified our approach by

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integrating it into the domains of the strategic

alignment model.

Our approach aims at an improved overall IT

alignment to be implemented and operationalized at

the process level of an enterprise. Therefore we

considered horizontal, vertical and crosswise

alignment as recommended by the Strategic

Alignment Model (SAM). By applying SAM

(expanded by social alignment and intellectual

alignment), our approach builds on, supports and

expands well established models. Also it explicitly

accommodates that there is a dichotomy between

business and IT because both have their own

strategy, processes etc. Also we accommodate an

important issue of design science research, namely

to deliver theoretical support for real world problems

by achieving a tighter fit between practice and

theoretical research.

As issues for future research we see the

discussion of the relevance of components we this

time identified as secondary relevant for business IT

synchronisation. Also it will be important to discuss

how to measure the performance of our approach

and to examine if there is a contribution of it to the

value that IT delivers to a companys performance.

Therefore it is also necessary to examine how to

measure the relation between our approach and a

companys performance. Further research should also

focus on validating and evaluating the presented

conceptual research results. We assume that this

would improve the understanding of the elaborated

alignment mechanism. Another research direction

should be the integration of additional frameworks

and models like CMMI, ITIL, PMBOK in our work

in order to combine them for a more holistic support.

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APPENDIX A: COBIT META MODEL

Role Activity

1..* 1..*

Process

1..*

Control

Objective

1..*

contains

IT-Ressource

contains

Domain

Information

Criteria

Maturity Level

Maturity Model

0..*

1..*

0..*

1..4

1..7

uses

belongs to

adresses

has

contains

IT Governance

Focus Area

supports

Goal

supports

1..*

1..5

1..*

Metric

1..*

measures

1..*

IT Goal

Result

Input

Output

0..*

uses

0..*

creates

1..*

APPENDIX B: BPMN META MODEL

divided into

Group Association

0..1 0..1

1..*

is connected with

Data Object

is connected with

Process

Time Event

Event

Start

Intermediate

End

FlowMessage FlowActivity

Sequenz Flow Gateway

Complex

Pool

TaskSub Process

XOR OR AND

Lane

connects

refined by

associated with

contains

consists of

connects

1..*

0..*

0..*0..2

0..2

1..*0..11..*

1..*

0..2

0..*

0..1

1..*

111

1..*1

connects

0..2

1..*

2..*

0..1

{

}

xor

1..*

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