The Open Group provides a range of strategy services to help organizations meet their business objectives. The business scenario process draws out specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, time-oriented objectives and helps organizations identify areas in which they should invest. The Open Group has a proven methodology for developing technical architectures.  It also has experience in determining user requirements, developing procurement strategies and establishing which specifications to build.

Success Stories: North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries (NASPL) project where the business scenario process was used to produce recommendations in the areas of standardization and certification.

Business Objectives

Business Scenarios
A business scenario is a complete description of a business problem that enables requirements to be viewed in relation to one another in the context of the overall problem.  Business scenarios can cover the needs of a particular industry sector or subject covered by any consortium.

With such a complete description to serve as context:

• The business value of solving the problem becomes clear
• The relevance of potential solutions are highlighted
• The danger of the implementation being based on an incomplete understanding or requirements is lessened.

The development of a business scenario starts with a business scenario workshop facilitated by The Open Group with participation from representatives of the consortium.

A business case requires solid information and a well-documented business scenario represents the due diligence demanded by those reviewing business cases.

The Open Group will utilize knowledge gained during the business scenario workshop to produce a documented scenario that will be reviewed and approved by the consortium.  The scenario will illustrate where in the operations (business processes, technical resources, and human interactions) there is the greatest need for change, based on the business requirements. The scenario will identify the activities in which the consortium should invest, such as the implementation of best practice, standardization, or certification programs.

Working in conjunction with our customer and CIO forums, The Open Group developed a methodology for determining user IT requirements and creating vendor awareness of key user needs, resulting in a collective drive towards open standards.  We employ many techniques to solicit information and opinions, and our web-based systems capture feedback and votes, providing instant results as an incentive to respondents.  Our experience, methodologies, and tools can be deployed in support of consortia to establish user requirements.

Strategy

Architecture Frameworks
The Open Group can build a generic architecture and/or an architecture framework and methodology for consortia that wish to base their strategy on an architectural framework.  The Open Group employs its architecture development methodology TOGAF ADM, which is an open, generic methodology for developing enterprise architectures. Over the past 9 years, many organizations have developed architectures using TOGAF.

Specification Requirements
The Open Group provides services to help customers understand and prioritize the requirements for standardization and recommend a path forward for the standardization effort.

Prioritizing standardization requirements involves understanding the requirements and the technical, operational, and budgetary constraints.  The needs of each contributor or stakeholder are taken into account.  The result is an effective definition of the standardization effort, and an informed recommendation on how to move the standardization process forward.

Both architectural recommendations and a description of the required standardization process, and the various options for implementing that process in terms of development, approval, evolution, and maintenance of standards are provided.

Procurement
The Open Group has a long history associated with strategic procurement – setting and maintaining policy and process, rather than the day to day activities of purchasing – negotiation, contracting and installation.  Our experience can benefit other consortia, especially those concerned with the adoption of standards.
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