Explanation and definition of EITRP Views

This is my third posting in the series to introduce EITRP. This posting focuses on the concept of 'Views' within EITRP.

Within Enterprise Information Technology Resource Planning (EITRP) 'Views' are a representation of the staff that will interact with each of the 'Tiers' and utilize the information they contain. A 'View' is a subset of an EITRP model formatted and limited to the components necessary for a given role within the organization. A 'View' is a representation of what staff levels within an organization will own, manipulate and utilize the data contained in one or more 'Tiers.'

The example 'Views' below are based on the most common job roles within an Information Technology (IT) department at a medium to large company. The actual defined 'Views' for a companies EITRP models will be specific to that organization and updated to reflect changes in the companies structure, management styles and organizational needs. The 'Views' represented below are meant as a guide for companies that are adopting EITRP and can be modified as needed over time.

The most common views that will be utilized in some form at most organizations are:

• Chief Information Officer (CIO) – The CIO will most commonly be responsible for the process and associated data within an organization to execute on the companies core business requirements. This role will require the CIO to influence and drive components contained in the higher 'Tiers' related to company rules, process and policies.

• Chief Technology Officer (CTO) – The CTO will expand on the CIO role, while influencing those policies and process, the CTO will also own and define the SLAs the IT organization will work towards at the need of the business and the services that will be delivered to the business for implementing the processes and policies above.

• Architect – Architects within the context of IT are responsible for taking the defined SLAs and services from the CTO and turning them into a design that can be implemented across their organization or company wide. The Architect is responsible for managing the risk and reward tradeoff analysis of the possible solutions for a given need within the environment.

• Administrator – The Administrator is the role most commonly associated with the implementation of the environment, based on the design from the Architects. The Administrators primary responsibility is to implement new designs and provide feedback to the Architects for use in future designs.

• Operations – Operations staff are the first team to respond to abnormalities within the environment. Operations staff are responsible for monitoring for compliance with SLAs and taking prescribed action to remedy all non-compliance.

In larger organizations, it is possible that each 'View' will have multiple individuals that fill that role. Smaller companies could then have a situation where a single individual falls into multiple 'Views.' It is important that when a company is adopting and defining their EITRP 'Tiers' and 'Views' they account for the current structure and needs, but include provisions for the evolution of the company. This will allow the EITRP model to evolve over time and properly account for changes, growth or contraction within the organization and how that change affects the resources managed by the IT organization.

One core component of EITRP is to create a 'Model' that encompasses all resources within the IT environment and their associations. This concept of 'Views' is important for ensuring that as new 'Models' are created, the proper 'Associations' are in place for the evolution of the organization, allowing company leadership to better anticipate how changes will impact the organization.

Future postings will cover additional topics including:

• 'Associations' – The relationship of a data point in one tier and how it relates to the data point in another tier.

• 'Model' – The definition and uses of a 'Model', the overarching term for a complete set of data points across all tiers, including 'Associations' that provide for a representation of the organization and it's resources.

• EITRP Data Standards - I will publish the initial version of the EITRP Data Standards, there are the methods for documenting information in a standard way within the EITRP 'Tiers' and 'Views' to allow that data to be referenced, manipulated and modeled for changes within the environment.