Capability Cases: A Solution Envisioning Approach

"In this innovative book, Irene Polikoff, Robert Coyne, and Ralph Hodgson have captured deep insights from many years of studying how to get across the 'Business-IT Gap.' Capability Cases are an invaluable tool for bridging from envisioning to design."

—Steve Cook, software architect, Microsoft Corporation

"Capability Cases offers hope that mere mortals can rise above the daunting challenge of blending technology and process. Executives hoping to adopt high-performing business models will want to learn this step-by-step approach to designing and implementing IT-enabled organizational change."

—Dr. Jeanne W. Ross, principal research scientist, MIT Center for Information

Both IT organizations and business leaders recognize the urgent importance of aligning technology solutions with enterprise strategy. But they've struggled to do so... until now. Capability Cases represents a breakthrough: a powerful, systematic way to translate business vision into effective plans and system designs.

The authors' Solution Envisioning methodology addresses the crucial "front end" of software development, where you decide what to build and how you're going to build it. Using realistic examples, they walk you through exploring the capabilities you need, capturing business best practices, identifying optimal solutions, and crafting software systems that deliver them.

Solution Envisioning enables you to specify better solutions in less time, build systems that more fully reflect your true needs, and dramatically reduce risk and cost throughout the entire development process. Understand Solution Envisioning—from vision to plan—in three phases:

• Use Business Capability Exploration (BCE) to build a shared understanding of what is needed in a solution—model your business situation using business forces, desired results, metrics, and scenarios

• Run Solution Capability Envisioning (SCE) workshops to facilitate decision-making, collaborative assessment, and consolidation of a solution concept—use Capability Case Galleries to discover alternatives, gain context, promote stakeholder interaction, and stimulate creativity

• Move from concept to business case to a roadmap for realization with Software Capability Design (SCD)

Includes easy-to-use "best of class" templates for developing a business case, concept of operations, architectural decisions, and other key work products.

Whether you're an executive, architect, project manager, developer, change agent, or consultant, Capability Cases will help you bridge the gap between vision and solution—so you can finally get what you need from information technology.

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