=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=None
|storemode=property
|title=Using Goals to Model Strategy Map for Business IT Alignment
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-599/BUISTAL2010_Paper2.pdf
|volume=Vol-599
}}
==Using Goals to Model Strategy Map for Business IT Alignment==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-599/BUISTAL2010_Paper2.pdf
Using Goals to Model Strategy Map for Business IT
Alignment
Abdul Babar1, Didar Zowghi1, and Eng Chew1,
1
Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, University of Technology Sydney,
Australia
{Abdul.Babar, Didar.Zowghi, Eng.chew}@uts.edu.au
Abstract. Strategy Map (SM) is one of the widely used methods to create
business aligned IT strategy map providing valuable insights to business
executives. However, problem with strategy map method is that it is not easy to
use which can lend itself to various interpretations. This is because linkages
between the strategic objectives in the four strategy map perspectives are not
explicit which makes SM ambiguous. Goal modelling approaches from
Requirements Engineering (RE) have proven rigorous in elicitation and
representation of information system requirements. In an attempt to make
explicit the causal relationships of SM linkages meaningful this research
proposes the use of goal modelling approach i*.
Keywords: Business IT alignment, strategy map, goal modelling, i*
1 Introduction
Business aligned IT strategy has been the top ranking concern of business executives
in the last two decades [1]. Due to strategic misalignment, firms often fail to accrue
the full business value from their IT investment [2]. To address the alignment issue,
researchers and practitioners from Management Information Systems (MIS) have
proposed many types of methods for business executives providing insights about
different aspects of strategic alignment. Some methods focus on social aspect of
strategic alignment [3] in which the resulting causal model of resources (such as
knowledge sharing, trust and successful IT history as pre-requisite to communication
between business and IT executives and connection between business and IT
planning) to achieve alignment are presented. Others highlight the importance of
informal organisational structure for strategic alignment [4]. Several other models
describe alignment as planning process [5]. There are also methods that identify
holistic view of alignment process such as Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) [6] and
strategy map (SM) [7] in which several aspects of alignment process and relationships
among them are identified.
Strategy map which evolved from balanced scorecard has been regarded as the
most widely used alignment method and more than 300 organisations have used to
create maps for their business aligned IT strategies [8]. Strategy map defines four
perspective map (Financial, Customer, Internal and Learning & Growth (L&G)) of an
M. Petit, G. Gal, A. Castiaux, J. Ralyté, and P. Plebani (Eds.):
CAiSE 2010 Workshop BUSITAL’10, Hammamet, Tunisia, pp. 16-30, 2010.
Using Goals to Model Strategy Map for Business IT Alignment 17
organisation’s value creating strategy. It provides textual concepts that executives can
use to discuss the directions and priorities of their enterprise. Strategy map identifies
the cause-and-effect relationships among the objectives in the four perspectives of an
organisation’s strategy in which the desired outcomes are defined in terms of
objectives in financial and customer perspectives. Internal perspective identifies the
critical internal processes that an organisation must excel in so as to deliver the
strategic outcomes. L&G perspective identifies the human and organisational capitals
along with technology assets necessary to support the value-creating internal
processes. Visual representation of the causal relationships in the four perspectives
provides greater insight to executives as to how the firm’s tangible and intangible
resources must be aligned to create value for the customers and the firm.
However, researchers found that the SM method is not easy to use and the created
strategy map lends itself to various interpretations [9, 10]. The major reason for these
problems is that the linkages created among objectives in four perspectives are not
explicit as shown in Figure 1. The lack of an explicit model of relationships
contributes to the difficulties in evaluating the relative importance of performance
objectives in SM [11]. According to [12] an adequate causal model should help
members of organisations to understand how objectives can be achieved. However, a
recent study reported that the vagueness of SM guidelines results in three different
types of interpretations of the SM created by a firm [9, 10]. The problem of implicit
model of relationships exists in most of business IT alignment models.
Goal modelling approaches from RE have been considered rigorous and structured
in elicitation and representation of requirements [13]. Many goal modelling
approaches have been proposed and compared in terms of their requirements
modelling capabilities [14]. Among them, i* appeared semantically richer and that it
provides greater requirements analysis support than other modelling approaches [15].
Therefore, we consider exploiting the constructs of i* approach to overcome the
above-mentioned weaknesses and make strategy map more structured.
Thus, we set a research question to address the problem of strategy map:
How can we use i* to make strategy map more structured and unambiguous for
business executives?
In this regard we use Consumer Bank exemplar (a case study conducted by [7] and
its created strategy map is shown in Figure 1). Application of i* to the textual
description of Consumer Bank enables us to create an i* model of SM which we call
SMi* model. Using the knowledge of Consumer Bank exemplar to develop SMi*
model is advantageous in a way that we can effectively compare SMi* model with
conventional strategy map in terms of explicitness in linkages. The rest of the paper is
structured as follows. Section 2 compares and contrasts strategy map constructs with
i* constructs in a tabular form. Development process of SMi* model has been
presented in section 3. Section 4 presents lessons learned from the development
process of SMi* model. Conclusion and future work direction are presented in section
5.
18 A. Babar, D. Zowghi and E. Chew
Fig. 1. Conventional strategy map model of Consumer Bank [7]
2 Suitability Analysis of i* Constructs for Strategy Map
Before we develop SMi* model we need to evaluate whether the constructs offered by
i* are suitable and adequate to conceptualise and represent SM constructs. In this
regard, we carefully analyse textual description of the exemplar and SM method used
to create strategy map from [7] and identify constructs needed to be represented.
Similarly, we also evaluate i* constructs in an attempt to match them against strategy
map constructs. Evaluation of SM and i* constructs is described in Table 1.
Table 1. Analysis of strategy map constructs and suitable i* constructs
Modelling requirements (strategy map) i*constructs
Perspective refers to a firm’s strategic view in i* does not offer any suitable construct
terms of conceptual elements (e.g. goals and to represent the concept of perspective
resources) pertinent to a particular domain of of SM.
concern. Strategy map consisting of four
perspectives describes value creating strategy
in terms of objectives which provides basis
for executives to discuss the directions and
priorities of their enterprise.
Contents of financial perspective present i* offers graphical notation Goal to
Using Goals to Model Strategy Map for Business IT Alignment 19
how an enterprise intends to create represent objectives/targets which are
sustainable growth in shareholder value. precise in nature. According to a
Primarily in the financial perspective Firm’s definition goal is a condition or a state
financial targets are established which are of affairs to be achieved [15]. Given
precise in nature. that the objectives in financial
perspective are precise in nature we use
goal construct (as shown below) to
represent financial objectives.
Contents of customer perspective is used to CVPs can be classified into
describe customer value proposition (CVP) precise/hard and qualitative/soft
which can be understood in terms of customer objectives. Goal construct is suitable to
benefits being offered by the Firm’s products represent precise CVPs however we use
and services. Customer satisfaction which is soft goal construct to represent
the mission and purpose of every business qualitative targets. Soft goal means it
can be achieved through clear identification does not have clear-cut satisfaction
of value proposition offered by the firms to criteria [15]. Soft goal is used to
please customers. represent qualitative target in terms of
These value propositions have qualitative satisfied sufficiently. Thus, goal and
and quantitative values as shown in the Table. soft goal constructs conceptually
CVP Measurin Suitable qualify to represent quantitative and
g construct qualitative types of requirements
approach potentially across SM four perspectives.
Price Value for Goal
money
Quality SLA Goal
Integrated Number of Goal
offerings services
Credibility of Satisfactio Soft goal
service n
Help in Always be Soft goal
planning & there
implementing
financial plans
Contents of internal perspective comprise of i* need to represent three types of
three value creating core process types elements here for internal perspective –
(operations, customer and innovation (1) three clusters of core processes, (2)
management core processes). A firm typically core processes which are known as
defines the critical few (clusters of) strategic strategic themes and (3) sub-processes
processes known as strategic themes that executed to achieve strategic themes. i*
have the greatest impact on delivering the does not offers any suitable construct to
espoused CVPs. A core process comprise of represent three clusters of strategic
many sub-processes. These sub-processes are themes. Strategic themes have been
executed to achieve CVPs. A strategic theme described in terms of precise value.
has clear performance targets (aligned with Therefore goal construct qualifies to
the CVPs) which must be supported by represent strategic themes. To represent
learning & growth perspective. sub-processes we use Task construct.
According to a definition task is a
course of action that is carried out in a
particular way typically to achieve
20 A. Babar, D. Zowghi and E. Chew
some goal. For simplicity this concept
Of task can be used as an
approximation to equate the concept of
sub-process
Contents of learning & growth perspective Actor is an entity that carries out
comprise of three capitals: (1) human capital, actions to achieve goal by exercising its
(2) Information Capital (IC) and (3) know-how. In addition an actor can be
organisational capital (known as intangible classified into specialised roles as
assets) each defined with precise objectives shown below. The concept of actor is
and performance targets to support the suitable and adequate to represent
strategic themes. Human capital refers to human capital potentially across all four
specialist roles required to execute activities perspectives.
in internal perspective, organisational capital Fundamentally i* is an approach that is
refers to interaction among stakeholders and used to express complex social and
IC refers to value creating computer organisational relationships through
technologies necessary to support activities in dependency relationships among actor
the strategic theme of internal perspective. [15]. i*’s inherent structure supports
Technology infrastructure used to support representation of human and
activities has been regarded as asset/resource organisational aspects. Thus for
in the MIS literature [16]. Therefore, we need simplicity, in this study we present the
to represent technology as asset/resource, human and organisational resources in
people as stakeholders for all four conjunction with related concepts in the
perspectives and organisational issues as appropriate perspectives where they
relationships among the stakeholders. make sense. This means the L&G
perspective only needs to represent IT
resources which support the sub-
processes of the strategic themes.
According to [15] Resource is a
provision of some entity either physical
or informational to achieve some goals
or to perform some tasks. This concept
of resource is equivalent to the concept
of IT resource which is used to execute
sub-processes of strategic themes.
actor
Using Goals to Model Strategy Map for Business IT Alignment 21
Classification of objectives. The exemplar In i* intentionality is described in terms
describes objectives for all four perspectives. of desires and wants of an actor from
However these objectives are of different another actor in Strategic Dependency
types of. For example Consumer Bank (SD) model [15]. To deliver a strategic
describes shareholder value as intent an actor establishes some targets
mission/aspiration and to achieve the mission which are defined in Strategic Rationale
the bank establishes many productivity and (SR) model of i*.
growth targets. In this case the firm’s To make distinction between the variety
strategic aspiration is its strategic intent and of objectives and their strategic intents
productivity and growth targets are objectives i* uses the concept of a boundary as
defined to achieve the strategic intent. So, we shown below. This construct defines
classify targets provided for all four boundary of objectives in terms of
perspectives into intents and objectives goals, tasks and resources. i* describes
categories. it as workability analysis which fits
Cause-and-effect relationships are well to represent that how well-
established among four perspectives by integrated objectives support achieving
showing that IT supports internal processes strategic intents which are represented
which supports customer perspective and out side the boundary. Responsible
which supports financial perspective (for actor to achieve strategic intent through
example, see Figure 1). Establishing targets inside the boundary appears an
relationships among perspectives mean to equivalent concept to SM concept on
facilitate discussion among executives in strategic intent and associated
terms of linkages between objectives. objectives.
Strategic Dependency (SD) relationship
concept allows representing cause-and-
effect relationships of SM through actor
dependency relationship as the
construct is shown below. With SR
model SM will be able to represent
explicit relationships among objectives
as well as actors and dependency
relationships among them for strategic
intents for all four perspectives.
Relationship strengths, objectives in each The use of following relationship
perspective which drive to achieve strategic constructs can bring clarity to the
intent have various types of relationships and relationships among the objectives of
these relationships have various degrees of SM four perspectives.
strengths. For example, the exemplar at many AND/OR construct is used to indicate
stages in [7] shows that the two sub- that satisfying a goal can be
objectives/sub-processes support to achieve accomplished by satisfying all its sub-
an objective that means sub-objectives/sub- goals.
processes have AND relationships, at some
stage the exemplar describes one sub-
objective is sufficient to achieve an objective Means -Ends is used to show if a sole
goal is contributor to another goal.
then the relationship should be shown with
Means-Ends link. At another stage one
objective supports another objective but the + construct represents that one goal
relationship strength in unknown for which positively influences the other goal. It is
22 A. Babar, D. Zowghi and E. Chew
we use Plus contribution link. used where strength is not sure.
DECOMPOSITION construct
represents decomposition of a task into
more than one sub-tasks.
2.1 Extension to i*
i* approach appears to be suitable representing most of the SM constructs
however, it lacks representing the concept of four different types of perspectives and
three types of clusters of core processes for internal perspective. Therefore we
propose new constructs presented in Table 2. We do not present theoretical
background of these new constructs in this article due to the space constraint however
in selecting appropriate visual constructs we take insights from [17].
Visual constructs are more effective in understanding and solving problems than their
contents [17]. Visual representation in software engineering is pervasive but little
attention is paid to perceptual aspect when a visual construct is selected. Two
important principles should be addressed in selecting visual constructs: (1) symbols
could be discriminated accurately from each other. Symbols are different from each
other. The greater the visual distance between symbols the faster and more accurately
they will be recognised and (2) appearance of constructs should suggest their
meanings which means that the symbols are required to provide clues to their
meanings. Such representation provides accurate and speed up recognition of
constructs.
Table 2. New constructs to represent SM constructs
Perspective
Financial perspective
$$
Customer perspective
Internal perspective
IT (Learning and growth
perspective)
Cluster of three core processes We use three colours to represent three
(operation, customer and clusters of core processes. Red colour to
innovation management processes) represent operations, green colour to
represent customer and yellow colour to
represent innovation clusters.
Using Goals to Model Strategy Map for Business IT Alignment 23
Suitability analysis of i* constructs (Table 1) and extension to i* constructs (Table 2)
for representing SM constructs led us to believe that we can faithfully capture all the
“structural constructs” of SM in a fully integrated SMi* model which unambiguously
shows the inter-relationships of “structural constructs”.
3 Development Steps
In the development of SMi* model we use two-step approach of i*. First we develop
Strategic Dependency (SD) model in the context of Consumer Bank exemplar. SD
model helps us to capture dependency relationships among stakeholders for strategic
intents in the four perspectives of SM. Strategic intents can be captured in the form of
goals to be achieved, tasks to be performed and resources to be furnished. Second
based on detailed level of knowledge provided in the exemplar we identify rationale
behind those strategic intents in the form of goals, tasks and resources that each
stakeholder facilitate to achieve strategic intents. This is called Strategic Rationale
(SR) model which basically expands on SD model by showing internal arrangement
of an actor to achieve strategic intents. So, we term it as SMi* model comprises of SD
and SR models.
3.1 Strategic Rationale (SR) Model
This section presents detailed information about Consumer Bank exemplar for four
SM perspectives and how this information is used to develop SMi* model. We ensure
that the development of SMi* model is entirely based on the knowledge provided in
the exemplar.
Financial perspective, Exemplar describes that the overarching shareholder
objective for Consumer Bank was to dramatically increase earning per share. This
statement presents two stakeholders1 – shareholder and Consumer Bank and one
strategic objective – increase earning per share. By using i* approach we can
conceptualise stakeholders and the objective by saying that shareholder depends on
Consumer Bank which we consider from now on as Financial Service Provider (FSP)
to increase earning per share. We use i* construct actor to represent these
stakeholders and the goal to represent the quantitative strategic objective of earning
per share be increased. Exemplar also describes that the target be achievable for
increase in earning per share which we consider a qualitative aspect of the target of
earning per share be increased. So, we use soft goal construct to represent target be
achievable for shareholder. The following information provided in the exemplar is
used as rationale to achieve shareholder objective.
FSP sets a stretched target of net income - $100 million on which the strategic intent
depends. Net income is a precise objective and is represented by using goal construct
as shown in Figure 2. This stretched target can help to calculate earning per share for
shareholders precisely that’s why we represented strategic intent with goal construct.
1 stakeholder: human, departments, organizations
24 A. Babar, D. Zowghi and E. Chew
FSP sets two sub-objectives – increase productivity and profitable revenue growth.
FSP considers them as two high level and main objectives to achieve $100 million net
income target (p.374) [7]. Therefore, we use AND decomposition link to show that the
achievement of productivity and growth objectives means achievement of the
stretched target of $100 million. We use goal construct to represent productivity be
increased and growth be achieved as both objectives can be measured quantitatively
based on the targets which are discussed in the next paragraph. In addition, FSP
expects 11% annual revenue growth which also refers to a clear-cut growth objective.
According to the textual description of the exemplar FSP defines two growth
related sub-objectives – increase revenue per customer from $200 to $300 and
increase the number of high value customers from 200,000 to 600,000. These are two
quantitative sub-objectives to achieve a precise growth objective. Once again we use
goal construct to represent these objectives and AND decomposition link to show that
the achievement of both sub-objectives means achievement of growth objective.
FSP defines one productivity related sub-objective reduce annual customer cost
from $100 to $75 [7]. This is another clear-cut financial objective and we use goal
construct to represent the objective. This objective can help to measure productivity
objective therefore we use goal construct to represent the productivity objective.
Since cost per customer be reduced is a sole objective to increase productivity we use
means-ends link to show that it is strong enough to achieve the productivity objective.
In this way we capture rationale behind the financial strategic intents as shown in
Figure 2 which is entirely based on textual description of the Consumer Bank
exemplar.
Customer perspective, FSP pursues relationship based customer strategy instead of
old transaction based customers strategy (p.377) [7]. In relationship context, FSP
wants four strategic intents to be achieved in order to realise financial objectives:
(1) Products/services be provided, FSP defines precise target in terms of
products and service so we represent it with goal construct.
(2) Relationships with customers be developed is a qualitative objective which is
not measureable so, we represent it as a soft goal.
(3) One stop shopping is a precise goal in which FSP provides all the financial
related needs to its customer.
(4) Trusted financial advice is related to the provision of information which is
represented with resource construct.
To deliver these strategic intents, FSP hires a financial advisor2 who is specialist in
this domain. So, FSP depends on financial advisor for these four strategic intents.
Rationale behind these four strategic intents is described below.
With respect to the rationale, exemplar describes that strategic intent – trusted
financial advice depends on the goal of helping customers develop and implement
financial plans. Trusted financial advice is a resource and it is based on product
knowledge which we represent with resource construct, however, helping customers
2 We acknowledge that there can be other customer interfaces such as customer service agents,
bank tellers however Consumer Bank created new strategic role to shift customers from
transaction based to relationship based customers. Therefore we used financial advisor as
responsible role to deliver four strategic intents for customer perspective.
Using Goals to Model Strategy Map for Business IT Alignment 25
Shareholder
Target be Earning per
achievable share be
$$ increased
Increase in net
income be set
Productivity be Growth be
Financial
increased achieved
service
provider
Cost per Revenue per High-value customers
customer be customer be be added and retained
reduced increased
Products/ Relationships with Trusted
One stop
services be cust. be developed financial
shopping
provided advice
Services be
credible &
Financial
effective + Help customers to develop
advisor Integrated
+ and implement their
+ offerings
financial plans
Low price
High quality
Minimize Provide rapid Cross-sell Understand
Effectively product line Products be
problems response customer
innovative segments
Useful
[response] Products be Develop new Shift to
inexpensive products appropriate
Quality channel
manager Reduce
incident Serve
and cost Joint customers
Financial
of errors Venture Consumer
planner Seek
mnger marketer Communicate
partner
Broader s Clarify
Call range of CVP Segment
centre services market
represent
ative Fulfill
requests Telemark
Cost-
eter
effective
approach
Telemarketing
campaign Direct mail
support
Acquire program
prospect list
Customers Calculate Calculate
analyse their Calculate new product customer
Efficient own plan customer revenue Manage lead profit Customer
service profitability & order survey
Service
quality
analysis Cust portfolio Project
Customer
self mgmt mgmt CRM
self-help
Problem system system
tracking Customer
system Customer feedback
profitability system
IT system
organisation
Web-
architecture
Fig 2. SMi* model of Consumer Bank
26 A. Babar, D. Zowghi and E. Chew
to develop and implement their financial plans is a qualitative goal as it can not be
clearly measured. In addition, One stop shopping which means to provide all financial
solutions under one roof depends on helping customer in developing their products.
Strategic intent relationship based customer supports financial target revenue per
customer be increased, according to the exemplar it depends on integrated offering.
Integrated offering is a quantitative goal as financial advisor can easily figure out how
many products/services a customer has been using.
Strategic intent – products and services that helps to achieve cost per customer be
reduced depends on CVP Services be credible and effective. Textual description
presents price and quality of products and services as key CVPs to support
products/services to be credible and effective and hence helps to reduce cost per
customer for productivity objective, so we use positive contribution link showing that
the CVPs price and quality positively support the soft goal of products/services to be
credible and effective as shown in Figure 2.
As price (value for money) is a known value it is represented with goal construct.
Firms use Service Level Agreement (SLA) to achieve quantitative goals in term of
quality of their services, so quality level can be identified precisely and is represented
with goal construct3. So, we can show through linkages that how strategic intents
depend on CVPs to support financial targets. One of the advantages of using i* is that
it helps to differentiate strategic intents from supporting objectives.
Internal perspective, Exemplar describes six critical processes in three clusters –
operation, customer and innovation that must be executed to achieve four strategic
intents of customer perspective. Six core processes – minimize problems, provide
rapid response, cross-sell product line, develop new products, shift to appropriate
channels and understand customer segment are described as six themes. Exemplar
identifies six specialist roles to achieve targets set for six strategic themes. Therefore
by using i*, we capture dependency relationships between financial advisor and six
specialist roles for six strategic themes (along with some soft targets perceived from
the textual description) as shown in Figure 2. We introduce six strategic themes in the
context of three clusters below:
The exemplar describes two operation management related themes which are
important to satisfy existing customers and delivering desired productivity objective.
(1) Minimize problems is a strategic theme in which quality manager is given the
target of 0.1% reduction in incidents and cost of errors to achieve low price CVP.
Reducing the number of incidents and the cost of errors is the task that quality
manager performs to achieve 0.1% target and achieve it effectively. In i* terms
financial advisor depends on quality manager to achieve this strategic theme and to
achieve the strategic theme quality manager performs the task of reducing the number
of incidents and cost of errors.
(2) Provide rapid response, means 24/7 service with fulfilment time. The exemplar
describes call centre representatives as responsible people to achieve this service
objective and task for them is to fulfil request. The response must be useful for
3 In some cases quality could include the level of customer experience in using the services
offered by Consumer Bank. In these cases, quality is not measureable entity and will be
represented as a soft goal.
Using Goals to Model Strategy Map for Business IT Alignment 27
customers. Same i* principle is used here and onward to represent relationship
between financial advisor and roles associated to rest of the four strategic themes.
The exemplar described four more strategic themes in customer management &
innovation clusters which can help to achieve revenue growth and increase in high
value customers objectives. Based on the textual description we find that two themes
cross-sell the product line and develop new products are more supportive to achieve
relationship based customers and hence increase in revenue per customer. However,
two other core processes – shift to appropriate channel and understand customer
segment are more supportive to achieve increase in high value customers.
(1) Cross-sell the product
For this strategic theme, financial planner is considered an ideal role who is given
the target of 2.5 products per customer to be achieved. To achieve this target financial
planner is responsible to perform the task of providing broader range of products and
service.
(2) Develop new products
In this theme, joint venture manager is given the target of increase in revenue per
customer by 50%. To achieve this target joint venture manager performs the task of
seeking more partners in order to create additional products and services.
(3) Shift to appropriate channel
This theme requires telemarketing program in which 40% shift in channel mix is
the target for telemarketers. To achieve this target, three types of tasks are suggested
in the exemplar – (1) telemarketing campaign, (2) the acquisition of prospect list and
(3) direct mail support program which are associated with the task through
decomposition link.
(4) Understand customer segment
Consumer marketer is the responsible person to achieve the target of 30% segment
share for this theme. To achieve this target responsible person has the major task of
serving customer which is divided into three sub-tasks - clarification of CVP,
segmenting the market and communicating the message with potential customers.
Achievement of the targets for these six themes through value creating tasks means
achievement of overarching net income target of $100 million.
IT (L&G perspective). This perspective focuses on three aspects – human,
organisational and IT. As we have described in Table 1 that i* inherently supports
expressing organisational and human aspects of information systems through
dependency relationships among actors for goals to be achieved, tasks to performed
and resources to be furnished [18]. Therefore, we do not need to model human and
organisational aspect separately in L&G perspective however, we must represent IT
aspect for L&G perspective.
For information capital, exemplar presents that the IT organisation is responsible
of installing and maintaining several of the applications and integrate these
applications to the bank’s overall web infrastructure. Sub-processes supporting six
strategic themes encompass IT domain of L&G perspective. Six specialist roles
depend on the IT organization (actor) for the support of sub-processes associated to
their domains. Exemplar describes eight sub-processes that an IT organisation needs
to support in order to realise six strategic themes. IT organisation as an actor for IC
capital furnish applications and infrastructures which are considered as resources [16]
IT organisation furnishes these resources to support six strategic themes.
28 A. Babar, D. Zowghi and E. Chew
To achieve strategic theme minimize problems IT organisation installs problem
tracking system who’s main purpose is to perform service quality analysis in which it
helps to reduce operational errors. Thus according to i* quality manager responsible
to achieve strategic theme minimize problems depends on IT organisation to perform
the task of service quality analysis for which IT organisation furnish resource –
problem tracking system. Similarly five other roles responsible of strategic themes
depend on IT organisation to furnish resources for particular tasks which are
described below.
To support the process of provide rapid response, IT organisation install customer
self help system. This system provides efficient and 24/7 services through web-
systems. For cross-sell theme IT organisation installs two applications – customer
portfolio self management system and customer profitability system. Former system
helps customers to develop their financial plans and this system is supported by web-
architecture providing customers 24/7 services. Later system provides facility for
financial planners to calculate profitability of customers. Strategic theme develop new
product requires project management system which helps project manager to product
based revenue.
Shift to appropriate channel is another vital theme for which a complete suite of
Customer Relation Management system (CRM) including lead management system,
order management system and sales forces automation is used. CRM supports tasks
related to this strategic theme effectively. Customer profitability is partly useful for
the understand customer segments theme. Customer feedback system is also needed
to understand customer needs and it helps to segment customers. Customer feedback
system is supported (to some degree) by web-architecture providing the bank a cost
effective and efficient way of conducting surveys.
With i*, relationships among objectives across four perspectives are explicit and in
one example (see Figure 2) we have shown traceability for a strategic theme –
minimize problems upwards for CVPs and financial objectives and downward support
from sub-processes and hence IT resources.
4 Lessons Learned from Using i* to Represent Strategy Map
1. Development of goal structure using AND alternatives. i* has effectively shown
clarity in relationships among different types of objectives for four SM
perspectives. Linkages present relationship types among objectives.
Representation of different types of objectives with different types of i*
constructs such as goals, tasks and resources can also be observed in SMi*
model. It is also observed that the explicit representation of elements and their
relationships has enhanced readability of SM and thus executives should be able
to view SMi* model as an explicit model of relationships.
2. i* has facilitated more than just enhancing clarity in linkages. i* has captured
roles/actors related to each perspective (contrary to conventional SM in which
roles are identified only in L&G perspective for strategic themes) and provided a
network of dependency relationships among actors. Through this dependency
approach i* actually addresses issues related to organisational and human capitals
Using Goals to Model Strategy Map for Business IT Alignment 29
which are highlighted in L&G perspective for conventional SM. Therefore, only
IT is captured for L&G perspective in SMi* model. SMi* is ideal to
communicate with executives explicitly showing them strategic intent and their
responsible roles and what measures these roles take to achieve their strategic
intents.
3. We do not represent clusters of core processes into groups as shown in
conventional SMs. The major reason is the representation of explicit relationships
making difficult to group the core processes. So, in SMi* model we use three
distinct colours (red for operations, green for customer and yellow for innovation
processes) to represent three groups of core processes. In this way we maintain
clarity in relationships among objectives.
4. Regulatory and social processes is the fourth cluster of core processes, required
for regulatory and environmental sustainability compliance purposes, which is
not being represented in this SMi* model for two reasons: (1) we do not find
sufficient information on this cluster in consumer bank exemplar and (2)
representation of this core process is debatable as the MIS literature mainly
discusses three core processes to achieve customer and financial targets which we
have represented in SMi* model.
5. SMi* model shows the complete linkages explicitly across the four perspectives
of SM. SMi* model, in one example clearly shows that the core process minimize
problems helps to achieve CVP low price and hence achieve productivity target
while having support from problem tracking system from IT organisation.
6. SM identifies aspects of strategic alignment in term of four perspectives. In this
regard new constructs are identified in Table 2. These constructs help to reduce
complexity of alignment process and enhances readability of SM.
7. In i* context, SMi* model is dependency heavy. The basic reason is that the
exemplar provides limited knowledge for four perspectives of SM process and it
is particularly visible for internal perspective. However, we have provided a
model – SMi* model which is further explore-able. Provision of such integrated
model of explicit linkages was our study objective which we have achieved
through this exercise.
5 Conclusion and Future Work
Application of i* has introduced structuredness and explicit traceability to SM that
was weak in the conventional SM. i* approach has provided meaningful visual
constructs to represent different types of targets and relationships among them for
four SM perspectives. Integrated network of relationships provides excellent
traceability across four perspectives. It is our conjecture that this kind of
structuredness and traceability can make SM easy to use as we have not yet validated
this in the field the SMi* model produced and the method used to develop it. Given
that the researchers from MIS have identified ambiguity in relationships among SM
objectives is the problem we believe that with the use of i* constructs relationships
among SM objectives now become explicit. Development of SMi* model is the first
step in this line of research. In the next step we intend to conduct interviews with IT
30 A. Babar, D. Zowghi and E. Chew
strategists to evaluate whether SMi* model has better structure and traceability than
conventional strategy map. In the final step we will evaluate the method used to
develop SMi* model through a field case study.
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