INTRODUCTION

POM processes were discussed in Part I. From those discussions, remember that POM processes involve several steps. Each step in a POM process is typically enabled via a separate software component. A desire by many organizations to achieve best-in-class (BIC) performance resulted in most of them adopting a best-of-breed software acquisition strategy to enable POM processes. Each of these best-of-breed software components contained specific unique data structures, interfaces, etc., with most of them typically being proprietary in nature. These constraints made integrating software components very difficult and made basing decisions on a unified view of the enterprise facts impossible. Additionally each organization invested significant time and large sums of money in developing and deploying an existing portfolio of business software systems. Because of time and financial constraints, new system developments often began afresh and developed or deployed software components that were integrated tightly with existing systems. This tight integration created brittle systems in which changes were expensive, difficult, and typically suboptimal with respect to required functionality. Therefore components added later in the portfolio would be challenged by major headaches during implementation, especially when integrating with other systems, either existing systems or systems being deployed concurrently. ( Note: The experience of the authors has been that integration efforts and related costs often account for over 60% of the direct costs for later projects. The authors strongly believe that missed-opportunity costs are significantly higher.)

The software industry has been acutely aware of integration-related problems and has recently developed tools such...