D.1. Information Engineering
In Chapter 11, we discussed the Information Engineering methodology at a high level. The engineering steps for the information component (and all the other components) are based on the overall CRM program requirements identified during strategic planning.
D.1.1. Strategic Data Requirements Inventory
The overall business owner's expectations or “wish list” was, of course, completed during the strategic planning process. The team started with the list of issues, opportunities, and “stupid things we do to customers” that was generated during the strategic plan, and they merged duplicate statements. These are the four steps they followed to develop the first pass at XYZ's strategic information needs inventory:
1. |
Go through the list with a highlighter, and mark every noun. These are your candidate data classes. |
2. |
Identify and eliminate duplicate data classes as well as any unrealistic or unreasonable data classes. |
3. |
Write a definition of each of the remaining data classes on your list. |
4. |
Organize into Global Data Classes for ease of communication. |
We will follow each of the steps XYZ took during its strategic planning development effort.
Identify Candidate Data Classes
In Table D-2, we see the data classes that were generated from reviewing XYZ's summary business opportunities and issues. For expediency, we're using just this short list, but you will want to examine all the information and business “quotes” you gathered internally and from customers. Table D-1 shows a portion of XYZ's full list of issues, opportunities, and customer mistakes.
| Business Opportunity/Risk | Data Class Candidates (nouns_ |
|---|---|
| New customer selling model: solutions, installed base, not just boxes | Customer, selling model, solutions, installed base, boxes |
| Execute on channel strategy | Channel, strategy |
| New vertical market product categories | Vertical market, product categories |
| Marketplace consolidation | Marketplace |
| Competitor price gouging | Competitor, price |
| Current infrastructure doesn't support order and revenue growth targets | Infrastructure, order growth, revenue growth, targets |
| Too internally/product focused | Product |
Although XYZ's actual list of business issues and opportunities was more than twice this long, for expedience we will work with a shorter list here.
Eliminate Duplicates and Unnecessary Classes
On average, you'll find two to three nouns for each statement on your list, but again many of these can be eliminated. Starting with the data class candidates (nouns) on the right side of Table D-2, we'll eliminate both duplicates and unlikely candidates to end up with our strategic data classes as shown.
You'll want to add to this inventory any other major data classes that you know are important to your company's CRM efforts.
| Data Class Candidates (nouns) | Data Classes |
|---|---|
| Customer | CUSTOMERS |
| Selling model | Selling model (not a topic about which XYZ needed to capture information) |
| Solutions | PRODUCT SOLUTIONS |
| Installed base | INSTALLED PRODUCTS |
| Boxes | PRODUCTS (hardware products) |
| Channel | CHANNELS |
| Strategy | Strategy (XYZ didn't need separate strategic planning data for CRM) |
| Vertical markets | INDUSTRIES |
| Product categories | Product solutions (duplicate) |
| Marketplace | MARKETPLACE |
| Competitor | COMPETITORS |
| Price | PRODUCT PRICES |
| Infrastructure | Infrastructure (XYZ didn't need infrastructure data for CRM) |
| Order growth | ORDERS |
| Revenue growth | REVENUE |
| Targets | TARGETS |
| Product | Products (duplicate) |
Create Data Class Definitions
Now that we have developed a wish list that includes all these data classes, we need to take one more step. Common understanding is always one of the key objectives for any development project, so we need to define each of these data classes. Remember, this is just your wish list; the definitions, like the data classes, should be very high-level and need not be perfect or exhaustive. Table D-3 shows XYZ's 12 data classes and the high-level definitions that were developed for each one.
Now we're ready to start working on the Owner's View of information. But before we do that, we're going to do one more thing with our strategic data classes.
Organize into Global Data Classes
It's a very helpful to organize your data classes into logical groups: a few very high-level global data classes. We want our information needs inventory to be widely recognized and understood across the entire organization. People have a much easier time absorbing and remembering a few ideas at a time (from three to seven). Global data classes provide a very useful representation that supports understanding, recognition, and recall.
The CRM team at XYZ came up with a just four global data classes because they decided to be successful they really only needed to know four things:
We need to know who our customers are.
We need to understand the marketplace in which we operate.
We need to be able to track our investments.
We need to measure the returns we get from those investments.
One of their 12 data classes (MARKETPLACE) became a global data class. The remaining 11 data classes (which were really more like 30 at this point) were organized into the four global data classes, as shown in Figure D-2.
Figure D-2. XYZ's global data classes
The six information engineering views are all developed as part of the work on a specific project.
D.1.2. Engineering Information
The information engineering methodology is reviewed in Table D-4. XYZ completed all the steps of the framework just for the subset of data classes that were relevant to Valencia.
Let's look at all these views and the work performed by XYZ's Valencia project team to ensure that requirements were clearly defined and communicated so that the end result met expectations. XYZ's CRM team had decided to begin working on the first piece of their new customer identity system (El Cid). As you know the project team chose Valencia as the name for the first project.