ASPIRE PLANNING FRAMEWORK
No matter what size of e-service development you are planning and irrespective of its purpose here is a simple framework based on the blueprint above; for you to easily remember and to use.
We call it ASPIRE. Appropriate acronym hey!
No matter whether you are planning a web site for your own e-business or whether you are in charge of developing a national strategy - you will need to consider the the various aspects covered by the acronym ASPIRE.
Of course the bigger the system the more complex it gets, but stick to the framework and sub frameworks provided here and you will get off to a good start.
Don't be put off if all you want to do is develop your own small e-commerce site... you'll find plenty here for you too, just follow the links as they become available.
So what does ASPIRE stand for:
Architecture
Strategy
Procurement
Implementation
Realization
Environment
Here is a brief introduction to ASPIRE. Once you have this generic planning framework in place follow the links to find out more.
Architecture
Architecture A style and method of design and construction or an orderly arrangement of parts.. a structure.
The architecture of an e-service portfolio or even a single e-service is important - and just like an architect planning a new building you need to go about it logically.
Establishing the right frame of mind, a framework for thinking about the design of your e-services and the platforms that underpin them... in fact an architecture in its own right, can be helpful.
You know what they say about an orderly mind...
So what frames of reference do we need to start the planning process. here are a few I find helpful:
Think Front, Middle and Back It is helpful to think of any e-service development as having a Front, Middle and Back, where the Front is what faces the customer - got that? Good... we will build on that later.
Technical and Business Services There are always two components to the architecture that must be planned together to work together - the systems architecture (the technology) and the business architecture (let just call it the business). An architect must constantly think how these are brought together, i.e. 'the service'.
For example in a major e-government initiative we might come across 'authentication'. This would be a common technical service that would serve multiple customer e-services, possibly from multiple government agencies to authenticate (prove the identity of a customer and authorize their access ... username and password), allowing the customer to login once and be recognized for access to a range of services. In an SOA environment, the service would be found (discovered) in a directory (yet another common service).
A business service on the other hand such as paying your council tax, or applying for a passport may take the form of a simple ... here is a form fill it out and submitting it to a much more complex transactional process that will move your service request from department to department, even to another government agency or organization to complete your request. The important point to remember is that these business processes underpin services - and require careful analysis and design, no matter what your business is - the business of government, of health or of commerce.
Stimulus, Response, Action Now before we leave architecture and business services let's go a little deeper into the Front End - the customer facing bit of the system. What we will need to do is provide a stimulus, that stimulus must be designed to elicit a response - that response should trigger the the action we desire our customer to take - Agreed? OK then, so you would understand that if we said that the stimulus is the content or service you provide that elicits a response whereby the customer is happy to continue, return often, trust you and have confidence in you, has a certain rapport with you and feels that they can rely on you.
If we have that sort of response to the content you have provided ... and search engines can locate you your business service should be successful.
Channel Framework Think about the Front End - how do you reach different customers and users as they move around - from home to office to in between. Planning for this aspect is vitally important if you are hoping to reach all of your customers all of the time (or at least when it is most convenient)
Service Oriented Architecture One of the major trends your will find in the development of major e-service architectures is service orientation or SOA. This is not a new concept in IT - its has been around in various guises since the 80's. Although, this tends to be the domain of major e-developments in both the public and private sectors - it is well to keep the notion of 'service orientation' uppermost in your mind.
Central and Local Again this notion is more important when we come to consider major e-strategy development, e.g. e-health, and e-government. The notion is simply that central agencies tend to work on a central service infrastructure (usually technical services, like authentication) whilst individual agencies work on enabling their business services.
Usually where agencies must cooperate at a business service level to adequately or more efficiently and effectively meet their customers needs they will need to draw on central services that make interoperability possible.
Take a look at why interoperability is important in Health Care
Decomposition and Orchestration Another important concept in today's e-service architecture is that of decomposition. This is simply breaking down a service into logical components (processes) that when orchestrated to act together, irrespective of where they run or are located - will together form a service for the customer.
These components can be thought of like the objects that run on your computer which when working together provide a service to the user.
Clearly such a process requires orchestration - just like the various components of an orchestra that are brought together by the conductor to great effect for the listener.
Learn more about process decomposition and try it out for yourself with this Free Online Tool:
Design Decomposition for Business Process and Data Flow Diagrams:
provided courtesy of SOA expert Doug Barry author of Web Services and Services Oriented Architectures: The Savvy Manager's Guide.
Strategy
Strategy A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal.
Again, let's think simple - remember the five wise men when planning for your e-service - who, why, where, when and how.
If we answer these questions we will be more than half way towards knowing what we need to do to achieve our specific goal.
See an example of how this can be applied to make e-government services more customer focused.
It is also useful to have a framework for developing your e-service strategic plan. Here is one:
SWOTs - undertake a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats assessment of your current services prior to e-enabling them.Vision - establish a vision for the future of your services that you can instantiate across all those involved stakeholders by adopting a robust communications plan.
Mission Statement - develop a concise statement that encapsulates the what you will be doing - think hard about the nouns in that statement, e.g. customer, place of business, etc. and the verbs (doing words) - every verb should spawn a multitude of actions.
Corporate Values - decide and document what values you which to inculcate throughout your organization and your customer base - this will form the basis of your change and adoption planning.
Business Objectives - decide broad objectives that you want to achieve over the coming years - priority outcomes if you like.
Key Strategies - based on what you have so far, decide on a set of broad action plans to achieve your e-service goals. Here you may want to revisit the Blueprint and ASPIRE areas to decide what you will do in each important area.
Future SWOTs - revise and iterate back through the strategic planning process for your future e-services strategy.Review of Plan - review your plan constantly and revise as your go along ... this should not be a static document done once and left in your desk or on your computer. This is a living document, subject to continuous change, re planning and re-communication to the key stakeholders. Remember it took thousands of course corrections for the Apollo mission to reach its goal - the moon
Major Goals - develop your major goals particularly those around you customers. Innovative services cannot be developed without customer input - so think customer focus groups or market testing. Bring your customers into your planning processes. Understand you customers - know what they are likely to be looking for when they come on line, where they will be, what keywords they might be using - undertake analysis of what customers are searching for with the search engines.
Strategic Action Programs - Here you decide on the more detailed planning approaches you will take to meeting your key strategic objectives. As strategies have a military heritage, try using a military planning approach here too
For each area think what is the current Situation (look at your SWOT), what Tasks to I need to perform, how will I Approach this,and what Results am I looking for at the end. The STAR framework forms a good basis on which to base a project plan.
Use this Free Online Tool to help you develop and document your strategic Plan.
Procurement
Procurement Deals with how you will acquire or procure your e-service development.
If this is a major procurement then it will require very careful planning and management too.
Essentially you have two choices - make or buy. Either way, you will need to consider whether you have the necessary knowledge to undertake the development yourself.
Ideally, you should aim to ensure that you work with any outside consultant or development organization as closely as possible to maximize the necessary knowledge transfer because an e-service is not a static thing and you need to have key understanding inside your organization to accommodate future change.
Another important aspect of the procurement or acquisition planning process is that of Quality Assurance QA. Quality assurance is not the same as Quality Control. Assuring that you will get a quality solution requires requires the systematic monitoring and evaluation of the various aspects of a project, service, or facility to ensure that standards of quality are being met. This is best undertaken by an independent organization or group.
Implementation (Project)
Implementation Whichever approach you take - make or buy, or some combination of the two - you will need to look carefully at the whole delivery capability of both your own organization and those assisting you.
Obviously the large the project or program the more important this is.
So first a few ways to think about delivery:
Project Thinking Typically, a single or small collection of e-services would translate to a project - with its own project manager and project team. Again typically, you should expect your project manager to use best practice project methodology and tools to manage a team made up of technical, business and user (or customer) groups. Remember it is important to have all three key stakeholders actively engaged in a project.
Be Programmatic If you have a number of such project groups - you have a project portfolio, if they (as is most likely) share the same strategic goals you have a program. It is thus important that you take a programmatic view and manage all the projects in a consistent fashion ensuring their dependencies on each other are properly managed and the ultimate strategic benefits are achieved. Thus ensuring your organization has a best practice methodology in operation and an experienced program office to manage the projects and programs is essential. Project Components Always remember that a project has four essential components - each interdependent on the others. Scope of Project (or Statement of Work), Resources (human, financial and material), Time, and Quality. Interdependence means that if you alter one you will impact another, e.g. increase the scope and it will cost more and probably take longer.For this reason, the first three components of a project are often represented as the three points of a triangle. Quality sits in the middle of the triangle as again it is impacted and impacts the other three components. Ensuring your Program Management Office PMO provides a consistent set of tools for managing a project and/or a program are imperative.
Implementation (Change)
Think Change Managing Change and Adoption is such a vital ingredient for success - I would like to put this in a flashing banner - entitled warning! But I will resist the temptation. If you have a mature PMO - then you should ensure it has a change management function within it. The ability to run a successful change management and adoption program is more scarce and this aspect, if done poorly, will make all you hard work come to no avail.
This aspect affects all stakeholders. Every stakeholder needs to be taken through a process from:
Awareness Early awareness is required by some stakeholders, e.g. business managers) in order for them to participate properly in the innovation required - after all, e-services are not simply a direct translation of existing business processes. Likewise project team members need to shift their thinking considerably if they are to analyze and synthesize new ways of working.
Customers need to be aware of new ways of doing business with your organization in order to adopt the new services.
Desire Once aware - the various stakeholders, particularly the customers and staff using the e-service need to want the change. Resistance must be identified and through communications, education and training shift their thinking to one of positive acceptance of change and most possibly ongoing change.
Knowledge Given the desire, stakeholders need to be equipped with the knowledge to best utilize the e-service and realize the maximum benefits from it, e.g. convenience. and...Ability ...the ability, through training to work with the system efficiently and effectively.Re-enforcement or Realization Change is invariably continuous, particularly in this day and age - therefore to realize permanent change, permanent mechanisms need to be put in place via a Change Management Office CMO or function within the PMO, to constantly refresh and revitalize the key messages of change.
Realization (Benefits)
Realization Often one of the most neglected aspects of delivering e-services (or indeed any program or project) is realization.
Realization of what? The strategic goals that you established in your strategy as well as the individual goals for each project within a program (remember they should integrate to a common goal) - something called goal congruence.
One of the common mistakes in National Programs is lack of goal congruence of programs within the different e-service domains which are ultimately meant to position nations in the future global Knowledge Economy
Learn More
Once you know where you are going - and what results or outcomes you want to achieve then it's time to set measures that will allow you to judge whether your program or project has been successful.
For this reason it is important to establish early on SMART performance measures Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound (done by when) measures or Key Performance Indicators KPIs and the means to measure and react to them.
Environment
Environment Consider the environment as a spatial area that you must influence - your thinking will be hampered if you cannot grasp the spatial or environmental context of what you are doing or the e-services you are providing. There are so many ways in which you need to take space into consideration - here are a few examples to get you going:
Where will your e-health services impact the customer most? - Think: in the home, office or on the street!Will your technical and/or business services be location dependent?Where will your customers likely be at the time the most need your services and what was the triggering event that prompted the service request? - Think: How did banks answer this question back in the 80's? What is the best channel to reach my customers in certain places? Understand your customer or user demographics and think about accessibility - mobile, internet, mediated center, etc. This we call a channel framework strategy - which should feature in your overall systems architecture. You may also need to consider the environment itself - e-services can if implemented properly have a dramatic impact on the carbon footprint or your organization and its customers.
How can you consider all these options, Think Spatially draw a map, use a GIS and start plotting and analyzing you customers and user behavior and movement - like a military campaign. Many e-services are location dependent.
Every strategy requires a planning framework in which to develop the solution. 
