Case Study

People often think of systems engineering and architecture as purely abstract concepts that are only relevant to the most technical issues. But in fact, this is the point where technology planning should intersect with other planning efforts such as business plans, product roadmaps, deployment strategies and support. At MIDIOR, we strongly believe that the overall design of a product or service must be informed by the context of where it is going, what it will do and who will use it for what purpose. The details will follow if the context is well established.

Too often, uncovering the facts about how things work involves wading through a myriad of detailed documentation and presentations from engineering, marketing, finance, and operations. The end result is a detailed look at each of the trees without the complete view of the forest. It’s something like looking at a zoomed-in view on Google Maps. The house looks great but you have no idea where it is, what the surrounding landscape looks like or how to get there.

Think inside the box
MIDIOR’s approach is to look for the people who can draw the block diagram or flow chart. Find the people who understand the context of what was intended, and are able to answer questions that start with “why” and you will find the architects. There may not be a position with the title “system architect” in your organization, however, to build a successful product or service, the foundation lies in an understanding of what is inside the black box.

From MIDIOR’s perspective, every product, every service, every platform can be defined as a “black box.” This age old engineering concept, called the “black box,” is based on the assumption that you don’t know what’s inside. Rather, the concept assumes that you can only determine what is actually in the black box by observing and measuring those inputs and outputs and drawing a conclusion about what it does. And yet it is usually the case that companies are unable to “black box” their own products and services. This is a fundamental limitation to how well they can plan and how much leverage they can hope to realize from the technology.

Take the example of one of MIDIOR’s financial services clients. Feedback from business users of their system was that the information provided by the service was neither accessible nor useful. Immediately, the client’s focus was put on the user interface when, in fact, the problem was tied to the process of entering underlying data into the system. A block diagram of the service being delivered and how it was being used would have identified this bottleneck much earlier in the process.

True strength in systems and architecture yields relevant products and services with appropriate cost structures because the context is understood. MIDIOR helps clients find the architects and ensure that there is a disciplined approach to “thinking inside the box.”

Case Study