ftp.umcs.maine.edu/2015-02-07.ftp.umcs.maine.edu.tar/ftp.umcs.maine.edu/pub/WISR/wisr7/workshop/orgnotes.txt

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Basic Reuse Activities
The following are the basic reuseactivities which are necessary for a
comprehensive reuse strategy.
Strategic Activities
ß    Reuse Planning
ß    Reuse Infrastructure Development
ß    Reuse Continuous Improvement
Tactical Activities
ß    Asset Creation andImprovement
ß    Asset Management
ß    Asset Utilization
The following sections will describe what each ofthe these activities are
and describe to what degree they are beingperformed by the Customer /1
IP program.  I have marked some sections as╥[   ]╙ where I really need
input from you.  In other areas I╒ve given it mybest shot.  Feel free to
change or correct anything which is specific toCustomer /1 or the
utilities industry.  In writing this paper, I have tried to err on the side of
getting it wrong,rather than being ambiguous. Correct me where I╒m
wrong.
Strategic ReuseActivities
Reuse Planning
Reuse Planning consists of four phases:Assessment of business
environment, Direction setting and scoping ofreusable asset generations,
Reuse infrastructure planning, and Projectplanning.
Assessment of businessenvironment
Before putting in place a reuse plan, onemust first assess whether the
current business environment is conducive toreuse.  Assuming there
exists a common set of capabilities across some target market, one must
also ensure  there exists a sufficiently large body ofpotential clients over
a sufficiently long period of time so as to justifythe investment.  Simply
stated, is the target market broad enough and stableenough?  How broad
and how stable it is drives how big an investment to make in reusable
assets, aswell as over what period of time.
Important questions to answer as part of this phase include:
Who are the target clients?
The target clients Customer /1 IP areutilities in the US who are most
concerned with low risk solutions for customer service software.These
potential clients already are running mainframe IT operations and/orare
planning to upgrade to a new mainframe IT operation.
How stable is this targetedmarket group?  How many companies, in
which regions, for the next how manyyears?
The target market isentering a period of transition.  There is mounting
pressure for utilitiesto pursue client-server solutions as that technology
platform matures.However, due to the uncertainty associated with
client-server (e.g., costs, technical issues, etc.),many utilities still favor
mainframe solutions.
The size of the market is X utilitieswithin the US.  Current forecasts
would estimate that mainframe CustomerInformation Systems (CIS)
solutions are viable for the next X years.
What are the driving factorswhich will cause your target group to get
smaller or larger over the comingyears?
The primary factor thatwill impact the size of the target market is
industry deregulation.  This will most likely result in a consolidation of
the industry.  Mergers andacquisitions (both hostile & friendly) have
already begun and will continuefor several years to come.
Several factors could potentially increase the size of the market inthe
near future: (1) the entrance of non-utility players (e.g., cablecompanies,
etc.) into the marketplace.  While the likelihood of this issmall, it
nonetheless presents some potential opportunities, (2) utilization of the
software in non-utility markets(e.g., water/sewer companies, etc.).
AC already has in existencean asset specifically designed and built for
this target group. It is acustomer service software package called
Customer /1 IP.  At  a gross level,what is the application commonality
supported by this asset?
The application functionality of  Customer/1 includes:
[please modify this list to capture the common functionality providedby
all customer /1 IP applications. ]
ß    billing (i.e.,energy services, products, etc.)
ß    credit/collection
ß    payment processing
ß    service orders
ß    meter reading
ß    meter history (e.g.,purchase/inventory/tracking
ß    service delivery
ß    marketing
ß    customer contact
ß    financial/non-financial controls
At a gross level, what is theapplication variability supported by this
asset?
[...]
The above functionalcapabilities are available on a particular technical
architecture.  What arethe common elements of this technical
architecture?
[...]
What is the variability acrossthe targeted clients for the technical
architecture?
[...]
Outside of your immediatetargeted area, what other groups might have
significant overlaps offunctionality at some level of abstraction?
[say something about the commonality ofthe IP solution and the other
utility╒s industry Customer /1solutions (i.e., NSP, and SolutionWorks).
Currently, Andersen Consulting has three Utility CIS softwaresolutions:
(1) CUSTOMER/1 IP (Illinois Power), (2) CUSTOMER/1 ENTERPRISE, &(3)
CUSTOMER/1 FPC.  All three of these solutions have some
overlappingfunctionality (e.g., basic data model, base functionality,
etc.).  The primary differentiator is the technicalplatform with
CUSTOMER/1 IP operating in a mainframe environment and theother
two solutions being client/server applications.
 CUSTOMER/1 ENTERPRISE is a UNIX client/server solution
beingdeveloped from the CUSTOMER/1IP software (reusing the batch
architecture &replacing the on-line architecture with a UNIX/C GUI
interface) withmodifications being added to support the client╒s business
environment/needs.
CUSTOMER/1 FPC is a client/server solution that was developed from the
original CUSTOMER/1 softwaresite (Baltimore Gas & Electric).  The
software in its current state containselectric only functionality (gas
functionality is currently being added atSolutionworks for a client).
The primary differences between the two client server applications areas
follows:
    1.  CUSTOMER/1 ENTERPRISE is intended as a business solution
where    Andersen Consulting operates the software, hardware and
charges aninitial          development fee and a per transaction fee (e.g.,
per bill).
    2.  CUSTOMER/1 FPC is a client/server CIS developed with
Andersen    Consulting╒s Foundation for Cooperative Processing
toolset.This software     represents Andersen╒s client/server
softwaresolution.
Due to the fact that the two client/server solutions originated
fromdifferent CUSTOMER/1 packages (e.g., CUSTOMER/1 ENTERPRISE from
CUSTOMER/1IP & CUSTOMER/1 FPC from CUSTOMER/1 developed at
Baltimore Gas & Electric),there are substantial differences in the
functionality.  These differences are both in the scale and scope ofthe
functionality, as well as in the business solutions offered.
At the present time there are not any plans to establish a
commonfunctional architecture across the three solutions (other than
thecommonality that currently exists between CUSTOMER/1 IP &
CUSTOMER/1ENTERPRISE).

Is the sole differentiator between these products the
technicalarchitecture? If not what are the important differences?]
What other factors are drivingthis business environment?  Is the target
market driven by reduced cost, reduced time-to-market,reduced risk,
etc.?  Is the competitive situation changing? How are targetclients
planning to compete?  Is it increased service,  reduced cost, orsome sort
of paradigm shift?
As mentioned earlier, the industry is trying to determine the impact
thatfuture deregulation will have on the market.  This uncertainty has
utilitiesattempting to define themselves relative to how they are going
positiontheir company within the industry (e.g., low cost provider, high
quality service delivery, etc.).
The positioning of the utilities within the various quadrants (e.g.,low
cost, high quality,etc.) is helping to dictate the business case driversfor
purchase/development of a CIS solution.  While some utilities are
basingtheir purchase decision totally on cost, it appears that the
majority of utilities view functionality as theprimary purchase criteria
with cost being the second most importantcriteria.  It should be noted
that cost includes not only the software purchase price, but also
hardware,communication/network infrastructure, ancillary
systemreplacement/modification and change management costs.

Direction setting and  scoping of reusable asset generations
Relative to Customer /1 IP, the general direction setting and scoping
hasalready been put in place.  This direction is to leverage the current
assetas much as possible.  Currently there is no plan to localize
solutiondelivery into a single site (i.e., a solution center).
What would be the businessmotivator for creating a solution center?
 The primary motivator for creating a software solution center would be
alarge enough customer base to cost justify the necessary
investment.Additional decision criteria would include expected lifespan
of themainframe market.
Asset Packaging
One part of scoping is selecting aspecific asset packaging approach. An
asset may be packaged via anappropriate combination of the following
delivery vehicles: people,deliverables (i.e., any sort of work product),
tools, and processes.  When one is creating a reusable asset,one decides
how much to rely on each of these vehicles.  This decision isultimately
driven by a trade-off between competing delivery values.  Thesedelivery
values are:  flexibility, productivity, speed of delivery, cost of delivery,
investment cost,evolvability over time, and distributability.
What are the delivery values oftargeted clients?
Currently the three primary deliveryvalues for customers purchasing
CUSTOMER/1 IP are: (1) cost of delivery, (2) speed of delivery, (3)
flexibility.  The otherdelivery value that customers are interested in is
the evolvability of thesystem (e.g., many utilities are interested in the
ability to migrate to aclient/server solution from a mainframe package).
What is the asset packagingapproach of Customer /1 IP?
Customer /1 IP consists of both design andcode assets.  These assets were
created as part of the Illinois Powerengagement.  Subsequent
engagements use these assets as the starting point of the new
engagement.  The solution delivery process has beenstreamlined around
these assets.  This process is to install, convert, andthen customize, as
necessary.  The specifics of the customization is amatter of negotiation
and contract.
What is the sales and pricingstrategy for reuse based solutions?
Engagements based on the Customer /1 IPasset are billed at ╥time and
material╙.  ╥Value pricing╙ is not performed. The market is highly
competitive with other competingreuse-based solutions out there.  Cost
is the driving factor in each sale.
[??? The asset is owned by AC.  No royalties arepaid.  ]
Kevin & Joe:  Joe should be able to helpwith details in this area.  I will
take a stab at it.
The sales and pricing strategy for CUSTOMER/1IP vary between
customers.  The current trend is for ╥fixedfee╙ engagements.  These type
of arrangements are sought by utilities toeliminate the possibility over
costs overruns, etc..  There are variationsof  fixed fee arrangements (e.g.,
sharing of cost savings between utility and vendor, etc.) in the
marketplace today.  As statedearlier, cost appears to be a driving factor
in the majority of purchasedecisions being made today.
The software asset is owned by AndersenConsulting with customers being
licensees.  Royalties are paid to theoriginating utility (Illinois Power) for
each sale made of the base software.
What is the strategy forutilizing assets?
New engagements either start with the IPasset or leverage an
instantiation of it from some other engagement.  At this point there is
significant risk of the asset forking intomultiple versions of Customer /1
IP, each with slightly different functionality.
What is the strategy for assetmaintenance and replenishment?
Currently there is no strategy forimproving the core asset -- neither by
direct extension nor rolling backimprovements from engagements into
some baseline.  There is no singleCustomer /1 IP baseline.
Reuse InfrastructurePlanning
Reuse infrastructure planning refers tothe planning of organizational,
educational, and technology infrastructure needed to support
reusewithin the targeted development environment.  Since this is an
ongoing reuseeffort, ignore this section and instead refer to the section
╥Reuse Infrastructure Development.╙
Organization
Education
Technology
Project Planning
Project planning refers to a plan whichspans multiple projects
concerning which projects  will create and improveboth the reuse
infrastructure and the reusable assets.  For Customer /1,there is no plan
which looks beyond the current set of engagements under way.
Reuse InfrastructureDevelopment
Reuse infrastructure development refers tothe creation and maintenance
of organizational, educational, and technologyinfrastructure to support
reuse.
Organization
Organizational infrastructure includes three critical elements:
people,processes, and organizations tailored for reuse.  People with the
necessaryreuse training are the most critical element.  The necessary
reuse knowledgeincludes both knowledge of general reuse practices, as
well as specific knowledge on how to use particularreusable assets.
Within the ╥Customer /1 IP team╙ [what is a better name here?],
knowledge of how to utilize the asset isconcentrated in a small number
of people.  Training of additional people is done as part of engagements
using the asset.  There is nosignificant effort to develop more general
knowledge about how to performreuse in the general case.
The process element refers to the reuse-centered processes fordeveloping
and utilizing reusable assets.  For Customer /1 IP the development
processes(i.e., both creation and enhancement processes) are ad hoc.
The utilizationprocess has been informally defined.  It is to install,
convert, and thencustomize Customer /1 IP, as necessary. This is a
significant streamlining of the firm standard methodologyAC Methods.
Ideally, the organizational element should be configured to
maximizeeffective reuse.  This is best achieved by separating the creation
andenhancement portions of the organization from the utilization
portions.  Though this may not always beachievable it is at least
important that individuals understands what rolethey are performing at
any given time.  In the case of Customer /1 IP, onlyutilization roles are
defined.  Creation and enhancement is not addressed.
Education
Educational infrastructure refers to thecapability to train people in the
necessary skills for building and usingreusable assets.  Customer /1 IP
only addresses the later as part of OJT (onthe job training) while working
on the engagement using the asset.
Technology
Technology infrastructure includes various technologies which can aid
reuse.This often includes: a repository of some sort, technology for
packagingassets (e.g., ways of representing deliverables, specific tools, and
processformalizations).  Within Customer /1 IP no special technology not
commonly associated with engagementsare used.  That is, there is no
repository and assets are packaged asstandard engagement deliverables.
Reuse ContinuousImprovement
Reuse continuous improvement, as the name implies, is concerned with
thecontinual improvement of the reuse process.  Relative to Customer /1
IP, Iam not aware of any specific, on going activities in this area. Ignore
thenext subsections and skip to the next section.
Project observation andevaluation (metrics program)
Re-evaluation of business environment (problem space)
Innovation exploration (solution space)
Tactical ReuseActivities
Asset Creation andImprovement
Though there is no plan for the continuedcreation and improvement of
Customer /1 IP assets, there are a variety ofdesign commitments about
these assets which need to be made explicit.
Make explicit plannedvariability and commonality of assets
[Such an explicit statement has notexisted before, but it addressed in the
answers about commonality andvariability above.]
What assets have beencreated and how have they been represented?
Experience has shown that large grainedreuse can provide significant
advantages over small grained approaches.This approach relies on
shared, well understood domain models,architectures, and components.
Customer /1 IP assets consist of design documentsand code.  [please
describe in greater detail what the actual assets arefunctionally as well as
representationally (i.e., what deliverables are theypackaged as?).]
CUSTOMER/1 IP includes the following assets:(1) a set of 14 binders of
design documentation outlining both functionalinformation (e.g., billing
binder) and technical information (e.g., data model), (2) Installation
documentation, (3) CUSTOMER/1software, (4) utility software (e.g.,
testing software) and (5) test datafor installation testing.
What is the process bywhich assets are improved or replaced by better
assets?
Since a baseline for Customer /1 IP is not maintained, there is no
mechanismfor improving it.  Improvements that are made in the
context of anengagement remain with that engagement.  Sharing of
potentially reusableassets is very ad hoc (i.e., it is done among
engagement managers based on personal relationships).
Asset Management
Asset management activities fall into two broad categories: maintaining
therepository and the assets in it, and facilitating better
communicationsbetween asset creators and utilizers.  Regarding the
Customer /1 IP asset noone does either of these roles.  Please skip the
next subsections and proceed to the following section.
Repository services
Repository services in concerned with theconstruction and maintenance
of a repository. Repository in this context is a long term store with an
appropriateclassification schema for the intended set of assets.  If the
repositorysupports versioning and configurations these would be
handled as part ofthis activity.
Note that the repository need not actually hold the reusable assets.An
alternative approach is that the repository only hold descriptions
ofassets with pointers to where the asset can be found.  With in the firm
thismay be more desirable since these pointers could point to the
engagement where the asset really exists.
Cataloging
includes: creation and maintenance ofclassification schemes,
classification of assets, retrieval of assets.
repository services -- of either the actual asset or description ofasset w/
pointers as to where it is (i.e., which engagement has the asset).
Certifying
High quality assets is critical to asuccessful reuse program.  If assets are
not high quality and are notmaintained as such, it will kill any reuse
program.  Certification isconcerned with assessing assets.  Certification
can be based on specific evaluation criteriathat is applied when the asset
is submitted to the repository and/or it canbe done incrementally based
on experience reports on the use of assets.Fundamentally the goal is to
accepts only high quality assets and to reject or discard low quality
assets.(aside: discarding assets is necessary because it is quite common
for highquality assets to deteriorate over time due to changes in
technology and/orthe context in which they are used.)
The evaluation criteria for the assets must be tailored to the
specificdomain of reuse.  Some criteria are generic (i.e., adhering to
codingconventions, complexity below certain thresholds, etc.), but others
must bespecific to the domain of reuse and the values of the asset
utilizers.
Brokering
Utilization tracking and management
This activity is concerned with supportingutilizers of the repository, as
well as tracking this use.  Trackinginformation is useful both for
understanding which assets are better or worse,  and which assets are
used and not used.  Thisinformation is useful to brokering because it is
suggestive of what assetsare needed. It is also useful to the repository
manager who can use thisinformation to identify assets which should be
removed from the repository.
Asset Utilization
Asset utilization is development withreuse.  The principle steps to
development with reuse is identification ofthe potentially reusable
asset(s), evaluation and hopefully selection of theappropriate asset(s),
tailoring of the asset (if this is part of the specific utilizationprocess of
this specific asset), and integration of this asset into thetotal solution.
What is the assetutilization process for Customer /1 IP?
For Customer /1 IP,  this activity is performed by comparing
therequirements of the client to the existing Customer /1 instantiations
atprevious engagements.  When the best match is identified the
entireinstantiation is treated as the asset and installed at the new
engagement site.  The development process for Customer /1 hasbeen
streamlined to go directly to conversion, after which customization
isperformed incrementally as needed.
Knowledge of which portions of Customer /1 can be tailored, as well as
howto perform this tailoring, is known by managers and staff who have
extensiveexperience with the asset.  This knowledge is the single greatest
limitingfactor to our capacity to build Customer /1 IP solutions.
[what is the staffing requirements for experiencedpeople with the asset?
i.e., what percentage of the engagement team mustalready know the
asset? break this out according to levels: managers and staff]
Typical staffing requirements have been to staff one manager with
IllinoisPower experience together with several senior and staff
consultants.  Due tolimited resources with Illinois Power knowledge,
project staffing has variedsubstantially from one project to another.  At
a minimum, it appears that each project must have atleast one
experienced senior or manager (familiar with CUSTOMER/1 IP)staffed if
the project is to be successful.