Information Universe – Part Two
“The complexity of business arises from the nature of management required to achieve commercial objectives and handle incomplete transactions. Effective management involves applying due care and expertise to create optimal commercial outcomes. This is achieved through intelligence, which managers or agents derive by applying their knowledge to contextualized information. A well-informed decision can create or impair value.” – Hendrik Oppermann, Business Architect
In part one, we argue that an information universe encapsulates the system’s complexity, enabling it to operate efficiently and predictably. Here, “system” refers to the intricate workings of a business, “efficiency” means optimal performance, and “predictiveness” pertains to expected outcomes.
The complexity of business arises from the nature of management required to achieve commercial objectives and handle incomplete transactions. Effective management involves applying due care and expertise to create optimal commercial outcomes. This is achieved through intelligence, which managers or agents derive by applying their knowledge to contextualized information. A well-informed decision can create or impair value.
A classic example is a driver approaching a traffic light that turns orange. The driver needs immediate, contextualized information—such as distance from the light, travel speed, and road conditions—and must apply driving skills and judgment to derive the intelligence needed to decide whether to stop or proceed. All decisions follow this sequence and composition.
In the exponentially more complex context of a business, an “information universe” describes this complexity. It equips decision-makers with contextualized information to derive the necessary intelligence for their decisions. The input for preparing this universe is the management objective at hand, leading to a robust description for consistently predictable outcomes.
Practically, the information universe becomes the central hub for information flow and context, serving different stakeholders, including all management levels, agents, customers, suppliers, etc. It should be the sole conduit for information to and from these audiences through various interfaces, such as portals, web applications, dashboards, and mobile apps. While the universe describes the complexity and establishes information needs, it doesn’t necessarily host the information. Instead, it leverages underlying purpose-built applications to extract data into its descriptive logic, facilitating the necessary context. Thus, the information universe becomes the strategic governance pivot for information enablement across the business’s entire management spectrum.
Footnotes:
Systems integration requirements include:
- Extraction: Information is extracted from specific purpose-built applications to populate the universe with the required management context.
- Governance: Information is written back to the source within the governance framework of specific purpose-built applications.
- User Interfaces: All user interfaces, apart from specific purpose-built applications, operate on top of the information universe. These interfaces include portals, apps, websites, WPF, dashboards, etc.
- Ownership: All information within the universe has a named owner who determines its governance and context.
