Strategic Information Requirements Elicitation:: A normative model of information domains and information types

This paper presents a method for Strategic Information Requirements Elicitation (SIRE). It defines information requirements for the Enterprise, and it includes (a) a metamodel (b) a series of design steps and (c) a software tool. The metamodel creates normative information models, since it defines the information domains a given enterprise should have. The design steps cover the process that goes from the metamodel down to a ER schema of databases, by a sequence of breakdown and specializations. The software tool helps the analyst in designing well formed schemas. The approach is founded on some key ideas. First, an enterprise processes information on a set of universal domain families, which include stakeholders, products, process and contexts. By specializing these domain families the analyst identifies domains specific to an individual enterprise. Second, any information domain includes different information types, namely master information, that defines structural properties, transaction information, performance / analytical indicators. By crossing information domains and information types the analyst identifies Strategic Information Entities (SIE). A case study on Healthcare shows how powerful the method is. The method is simple and elegant, for it requires a minimal amount of definitions and is readily understood by management and users. In information systems planning, it can be used to define the overall domains of a given service system, e.g. healthcare, to assess the coverage of current systems and the gap to fill. The tool also allows to store high level models that can be mapped against real database schemas of commercial software platforms to understand their coverage Finally it can be used for a green field design of new systems.