NederlandsOver the decades, while information systems were being developed, managed and maintained, application management organizations developed their own ways of doing things. Remarkably however, no serious attention was ever paid to the standardisation of maintenance and control in application management processes. This is notable because historically a very sizeable part of IT budgets are spent on application management. To date, most of winnable cost reductions in process standardisation are directly associated with idiosyncratic ICT developments that are often serial reinventions of the wheel.
Fortunately, the tide has turned in the last few years. Quality Online makes use of two recently established open source frameworks for methodologies: the ASL (Application Service Library) and BiSL (Business Information Service Library). These libraries provide guidance and best practices on all aspects of developing and maintaining ICT support for business processes.
The purpose of ASL
ASL is a process framework that sets out the underlying best practices for application management (i.e. maintenance and control, enhancement and renovation of applications). Known under the name ASL/BiSL Foundation, it is the first public domain standard in the world dedicated to application management (AM). The framework describes all relevant processes for delivering a full Application Management service to the customers. In the last few years, this resource has been made generally available and has also been adopted by a growing number of ICT provider and user organisations. Quality Online, seeing the potential to better serve customers with this methodology, was an early-adopter.
Quality Online and our clients derive significant benefits from the application of these methodologies, both in terms of standardisation of the application management processes, and in the promotion of uniform and unambiguous communication. Additionally, the advantages extend to achieving substantial cost decreases and quality improvement.
The purpose of BiSL
Within the complexity of today's market, businesses simply cannot do without properly functioning information technology (IT). As such, IT is one of the most important aids for the implementation of any business strategy. The most critical elements are found in the alignment of IT with business processes. Often it is precisely the establishment and maintenance of this alignment that is far from optimal. Business information administrators and information managers bear final responsibility for this alignment.
BiSL is a framework for user organisations that establishes a bridge between IT and business processes, and between business information administrators and information managers. The BiSL process model provides insight into all of the primary processes within their field of operations and into the relationship between the various processes. It offers a starting point for the improvement of these processes using best practices, amongst other things, and it provides uniform terminology.