What is the Enterprise Perspective?

When thinking about what EIT does on a day-to-day basis, you have to consider two different perspectives. First, there is a set of critical EIT functions that need to be attended to in order to guarantee the ongoing health and proper functioning of the EIT department as a reliable supplier of information and communication services to the enterprise. Functions — such as ensuring interoperability between systems and information systems security — never go away. These functions need to be executed well if the enterprise IT mission is to be fulfilled. They are constant considerations to which EIT needs to pay attention.

In addition, to build its portfolio of information services, EIT develops solutions or systems for the enterprise, and those solutions go through a life cycle — a set of phases — from the initial idea, to collecting requirements and building a design, all the way to the retirement of the solution. These phases or sets of activities are well understood, and numerous techniques and processes have been developed to help EIT professionals execute this life cycle.

In the EITBOK, we cover both the life cycle phases and the critical EIT functions. Part 1 addresses the critical EIT functions. Part 2 discusses the service life cycle, from service concept — defined in a set of requirements — to service transition, to deployment, and then to retirement.