Agile Systems With Reusable Patterns of Business Knowledge: A Component-Based Approach (Artech House Computing Library) [Hardcover]

Amit Mitra (Author), Amar Gupta (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1580539882 | ISBN-13: 978-1580539883 | Publication Date: September 30, 2005

Driven by the need for global excellence and customer value, agility and innovation have become imperative for business. However, most business process engineering and information system approaches address only operational efficiency and economics. This unique book closes this gap. It shows professionals how innovation can be systematized with patterns of information. The book explains how business processes and information systems can be tightly aligned and how they can be developed to automatically adapt to change. This practical resource helps practitioners design business processes and systems that are both agile and adaptable, coordinate integration of information across supply chains, reduce time-to-market, and improve computer aided systems engineering tools.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Amit Mitra is a managing consultant with Headstrong and specializes in IT governance and architecture. He has extensive industry experience, serving in leadership positions for such prominent companies as AIG, NYNEX, KPMG, and AGS. He has assisted several Fortune 500 corporations to comply with the CMM and to leverage it to improve their best practices. Amar Gupta is the Thomas R. Brown Chair, management and technology, professor of entrepreneurship and MIS, and senior director of research and development at the University of Arizona, Tucson. He was the co-founder and co-director of the productivity from Information Technology (PROFIT) initiative at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management. Dr. Gupta is the author of more than 100 technical papers and articles, as well as eight books.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Artech House (September 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580539882
• ISBN-13: 978-1580539883
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 8.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,837,197 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #32 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Software Design, Testing & Engineering > Software Reuse

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A much-needed resource, January 6, 2006

By 

Robert Fantina "BobF" (Kitchener, ON) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Agile Systems With Reusable Patterns of Business Knowledge: A Component-Based Approach (Artech House Computing Library) (Hardcover)

An excellent resource for any organization committed to achieving and maintaining the competitive edge. In an age where what is new today is outmoded tomorrow, the principles and practices detailed in this book will be indispensable to companies that want to stay on top.
Theory and practice are explained, helping to ensure that the reader has a thorough understanding of each topic. The authors stress the importance and interrelationship of business knowledge, business practice, people and process in the quest for business excellence.
The goal of agile systems is to ensure the flexibility an organization needs to adapt quickly and effectively to changing demands, whether internal or external. In today's highly competitive market, only those companies that achieve a high level of efficient flexibility will survive; those that go the extra mile will prosper. `Agile Systems' is a vital tool for practitioners working toward this goal.

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Reference Book, November 30, 2005

By 

Sifwat Ali "SAA" (CT USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Agile Systems With Reusable Patterns of Business Knowledge: A Component-Based Approach (Artech House Computing Library) (Hardcover)

I have read the book in its original manuscript form and in its entirety. Every business worth the name should have this book. It greatly increases your productivity in a practical sense. The current book does not contain many of the ideas of the original manuscript - yet excellent results are achievable in business process implementation and are simplified. Good reading as well.

5.0 out of 5 stars Agile Systems with Reusable Patterns, November 25, 2005

By 

Deepak Bhagat (Silicon Valley, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Agile Systems With Reusable Patterns of Business Knowledge: A Component-Based Approach (Artech House Computing Library) (Hardcover)

Agile Systems by Amit Mitra and Amar Gupta, addresses a major and growing business need: how to better leverage legacy and current knowledge assets in a world characterized by increasing globalization, rapid proliferation of new computer and communications equipment, and fast changing organizational structures. The book focuses on three key themes: business agility, process resilience, and leveraging of corporate knowledge. This three-pronged emphasis is reflected in the full title of this book: Agile Systems with Reusable Patterns of Business Knowledge: A Component-Based Approach.

Using examples from diverse application areas, the book delineates the use of business knowledge to attain major strategic benefits through decomposition of knowledge into components. It highlights how these components of knowledge can be re-configured in step with innovation and new learning, and how business processes and information systems can be designed to automatically flex in step with the evolving configurations of knowledge in support of business agility.

Agility is becoming the most important challenge for the long-term success of businesses. However, current business process engineering, outsourcing, and information system approaches provide inadequate attention to innovation and agility. They only address issues of operational efficiency and economics. The slow, methodically structured manufacturing and mass production paradigms of the industrial age are crumbling under the onslaught of information bolstered by new knowledge. The physical products of the industrial age were fixed, structured and stable; they were developed to fulfill a stable need. The book emphasizes that knowledge and information are inherently unstructured in nature, and need to be handled in new ways in order to gain optimal benefits from them.

Chapter 1 of this book introduces the notion of knowledge in business organizations and applications, and the reuse of knowledge in diverse situations. The text and the accompanying figures provide a rich intuitive mechanism for appreciating the concept of knowledge. Thankfully, the authors have minimized the use of technical jargon in this chapter.

Chapter 2 identifies common patterns and the underlying semantics of business knowledge. The pivotal role of "components" is described in a fashion that emphasizes pragmatism rather than intense mathematical rigor.

Chapter 3 focuses on the idea of a "Knowledge Machine" that incorporates a set of autonomous business models that are geared to adapt to evolving situations and business needs.

Chapter 4 addresses a range of implementation issues, ranging from technical aspects to risk aspects.

Chapter 5 concentrates on the human aspect of the change.

Chapter 6 deals with the process of taking small experimental efforts and broadening their scope to cover the whole organization, as well as to institutionalize the change.

A unique aspect of this book is that it addresses critical issues in a manner that would appeal both to the average person on the street as well as to persons with computer background. The book considers issues the complex issue of how information systems can be designed to better adapt to changing operational needs and market conditions. The suggested strategy involves the reuse and reconfiguration of business knowledge.

The most unique characteristic of this book is that it provides complimentary access to a website that provides huge amounts of supplementary information. As I read the book, I wanted to know more about several issues. I logged on to the website and found the details instantaneously.I wish more authors would adopt this mode of providing auxiliary material at no additional charge.

As we witness increasing globalization, we find that organizations have become more geographically distributed in terms of where goods and services are created, where they are refined, where they are distributed, and where they are consumed. The growing incidence of outsourcing and offshoring make it increasingly important to define new frameworks for knowledge acquisition, knowledge management, knowledge discovery, and knowledge dissemination. When one hears of globally distributed projects that need urgent attention because of cost overruns and incomplete deliverables, one should read books like this new one in order to come up with business strategies that can effectively mitigate such problems.

The only minor problem that I encountered in this book is that it uses ideas from many different fields. The breadth of such ideas is indeed amazing. Initially, I thought some of these references were distracting. But as I read more, I could better relate to the diverse concepts. In fact, the diversity of the examples ultimately adds to the value of the book as it helps persons from very different backgrounds to find at least some examples that they can relate to.

Since one of the authors (Mitra) is from industry and the other (Gupta) is from academia, the book strikes a great balance in covering material that is relevant to individuals in businesses as well as in colleges and schools. This book connects business knowledge with process and systems engineering. It is especially appropriate for practitioners and students of Management, systems engineering, industrial engineering, information technology, and computer science.