Solution Toolkit

Our Solution Toolkit is an extension of the Solution Delivery Lifecycle (SDLC) methodology, which supplies a well-defined approach for phased, criteria-based project management. eBIS takes a disciplined approach to implementing our solutions, utilizing SDLC as the delivery vehicle, and supplementing it with our proprietary toolkit.

Our SDLC, like all of our business practices, focuses on the business benefit that a solution can provide. In this vein, we invest heavily in the define phase, dedicating our efforts to understanding your existing business processes or the new methods that your firm must enact. From there, we move sequentially, and at times iteratively, through the solution lifecycle, translating your business requirements into an enabling solution through our 7 step process, aided by our set of tools.

It is a toolkit developed over years of observing and constructing best practices within each lifecycle phase. We depict below each SDLC phase and the associated eBIS tools to help you:

The Solution Delivery Lifecycle & eBIS's Solution Toolkit
SDLC PHASE	DESCRIPTION	eBIS TOOLS
Initiate	Outline solution scope and success criteria. Establish budget and procure funding. Outline staffing requirements and resource skill sets. Establish status, review, and approval procedures.	1) Staffing templates 2) Project structure best practices
Define	Document the business requirements of a solution. Define what the solution should do and why it is necessary for business operations.	3) Business requirements templates
Design	Design solution. Apply design through both a logical process flow and technical procedure definition, using appropriate technologies.	4) Technology selection scorecards 5) Design standards
Develop	Develop solution according to approved design. Unit test solution.	6) Object naming and usage standards
Test	Independently test solution for adherence to business requirements. Ensure integration with existing technical environment, solutions and processing.	7) Environment definition and migration procedures 8) Requirements traceability matrix 9) Test issue triage
Deploy	Deploy solution to a production environment. Assess and mitigate impact on existing solutions. Prepare technical infrastructure for additional processing demands.	10) Infrastructure impact analysis and sizing estimates
Support	Provide training for user base. Provide comprehensive documentation of delivered solution. Provide production support and issue resolution. Enhance solution to meet evolving needs.	11) Custom training manuals and seminars 12) Enhancement procedures

Why Is Our Toolkit Important?

Solution delivery is like solving a jigsaw puzzle. The first time, a picture is available as a guide, but the process requires significant trial and error, and likely amused frustration, before all the pieces fit together. The next time with that same puzzle, it is less intimidating, and by the third or fourth try, one can develop an approach to complete it with relative ease.

Our toolkit makes the puzzle look much more familiar. We've learned tricks and techniques in solution delivery, the paths to follow and avoid. We've distilled our lessons learned over 15 years in this industry into a toolkit for our clients to use when managing complex solutions. No matter how big your project or in what phase of delivery you find yourself, we have knowledge capital to help.

Are your business users talking in algorithms and stochastic simulations? We have templates that translate complex concepts into comprehensible requirements that project team members can action. Are you struggling with staffing matrices, trying to determine the right mix of skill sets to lower costs yet implement with high quality? We have staffing templates and structural recommendations to help guide your program. Is your user base reluctant to embrace a new process, functional offering or technology? We construct custom training manuals and seminars to stoke user interest and facilitate change management. Take a look at our complete toolkit; we offer the instruments to help deliver your solution with higher quality and lower cost of ownership.

Here's a description of each of our tools and how they can help your initiative:

The eBIS Solution Toolkit
TOOL #	eBIS TOOL NAME	DESCRIPTION
1	Staffing Templates	Models to estimate the number and type of resources required for your solution, both during the solution lifecycle, and subsequently for support and enhancement. For solution delivery, eBIS breaks down staffing by role: administration, oversight, and delivery teams. We define skills associated to each role, highlighting the importance of aptitude over staffing volume. For long term support, we provide a variable based model to help clients estimate the appropriate FTE load.
2	Project Structure Best Practices	Structural recommendations for administering projects of any size, but especially important for those of enterprise scale. We define the 8 key areas of solution delivery and the appropriate interplay between oversight personnel and project teams.
3	Business Requirements Templates	Models for defining the business benefits of a solution, their critical data outcomes (CDOs), and the calculations to employ to achieve them. A method for defining each distinct CDO, tagging it, and tracing it through phases of SDLC.
4	Technology Selection Scorecards	A criteria-based method of selecting the right technology for your solution. We define required application attributes through surveys or requirements roundtables. Then, we assign significance factors to each attribute for relative importance. Finally, we match available technologies to the defined set of attributes and derive technology scorecards for comparative analysis.
5	Design Standards	Best practices for translating business requirements into an actionable technology blueprint. We encourage compilation of visual process flows to guide design. Application design standards include methods for efficient process execution and integration with existing technologies across the software and hardware stack, all tied together through metadata definitions. We define standards for designing data models, including normalization techniques by data layer.
6	Object Naming and Usage Standards	A guide for technical development resources. Defines each type of object in a technology catalogue, and how and when it should be used for development consistency and solution efficacy. Defines a naming convention for objects to allow for ease of identification and migration validation.
7	Environment Definition and Migration Procedures	Best practices for definition of development, testing, processing, storage and reporting environments. Definition of the most effective procedures for cataloguing development objects and managing migration, and revocation, of objects across environments.
8	Requirements Traceability Matrix	A method of cataloguing each discrete business requirement for a solution, and then propagating them forward through subsequent SDLC phases. The matrix creates a vehicle for ensuring that each requirement is developed and verified as fully functional before migration to a production processing environment. Also provides a means to identify and structure solution enhancements.
9	Test Issue Triage	A method for prioritizing and fixing issues uncovered during solution test cycles. Categorizes issues in a manner that separates issues tied to documented business requirements from those that are not, and prioritizes issue resolution for development resources according to the environment in which it is found.
10	Infrastructure Impact Analysis and Sizing Estimates	Method to assess the impact of incremental solution deployment, utilizing metadata and technical statistics from an appropriate integration environment for performance analysis prior to a production migration. Metadata unveils chain of connections to other technologies. Our impact tool translates empirical analysis of operating system, network, database and hardware variables into actionable infrastructure adjustment recommendations.
11	Custom Training Manuals and Seminars	Approach for developing training collateral to support a delivered solution. Comprehensive solution documentation includes visual representations of business processes before and after a solution-based translation, as well as descriptions of all functionality. All documentation illuminated through live training seminars, including dialogue and question and answer with user base.
12	Enhancement Procedures	Procedures to enhance a solution as it evolves after release. Utilizing the requirements traceability matrix, specifies how enhancements integrate with existing development, ensuring they represent incremental new features. Establishes method for prioritizing enhancements against new development. Identifies how to document enhancements to maintain written continuity of solution.

Success Stories

Instrument Level Profitability

Reengineering a Strategic Initiative

Modeling Derivatives

Solution Toolkit