Information Technology (IT)
Today's Information Technology (IT) and Management Information Systems (MIS) environments have to address the management of the entire organization's environment as a collection of interacting automated/manual information systems. These systems are so critical to the "digital" organization that KCI has a series of courses designed to provide a comprehensive understanding of the key elements needed to manage IT or MIS.
Some of these offerings can be packaged into a designed certification program for your organization.
Enterprise Application Integration
Description:
Integration means more today to a business than just linking applications together. Data integration, systems integration, content and knowledge integration are all terms we hear today when talking about integration. Equally significant today is the newer issue of application segregation, separating the data and code from existing systems. What is needed is a key set of integration strategies, approaches and concepts that form the foundation of new technology driven business opportunity such as e-commerce, grid computing and business intelligence. A key result of integrating mission critical applications is achieving a simpler, flexible, efficient and effective enterprise, one that is less expensive and easier to restructure than the existing enterprise.
This course presents the different integration approaches, architectures, methods and tools for achieving the degree of business and application integration for competitive business execution. Integration approaches that depend on web services, portals, leveraging legacy systems and data are emerging that expose the enterprise to new opportunities not available before.
During this course, the relationship of various integration strategies is presented and an Enterprise Application Integration methodology is defined with supporting methods for EAI major steps. Exercises performed at the end of key sections plus product demonstrations provide a head start in framing an effective EAI solution or evaluating your current efforts.
Duration: 4 days
Current IT Management Environment
Description:
IT management today is under considerable pressure to perform. That performance has many facets not the least which are to delivery services, control costs and protect the IT assets of the enterprise. So the job of IT Management has become more complicated. At the same time, there are many tools and techniques for dealing with the management issue faced by IT.
What should an IT manager know to effectively manage IT? Many of the basic rules applied across the enterprise regarding how to mange are also applied to IT. Service agreements are being put in place and business management expects to hear about alternative approaches to delivering applications.
Here’s what you can expect to learn in this dynamic, hands-on course:
- Explain the techniques of IT management and leadership to define the services for core IT functions
- Develop a security plan for using the cloud and pro-tecting critical business data
- Compare the needs of each core IT function for assigning proper resources and skills
- Create effective leadership goals for IT managers
- Design an effective change management plan for IT as a response to business changes and the impact on IT
- Differentiate the needs of mobile, on-line and web options for the business
Duration: 4 days
To learn more, get an 
Essential IT Management course brochure.
Implementation of Business Systems
Description:
Successful business system implementation today is properly engineering the solution in a high quality manner. Systems development has gone through a remarkable transition. One thing has remained the same is that a general set of principles govern the development life cycle regardless of the approach to construction.
Once the requirements are complete, a design is generated for the new system. Along with the design is a plan for testing and implementation of the result. Applying Agile and other development methods help keep projects in budget and on schedule.
Duration: 4 days
Requirements Driven Applications
Description:
Now that you know what systems are needed you can focus on the construction and deployment of various applications and a variety of approaches such as packages, SOA, SaaS and others. Business systems development takes a perceived business need and transforms it to a beneficial solution for the enterprise. At the core, the key to successful business system development today is properly stating the requirements for the solution. Pulling both business and system requirements together in one place and then partitioning for the different emerging needs and approaches is the way to achieve success.
Since there are several ways to provide a solution to a set of business needs, depending on a range of new approaches, methods and techniques, this can be a challenge! The mapping of requirements today into a technical solution is one of the more difficult tasks facing business systems development.
Duration: 4 days
Business Systems Analysis
Description:
If you have the business requirements how do you decide on what systems to build and deploy? This course builds on existing and working ideas of requirements analysis with new ideas and techniques. It provides a focus to several emerging areas of concern such as e-business, business intelligence and new application development approaches. Many requirements approaches focus on data and process requirements for computer applications. Others are specific to specialized disciplines such as object techniques and structured analysis. This course offers a baseline of techniques and a means of adapting them to various requirements needs.
Duration: 4 days
Getting the right Business Requirements
Description:
Business requirements analysis is more than just gathering some needs input from the business. It forms the basis of understanding and improving the business from several perspectives, performance, technology utilization and effectiveness.
Understanding where to apply scarce resources for improvements that yield measurable results is a key result of requirements analysis. The goal is results that are less expensive and easier to achieve than the existing methods. The mapping of requirements today into a technical solution is one of the more difficult tasks facing business systems development. The focus in this course is on business analysis, developing the business requirements and connecting to potential solution approaches.
Business requirements analysis takes a perceived business need and transforms it to a beneficial solution for the enterprise. Often this is a combination of both manual and digitized solutions. Years ago, business systems requirements had a simple and single focus: to automate existing processes. The approach to developing a business system consisted of computer application systems analysis, design and development.
Today there are several ways to provide a solution to a set of business needs, depending on a range of new approaches, methods and techniques. Outsourcing processes, business systems development and operation of enterprise infrastructure are popular. Acquiring packaged solutions and changing how you do business is also appealing. Alternatively, building your own new business system provides benefits of a unique solution. Future system solutions may involve a mix of these approaches for the most effective results. You will learn the following:
- Develop a consistent set of requirements for a variety of solutions
- Produce a requirements checklist
- Partition the resulting set of requirements into two or more solution approaches as needed
- Prepare a basic cost/benefit analysis and impact analysis assessment
- Appraise the impact of changes in processes and systems on the business as a result of requirements development
- Appraise and align IT performance, initiatives, applications and technologies that support business needs and justify IT investment
Duration: 2 days
To learn more, get a IT Business Requirements course brochure.