We strongly believe that e-business solutions can be, and
should be , designed using the same rules than the
ones required by any major it project. Furthermore, since
an e-business project requires a deep integration between
marketing and it studies, these rules need to be applied to
a larger scope, taking not only functionnal requirements
into account but also the new marketing trends.
As an illustration of the power and generality of the
sequoia it methodology, the skeleton of
this handbook is the general projects management
methodology. We add to this skeleton complementary
information, notes, warnings, examples, typical strategic
and technological changes to perform, ... which makes the
sequoia it methodology a complete and
structured reference guide available as well for the
information system conceptor as for the e-business
application conceptor.
For e-business system design, we need to enlarge some
notions :
The concept of application
includes not only dynamic, but also static
web-applications. Even static content indeed need to be
engineered, both by marketing and technical analysis.
Here we consider a web site
as a structured set of applications. A web site
is coherent from a user's point of view,
but different web sites (e.g. customers- and
employee- oriented) may access the same applications
Prior to detailed analysis, the
studied system is the whole company or at least
its marketing, sales, sales support, delivery and
accounting departments ; this term is thus not
limited to the IT system. (this remark is already true
for general it projects, but is especially important for
the purpose of an e-business reengineering).
These 4 project types cover as well the original creation of
an information system as its later maintenance. Indeed, the
application life, its evolution, are also covered by
the phase "Follow-up and maintenance" of every project type.