All Together Now

Computerworld - Too often, promising integration projects wind up as expensive flops. The FBI's failed four-year, $170 million Virtual Case File project is only the latest example to make the news. On May 24, FBI Director Robert Mueller reported to Congress that the first phase of the replacement system won't be ready until 2006, at a cost yet to be announced.
While few integration projects are that costly in pure dollar terms, they can still make or break an organization. With the increasing commoditization of both hardware and software, technology alone is no longer the key. Rather, business success hinges on how well those products are integrated to advance business goals.
"The applications themselves are not the differentiator," says John Schmidt, president of the Integration Consortium, an industry group working to establish standards, guidelines and best practices for integration projects. "It's how well you can glue them all together and connect with customers and suppliers."
Schmidt has worked in the IT industry for 27 years and has spent the past 15 helping major North American and European retail, financial and telecommunications corporations integrate their systems. Computerworld asked Schmidt and other experienced systems integrators for advice that could help IT managers with their integration projects.
Getting Agreement
Systems integration is often thought to refer to the effort to make systems work together harmoniously. Perhaps less understood, however, is that those systems must also be closely aligned with the overall business strategy.
"The most critical phase of the project includes really understanding its purpose before it starts and interviewing all stakeholders to find out their definition of what will make the project successful," says Bob Woodruff, special assistant to the CEO of project management consulting firm Robbins-Gioia LLC in Alexandria, Va.
Unfortunately, few companies appear to heed this advice. Woodruff has worked in project management for 20 years and says that people with the most clout in an organization tend to get their projects funded, whether or not they are the most important projects for the company as a whole. This can wreak havoc for the IT staff.
"These sponsors are typically unaware of the impact caused by inserting new technology into an already existing environment," he says. "This leaves the IT manager in the unenviable position of trying to integrate systems that just don't work well together."
For example, Woodruff is overseeing the update of his own firm's enterprise architecture. Systems that are based on Oracle or SQL databases are simple to integrate -- just write some SQL queries, pull the data out,