Design of information system architectures using a key-problem framework

Today, information systems (IS) occupy a prime position in our organisations. However, over 60% of IS projects represent a failure in terms of exceeding the budget, the deadlines and also in terms of unsatisfied requirements. Exceeding the deadlines in IS projects can be attributed, among others, to an inaccurate definition of the IS architecture during the preliminary study phase. The aim of this article is to suggest a reliable approach to working out a “preliminary” architecture. According to the state of the art, architecture design must combine an overall analysis of the IS and its reason for existing while guiding the choice of technological components. We develop, and illustrate with an industrial study-case, an approach to IS preliminary architecture design. It combines dialectic analysis as put forward in the OTSM-TRIZ theory [N. Khomenko, D. Kucharavy, OTSM-TRIZ problem solving process: solutions and their classification, in: Etria World Conference—TRIZ Future 2002, Strasbourg, France, 2002], and semiotics into a key-problem framework. Then, through a sequence of steps based on other OTSM-TRIZ principles, it proposes to exploit this framework and lead to a target architecture.