Glossary

GLOSSARY OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION TERMS

  • Agile 
  • A project management methodology that focuses on flexibility, collaboration and the rapid and iterative delivery of results, adapting to the changes and requirements of the digital environment. 
  • Application Portfolio Management 
  • A management capability that supports the processes of maintaining a list of all business applications within an enterprise and continually measuring the value and risk associated to each application. 
  • Application Rationalization 
  • The process by which business applications listed in the application inventory are assessed to be streamlined for efficiency, standardization, and centralization; replaced; or removed from the portfolio.   
  • Business agility 
  • The ability of an organization to quickly adapt to changes and respond flexibly to the demands and opportunities of the digital environment, through agility in processes and decision making. 
  • Business Glossary 
  • A repository of clearly defined business terms in plain language about key business information used in day-to-day business operations and analysis 
  • Business Value  
  • Business value is the net benefit that will be realized by an organization. It can be measured in either monetary or non-monetary terms. 
  • Business Capability Model 
  • Describes a standard set of Business Architecture elements relevant to the public sector organization. The model can be used as a reference for Business Stakeholders, Enterprise Architects, and Technology Strategists to engage in discussion regarding business effectiveness, needs, and challenges. Placed alongside the accompanying Public Sector Transformation Canvas, the Business Capability Model elaborates the core value chains for the organization and the underlying business capabilities. 
  • Business Process Improvement 
  • Business Process Improvement involves continuously improving specific business processes in a constant manner by reiterating the processes and recommending changes that can streamline and improve efficiency. 
  • Business Process Re-engineering 
  • Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is the activity of drastically redesigning existing business processes and workflows to achieve improvements in key aspects of the business, such as output, quality, reduction of costs, service, and efficiency. The activity also involves redesigning any peripheral systems and organizational structures related to the business processes.   
  • Client Experience  
  • A client, as the user of a service, perceptions and related feelings caused by the one-off and cumulative effect of interactions with a supplier’s employees, systems, channels or products. 
  • Customer Journey  
  • A customer journey is the path of sequential interactions that a user has with an organization in order to achieve a desired outcome. These interactions may be offline or online. 
  • Cybersecurity 
  • The measures and practices used to protect computer systems and data from threats, attacks and unauthorized access. 
  • Data analytics 
  • The process of examining, cleaning, transforming and modeling data with the aim of discovering useful information, patterns and trends that help with decision making. 
  • Data-driven 
  • An approach based on the use of data and analysis to make decisions and guide an organization’s strategies, seeking to obtain insights and competitive advantages from the available information. 
  • Digital culture 
  • The set of values, attitudes and behaviors that promote the adoption and effective use of digital technologies in an organization, promoting agility, collaboration and a customer-oriented mentality. 
  • Experience Driven Design 
  • Designing products and services with a focus placed on the quality of the customer experience delivered by the product or service and any associated customer engagements. 
  • Machine Learning 
  • A branch of artificial intelligence that is based on algorithms and models that allow machines to learn from data and improve their performance through experience, without needing to be explicitly programmed. 
  • MVP 
  • A minimum viable product, or MVP, is a product with sufficient features to attract early-adopter users and validate a product concept early in the development cycle. In industries like software, the MVP may assist the product team in receiving end user input as rapidly as possible so that teams can iterate and enhance the product. 
  • Portfolio  
  • The collection of all the products and services offered by a public sector organization. 
  • Strategy Map 
  • A diagram that documents the strategic goals being pursued by an organization or management team. 
  • RACI 
  • A model that describes the participation by various roles in completing tasks or deliverables for a project or business process. RACI is an acronym derived from the four key responsibilities most typically used: responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. A RACI is used for clarifying and defining roles and responsibilities in cross-functional or departmental projects and processes. 
  • Organizational Chart 
  • A diagram that shows the structure of an organization and the relationships and relative ranks of its parts and positions/jobs. 
  • Process automation 
  • The usage of digital technologies to carry out tasks and processes automatically, reducing human intervention and improving efficiency and precision. 
  • Process Map 
  • A visual representation of a workflow that identifies each step in a process to clarify how the work is done.  Process mapping is used to highlight issues and where the process is breaking down in the workflow. Process maps make it easier to communicate the current or future state of a process to improve. 
  • Roadmap  
  • An abstracted plan for business or technology change, typically operating across multiple disciplines over multiple years. 
  • Robotic Process Automation (RPA) 
  • The application of software and algorithms to automate repetitive tasks and processes, imitating human actions and freeing up time and resources for higher value activities. 
  • Use Cases 
  • A use case is a written description of how users will perform tasks and outlines, from a user’s point of view, a system’s behavior as it responds to a request. Each use case is represented as a sequence of simple steps, beginning with a user’s goal and ending when that goal is fulfilled. 
  • User Journey Map  
  • Journey Maps are a user experience visualization document that showcases the steps that a user takes in a process to accomplish a goal. Personas are created with information gathered from user and stakeholder interviews and can identify the most important functionality an audience needs. 
  • Value Streams  
  • A value stream is a representation of an end-to-end collection of value-adding activities that create an overall result for a client, customer, stakeholder or end-user. 
  • Vision statement 
  • A high-level, inspirational statement of an idealistic emotional future of a public sector organization or a group.  
  • Workload 
  • A collection of IT assets (servers, VMs, applications, data, or appliances) that collectively support a defined process.