Scenario-Based Analysis of COTS Acquisition Impacts

When an enterprise considers the acquisition of a COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) system, the procurement process typically includes consideration of technical criteria such as feature sets and ease of integration with other systems. However, any selected COTS system will also have an impact on how the enterprise runs – how the work of the enterprise gets done and ultimately how the services of the enterprise are delivered to its customers. This paper presents a method for determining these enterprise-level impacts. A notion of enterprise-level impacts is delineated, and a scenario-based technique is presented for uncovering and assessing these impacts. The method is informal and lightweight – it does not require extensive modelling, formal rigour, or management of artefacts. Some insights, experience and lessons are reported. Some comparisons are made with past experience using a more formal, heavyweight method and tool.