The LAMS main research domains are Service Science, Requirements Engineering, Enterprise Architecture and Strategic Thinking. We see these topics as specialized viewpoints on the more general aspect of Business and IT alignment. Bridging business and IT issues requires an interdisciplinary approach, seeking to understand the different disciplines composing the business and those composing the IT. General Systems Theory (GST) is the discipline of disciplines, the core theory that underlies our interdisciplinary approach.
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Service Science :
- A service is a a view of the interaction of two systems where one system (the service provider) performs some action for the benefit of another system (the service beneficiary).
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Requirements Engineering :
- Don Gause and Jerry Weinberg (Exploring Requirements: Quality Before Design, Dorset House 1989) define the requirements process as “the part of development in which people attempt to discover what is desired.” Requirements Engineering is the academic discipline in which methods are researched for discovering, documenting, analyzing and synthesizing what is desired. The corresponding industry term is Business Analysis.
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Enterprise Architecture :
- According to the ArchiMate Foundation Enterprise Architecture is “a coherent whole of principles, methods and models that are used in the design and realization of the enterprise’s organizational structure, business processes, information systems, and IT infrastructure”.
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Strategic Thinking :
- We define Strategic Thinking as Systems Thinking specialized to business situations. Whereas Systems Thinking is concerned with explaining the survival of any kind of observable entity, e.g. plants, animals, organizations, services, etc., Strategic Thinking is concerned more narrowly with the survival of organizations.