Information Systems Design and Engineering (ISDE), later renamed ISDE Management Consulting, was a niche management consulting practice established in 1979 by Dr John Kaunitz - an engineer, IT professional, and management consultant, based in Sydney, Australia. Over a period of 30 years ISDE specialised in strategic IT management, business improvement and project management, assisting senior executives in major enterprises in dealing with related issues and challenges in their organisations. John Kaunitz has now retired and ISDE is no longer operative.
This website now serves to provide information relating to the invention of Adaptive Noise Cancelling, the topic of Dr Kaunitz's PhD dissertation at Stanford University (1972) as well as the work he carried out in the areas of software design, business IT strategies, and IT management consulting during the subsequent 35 years in the areas of business IT strategies and IT management consulting.
John Kaunitz is an Australian engineer, IT professional and management consultant. With Professor Bernard Widrow of Stanford University, he is the co-inventor of Adaptive Noise Cancelling, the topic of his PhD dissertation: Adaptive Filtering of Broadband Signals as Applied to Noise Cancelling (1972) [also available here].
After completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Sydney (BSc,'66, BE(Hon 1) '68), in 1968 John travelled to Stanford with the help of a Fulbright Travel Grant and a University of Sydney Travelling Scholarship, where he took up a research assistantship at the Information System Laboratories in the Stanford School of Electrical Engineering, working under the guidance of Professor Widrow.
As part of his PhD research, John designed and constructed a hybrid adaptive signal processor that was used in the first dramatic proof of concept demonstrations of adaptive noise cancelling in two applications. In one demonstration, the ambient noise from a microphone output situated in a noisy room was suppressed. In a second demonstration involving electro-cardiography, noise cancelling was used to extract the recipient's remnant pacemaker signal from a heart-transplant ECG, suppressing the donor heart signal. Before returning to Australia in 1973 John spent 10 months at Bell Laboratories, working on one of the first computerised billing systems in traditional circuit switched telephone exchanges.
John returned to Australia in 1973 to take up a position as a lead architect of AMPNET, the first nationwide on-line business computer network in Australia, for the AMP Society, then the largest financial institution in Australia. John was the designer and architect of TCS (Transaction Control System) the basis for the AMPNET distributed transaction processing environment.
In 1979 John took up a position of Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing Science at the University of Technology in Sydney (UTS). For a number years he led the Information Systems Department and developed courses in data communication and computer networks and business information systems. He also carried out consulting assignments for major government organisations and published papers on a range of topics, including innovations in the backing up and recovery of very large databases.
In 1985 John re-joined the AMP Society as a senior IT executive. As Head of IT Planning for the AMP Group, he was instrumental in guiding the strategic management of information technology over 6 years, dealing with many enterprise-wide challenges and issues. At the same time he completed an MBA degree at UTS (University of Technology, Sydney) part-time. Appointed CIO for AMP General Insurance in 1991, one of AMP's three major divisions, John consolidated and streamlined the IT function, resolved critical issues in business operations and implemented a number of innovative projects leading to significantly reduced IT costs, thereby markedly improving AMP General's profitability.
In 1993 John returned to management consulting. Working with organisations in financial services, resources, utilities, the media and in the public sector, he generated a successful track record in strategic IT management, operational business transformation and project management. In executive consulting roles with blue-chip corporations he has developed business-linked IT strategies to streamline business operations and to combine emerging web-based technologies with prevailing legacy IT environments. In senior program management roles he managed to successful conclusions major organisational change programs and streamlined the IT function. In troubleshooting engagements he helped to unlock key IT projects and resolved critical operational risks in large scale ATM and EFTPOS networks. His clients included the Defence Materiel Organisation, AMP, the ABC, AusAID, BHP, CBA/EDS, Melbourne Water, Mirvac, NRMA, the Snowy Hydro, TransGrid, and Woolworths.
Adaptive noise cancelling is an unorthodox signal processing technique that is highly effective in eliminating additive noise or interference from a received signal, consisting of a target signal and the interference, in situations where a second, essentially 'pure' variant of the interfering noise can be obtained that is essentially free from the target signal or other interference. This is called the reference signal.
The principles of adaptive noise cancelling and the proof of the concept, the first striking demonstrations that general broadband interference can be eliminated from a target signal in practical situations, were set out by Professor Bernard Widrow and John Kaunitz at the School of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University in 1971-72, and documented in the latter's PhD dissertation Adaptive Filtering of Broadband signals as Applied to Noise Cancelling (1972).
The proof of the concept was demonstrated using a prototype hybrid adaptive signal processor designed and developed by Kaunitz and described in a Stanford Electronic Laboratory Report General Purpose Hybrid Adaptive Signal Processor (1971).
The first noise cancelling demonstration consisted of eliminating the ambient noise from the output of a microphone used by a speaker in noisy room. A triangular signal, emitted by a loudspeaker situated in the room, was used as the interfering noise source. A second microphone situated near this noise source served to provide the reference input. The output of the noise canceller was channelled to the earphones of a listener outside the room.
The experimental arrangement used by John Kaunitz is shown in the photo below showing the loudspeaker emitting the interference, the two microphones used to provide the primary and reference signals, the equipment rack (third from left) containing the hybrid adaptive filter and the digital interface, and the HP 2116B minicomputer.
The noise canceller effectively reduced the ambient noise overlaying the speech signal from an initially almost overwhelming level to barely audible and successfully re-adapted to the change in frequency of the triangular noise source and to changes in the environment when people moved around in the room. A recording of this demonstration is still available here.
The second application of the original noise canceller was to process ECGs from heart transplant animals studied by the pioneering heart transplant team at the Stanford Medical Centre led by Dr Norman Shumway. Both of these proof of concept demonstrations are described in John Kaunitz's PhD dissertation.
ISDE combined innovative concepts in IT management and organisational design with pragmatic hands-on executive, change management and project management experience. Over 25 years it assisted the Boards and senior management of leading business and public sector enterprises to develop business-linked IT strategies, to transform and streamline business operations using technology, to reposition the IT function and to transform IT/business relationships.
ISDE offered a comprehensive range of services based on specialist skills, expertise and intellectual property relating to:
We provide professional services to help Boards and Management to achieve their objectives by designing and implementing value-adding business information technology strategies and solutions for highly effective business operations.
Excellence, innovation and a professional approach in the design and execution of technology-based business solutions.
Ensuring that information technology investment works for your organisation
Our reputation is that:Our aim is to assist our clients in making IT work for their organisations in terms of key business objectives such as:
To understand our clients' business operations and to define the task at hand in terms of meaningful objectives, we work closely with our clients to generate a common understanding of business needs and directions and IT-related issues, to formulate and implement effective solutions to the issues faced by the business, or to devise initiatives to achieve competitive advantage in terms of the above factors.
Viewing, using and managing IT as an integral part of business operations our consultants have a successful track record of delivering powerful outcomes in leading Australian enterprises that include:
In most cases we play the role of professional advisor/designers/project managers. We design solutions and help manage our clients' relationships with major service providers in a tripartite client/builder/architect relationship.
ISDE assists Boards and senior management to gain improved understanding, clarity and renewed focus of the management of IT often through a rapid but comprehensive review of IT in the organisation that provides insights and answers two key questions:
We help generate a clear and common understanding of the role of IT within the organisation, and a better basis for management to deal with the justification of the substantial IT-related expenses and investment. We also outline the way forward in terms of innovative strategies to streamline and modernise the IT environment for improved business effectiveness, for example by using emerging web-based technologies to enhance legacy IT environments.
Our approach is based on the recognition that in banking, insurance and other service industries technology is now the basis of business operations. Information technology is thus a means and not an end in itself and it is important to ensure that investment in technology will result in the anticipated business outcomes.
Our first step is to understand our clients' business operations and to define the task at hand in terms of meaningful objectives, issues or problem statements. Working closely with our clients we then help to formulate and implement effective solutions to the issues faced by the business, or devise initiatives to achieve competitive advantage in terms of the above factors.
In successfully transforming the management of IT in organisations, we engage business and IT management at all levels, creating a common understanding of IT-related issues and enabling business and IT to work together more effectively. In some cases we have carried out such reviews in interim management roles leading to the transformation of IT governance arrangements within the organisation.
In dealing with the strategic evolution and management of enterprise IT environments we have found that the traditional IT management models are often limiting and dysfunctional and the cause of less than satisfactory outcomes for IT investment.
Our approach relies on the following distinctions gleaned from this model to produce powerful and workable IT solution strategies and organisational outcomes:
The resulting approach and methodology, used by ISDE for the development and management of enterprise IT strategies and architectures, are powerful, innovative and practical and are well suited to emerging web-based application environments.
The key to the success of our approach is that it can be readily communicated to various constituencies in the organisation and it does not get bogged down in a mass of detail, unlike many traditional IT planning methodologies.
Organisations are now finding that the information technology environment supporting their operations is becoming increasingly complex and difficult to manage. This is especially true for large organisations consisting of multiple business units.
Different general approaches have been tried for managing the complex technology environments in large organisations. On the one hand, centralised IT management approaches have proved to be unresponsive to the needs of business units and major, centrally planned and managed projects have failed to deliver demonstrable business benefits or failed altogether. On the other hand organisations which have adopted a fully decentralised approach to IT management have found that their IT environments have become fragmented and unmanageable.
ISDE has developed sophisticated methodologies for developing flexible and responsive IT strategies and for managing complex IT environments. The following two methodologies can be used individually or together:
An Information Technology Framework is a descriptive model that provides:
Generic reference models developed by ISDE provide the basis of our approach to the rapid development of IT Frameworks. The business justification for developing an IT Framework is that it provides the means for managing technology diversity and complexity. This in turn leads to a more responsive IT environment, lower intrinsic IT costs and more speed and responsiveness in IT related decision making to support business needs.
We envisage IT Strategy as:
The conventional approach to IT strategic planning envisages a linear planning process driven by specific business strategies. However, there is now compelling evidence that rigid strategic planning processes rarely (if ever) work. (See Mintzberg: The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning). For example the lead time necessary to develop IT strategies is often longer than the timeframe required to implement business strategies. This suggests the need for flexible IT strategies that are able to cater for unspecified future business needs.
Our approach to the development of IT strategies reflects the tight/loose management principle of: firm commitment to clear objectives, but flexibility in the way the organisation moves towards those objectives.
Strategy development starts by developing a clear and concise statement of Business Needs for each Business Unit. This summarises the business positioning and business direction of the BU, provides an assessment of the prevailing use of IT and a summary of the key drivers for the development of the IT environment and for IT investment.
However, our approach also recognises that the synthesis of an effective and flexible IT strategy will depend on a number of other factors:
The enterprise IT strategy is a response to the collective business needs of the organisation. IT provides a guiding action framework for the development of the organisation's IT environment to enable the organisation to become a winner in business. The strategy may envisage a number of initiatives but may leave implementation timing open until a viable business case presents itself.
ISDE provides a range of services relating to the project management of business and organisational initiatives with an IT component:
Our consultants have designed and managed to successful outcomes major organisational change programs, enhancing and streamlining business operations, utilising an approach which combines innovative business process transformation with fast-track project management. We also design, and if required, help coordinate and implement, the communication strategies associated with such change programs, usually as an integral part of the change program itself.
We approach projects and project management from a business perspective. While most business initiatives today rely on information technology to some extent, the fundamental intent behind a project is to deliver demonstrable business benefits. Information technology is just one of the means whereby the business initiative is implemented and the business benefit is realised.
We have identified a number of factors which must be met in order to ensure that projects succeed from a business viewpoint:
Maintain the business focus at all times
IT systems development methodologies focus on the IT component of the overall business initiative. From the viewpoint of the overall business initiative, systems development is just part of the overall solution. The business intent and the desired business outcome should drive the project at all times and should define the overall scope and content of the real business 'project'.
Build a sound business case
The drivers for the project must be sound and clearly defined. Often the first cut statement of a business problem is in terms of symptoms, or the justification for a business initiative is based on questionable assumptions. The first objective is to build a solid business case based on sound assumptions and clear understanding of the fundamental factors which are the real reasons for change or the underlying causes of perceived problems.
Design before you build
Once objectives have been defined, it is important to clearly identify, develop and evaluate solution alternatives that are technically feasible and that can be implemented at the projected cost, with a high degree of confidence. This can be ensured by an adequate up-front design effort.
When projects fail, it is often not because they are mismanaged but because they are misconceived. The consequences of inadequate design are the same in IT as in other fields of engineering: inertia due to confusion about what is to be produced, numerous changes during construction, an inadequate final product, cost and schedule overruns, strained relationship with the client, etc.
View the project as organisational change
Projects designed to implement business initiatives are essentially organisational change programs.
A well developed design solution, chosen from the available alternatives, defines what is to be done. The project plan defines how the initiative is to be implemented. The project plan must be developed from a holistic perspective, from the perspective of overall organisational or business change.
Organisational commitment, communication, training, in addition to the systems development effort itself, are just some of the factors that must be incorporated into the overall project plan.
Project ownership and organisational commitment
To succeed, the project must be owned by the business, there must be organisational commitment to the project at an appropriate level. This usually means senior executive sponsorship and operational reporting to a senior business manager, or to a steering committee including business stakeholders.
The project manager and the project team
The project director or the project manager will have overall responsibility for the project and must drive it to a successful conclusion. Our experience is that the choice of project director or project manager is one of the most critical success factors.
The first step for a project manager is to build a project team that encompasses the range of key skills necessary to successfully implement the project as a business initiative. This will include representatives from business areas that are part of the change process, people skilled in acceptance testing, organisational communication, training etc.
Project Execution and Implementation
If the above factors have been effectively addressed, and there is a sound project plan, project execution will be relatively straightforward. If not, the project is likely to run into trouble.
Reliable project execution requires the systematic monitoring of tasks and task progress and a vigorous, pro-active approach to the management of issues, risks and external dependencies.
The implementation phase of the project, when new systems and processes are activated, will require special attention to planning and training, and to all the details involved. Again the key here is to view the implementation from the perspective of business operations and to ask what is required to ensure that the business initiative succeeds in practice.
These are just some of the key aspects of our total commitment to excellence in the design and successful execution of projects and business initiatives.
Information technology is clearly an important part of most organisations and businesses. Nevertheless there are few CEOs who feel that IT in their organisation is an unqualified success story. ISDE has assisted a number of organisations in streamlining and re-positioning the IT function and improving IT/business relationships. Our involvement typically covers the following:
In many organisations there is a level of strain and unease associated with the management of IT. Our analysis of the underlying reasons points to long-held beliefs and attitudes about IT, namely, that IT is an 'add-on' to the business. As it has been traditionally positioned, IT is therefore viewed essentially as a corporate overhead and is managed as such.
We believe that this view of IT is no longer appropriate, and especially not in banking, insurance or other service industries. Businesses in the service industries have now become technology based enterprises in that information systems are the basis for business operations. Even in the manufacturing industries or public utilities information technology is now a competitive discriminator.
Organisational models that we have developed reflect the view of IT as an integral part of business operations. We have successfully used this perspective to position IT in organisations more effectively, to tackle IT management issues and to improve IT/business relationships.
Business Process Management (BPM) is receiving increasing attention in many organisations. On the one hand CIO's are required to show demonstrable benefits from the substantial investment in IT, evidenced by improved operational efficiency, customer service and readily available business intelligence. On the other hand compliance with new legislation requires documentation of processes and transparency of data management and decision making.
These requirements imply much more focus and better common understanding of business operations and processes than is prevalent in most organisations and call for approaches to business process optimisation and improvement much more effective than that demonstrated by traditional ERP and BPR methodologies based on 'as is' and 'to be' work-breakdown structure analysis.
Our BPM approach and methodology emphasises the need for a sound conceptual basis for business process analysis and design on the one hand, and a pragmatic approach that produces outcomes in the shortest time possible, on the other.
We have recognised some time ago the lack of effectiveness of conventional BPR and system implementation methodologies, which usually get terminally bogged down in a sea of intractable detail, and have developed our own innovative approaches which avoid such pitfalls.
Our consultants have designed and managed to successful outcomes major change programs, enhancing and streamlining business operations, in some cases utilising an approach which combines innovative business process transformation with fast-track project management.
The following are some key features of our approach:
A High-level Process Model of the Business Operation
A set of 5-15 core business processes may be used as the characteristic descriptor of any line-of-business such as banking or insurance. As a first step we develop and gain agreement for such a high-level conceptual process reference model, viewed as a value chain.
This model provides a common understanding of what the business is about and what the business operation will look like at the highest level. The descriptor, key characteristics and performance criteria associated with each high-level process in this conceptual model provide benchmarks against which real business operations can be assessed.
Business process design as roles, responsibilities and technology
Unlike the traditional BPR approaches which in the first instance view business processes in terms of workflows, our approach regards the design of business processes in the first instance as a combination of people with certain roles and given technologies. The technologies employed will to some extent shape the roles and responsibilities of the various parties involved. For example banking operations have been implemented using branches, ATMs, telephone voice response, the Internet and supermarket EFT terminals. These represent alternative solutions for banking operations and provide essentially equivalent functionality using different technologies that imply different roles and responsibilities for the various parties involved.
High level process design, described in terms of the roles, responsibilities and the technologies involved, represent a powerful and tractable approach that identifies accountabilities and can be readily assessed against requirements related to practicability and compliance.
In addition this high-level business process description provides a sound fast-track basis for a business operation health-check that identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the prevailing operation. The ISDE approach to business process improvement encompasses both a 'bottom-up re-engineering' to improve existing processes and a top-down transformational redesign of operations often through the adopting of new technologies.
Bottom-up business process re-engineering
Bottom-up business process re-engineering is the traditional process of continuous improvement starting with the detailed modelling, analysis and measuring the prevailing implementation of the processes and assessing the implementation against desired performance criteria. Improvement is brought about through process simplification, and through the incremental and continuous improvement of procedures and in the use of prevailing technology. Re-engineering is carried out with the close co-operation of those who are involved in carrying out the business process on a day-to-day basis.
Here the R in BPR means re-engineering in the conventional sense of the word. It is the equivalent of re-developing a current model car into the next model, by improving the suspension, the fuel injection system, the brakes etc.
ISDE has extensive experience and well developed methodologies in conventional bottom-up process re-engineering and in most situations this is an appropriate approach that can bring about significant improvements in process efficiency and quality.
Top-down business process re-design
The alternative approach, advocated by most BPR gurus, is to get a blank sheet of paper and to re-think the organisation and the fundamental business processes from scratch. Here the R in BPR really means innovative re-design, like designing the next generation car from the ground up.
In this case, the question really is:
"How would we set up a superior business, (or a particular business process), if we started from scratch today, given the opportunities presented by the technologies now available?"
The benefits of such fundamental organisational or process re-design may be far reaching and may involve substantial technical, organisational, people and commercial change.
However, in the absence of better understanding of the nature of top-down business process re-design it is understandable that the approach is often regarded as unpredictable and high risk. Unfortunately BPR gurus seem to offer few suggestions, apart from brainstorming, about what to do after one gets hold of the proverbial blank sheet of paper.
We have also developed, and proven in practice, a methodology for effective top-down business process design, that is based on the proven conceptual framework of engineering design and principles. This seven step approach starts with defining the business process in an implementation independent fashion, in terms of its objectives, trigger, completion criteria and desired performance criteria, including service levels, completion time and cost.
Top down business process design then focuses on the parties who need to be involved in the process, their roles and responsibilities and on the use of technology. Once these questions have been answered, the development of procedures and the specification of supporting software usually follow in a straightforward fashion.
Whether using bottom-up process improvement or top-down process redesign, our objective is to deliver demonstrable benefits for your organisation.
ISDE Reference Model for Business IT (PDF, 274KB)
ISDE Business IT Strategy Development (PDF, 234KB)
"Effects of Quantization in Adaptive Processes. A Hybrid Adaptive Processor", Stanford Electronics Laboratories, Stanford California, April 1971. Ft. Belvoir Defense Technical Information Center. (with B. Widrow and J. L. Moschner)
"General Purpose Hybrid Adaptive Signal Processor" [also available here], Stanford Electronics Laboratories, Stanford California, April 1971. Technical Report SEL-71-023 (TR. No.6793-2)
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