One of the most common problems tackled by IT teams is integration. In its most basic form the question is "How to connect A to B?" (for arbitrary systems A and B). In my travels, I find a tendency to jump straight to technology to answer this sort of question. I find it more useful to follow a decision tree process to zoom in on the most suitable approaches. From there, I move to thinking about specific technologies.
The first question I ask myself is about the direction of discrete information flows at a business level. Either A has something that B needs or B has something that A needs. Which is it? Answering that question tells you something very important: which system - A or B - has the "master" copy in this information flow.
