OUM is not tool – specific. However, it does include tool guidance.  Tool guidance in OUM includes:

• a mention of a tool that could be used to complete a specific task(s)
• templates created with a specific tool
• example work products in a specific tool
• links to tool resources
• Tool Supplemental Guides

So how do you find all this helpful tool information?

Start at the lowest level first – the Task Overview.  Even though the task overviews are written tool-agnostic, they sometimes mention suggestions, or examples of a tool that might be used to complete the task. 

More specific tool information can be found in the Task Overview, Templates and Tools section.  In some cases, the tool used to create the template (for example, Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, Project and Visio) is useful.

The Templates and Tools section also provides more specific tool guidance, such as links to:

White Papers

Viewlets

Example Work Products

Additional Resources

Tool Supplemental Guides

If you’re more interested in seeing what tools might be helpful in general for your project or to see if there is any tool guidance for a specific tool that your project is committed to using, go to the Supplemental Guidance page in OUM.  This page is available from the Method Navigation pull down located in the header of almost every OUM page.

When you open the Supplemental Guidance page, the first thing you see is a table index of everything that is included on the page.  At the top of the right column are all the Tool Supplemental Guides available in OUM.  Use the index to navigate to any of the guides.

Next in the right column is Discipline/Industry/View Resources and Samples.  Use the index to navigate to any of these topics and see what’s available and more specifically, if there is any tool guidance available.  For example, if you navigate to the Cloud Resources, you will find a link to the IT Strategies from Oracle page that provides information for Cloud Practitioner Guides, Cloud Reference Architectures and Cloud White Papers, including the Cloud Candidate Selection Tool and Cloud Computing Maturity Model.

The section for Method Tool and Technique Cross References can take you to the Task to Tool Cross Reference.  This page provides a task listing with possible helpful tools and links to more information regarding the tools.  By no means is this tool guidance all inclusive.  You can use other tools not mentioned in OUM to complete an OUM task.

The Method Tool and Technique Cross References can also take you to the various Technique pages (Index and Cross References).  While techniques are not necessarily “tools,” they can certainly provide valuable assistance in completing tasks.

In the Other Resources section of the Supplemental Guidance page, you find links to the viewlets and white papers that are included within OUM.