Entries for February 2016

Requirements are inputs to achieve the project objectives that transcend from routine operations to enhance the value proposition of a business endeavour. Stakeholders invariably perceive an endeavour to be successful only if they are able to clearly correlate the derived outcome to predefined business requirements. Thus project success is best defined in terms of effective user requirements.

While others are moving forward introducing new banking products, the Americans find themselves in the role of constantly fighting fires. You cannot move forward until you put your house in order by bringing standard practices and discipline into your work effort. This is what happens when you treat system design as an art form, as opposed to a science.

Follow this script at the beginning of your requirements discovery process, and you should see visible results in terms of the quality of your solution requirements. This checklist will help you anchor any and all discussions about features and designs on how they will help your customers achieve their desired outcomes and benefits. It will also allow you to define a valuable, usable, and feasible solution without having to rely on your customers being able to describe it for you.

The Agile Manifesto was born out of frustration by a group of developers who were fed up with how software was being developed. Software development is a learning experience and no one understands this better than those who are actually writing the code. Waterfall was a misguided concept that seems reasonable on the surface but does not work in reality. Since software development is a learning process it is impossible to think of every single requirement up front and have them signed in blood before starting development.

I am constantly coming across alleged ‘business analysts’, many new to the industry, sauntering confidently into a project or an organization. Typically, the first thing they do when assigned requirements elicitation is organize a workshop. These people are engaging, charming, energetic, and, in many cases, evangelistic. They are very adept at gaining the undivided attention of their audience.  However, their primary and, in most cases, their only concern is determining what the client wants and what the problem is without a thought to a workable action plan to improve anything. 

Are the current IT systems meet the requirements of Business users or deliver the services that will bring competitive advantage to the organizations?

IT projects continuing to cost overrun, time overrun or doesn’t meet requirements. Poor communication – particularly between business and technical experts – is a constant problem. – As per Financial Times