Fast Tracking Projects Send Out

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© IAG Consulting 2011

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Welcome to:

Fast Tracking Project Concepts

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Fast Tracking Project Concepts

… So you‟ve been assigned a complex, poorly-defined

project concept… now what?

Keith Ellis

Sr. Vice President

IAG Consulting

1-800-209-3616

[email protected]

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What are we going to Talk About?

• Some companies do awesome requirements – but are

lousy at scoping and project intake…

• Quickly shaping an amorphous thing into a specific

project

• An example project

• An actionable framework for building efficient

momentum

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Who is IAG Consulting?

• We are solely focused on business and software requirements discovery and management

• Core Competency: Elicitation

• A deliverable from IAG is:

• Clear, Accurate and Complete

• Work with clients in 4 modes:• Requirements Discovery and Management

• Analyst Professional Development

• Best Practices Implementation

• Turn-key Center of Excellence

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About IAG:

• Requirements excellence since 1997:

• Completed over 1,300 requirements projects

• Worked with over 300 of the Fortune 1000 companies

• Trained over 100,000 professionals

• In excess of 700 clients using our methods

• Annually invested 10% of our revenue in developing our methods and

harmonizing these with industry best practices

• Authors of The Business Analysis Benchmark

• Clear, Accurate & Complete WITH Efficiency

http://programs.rational.com/partner/SearchResults_Company.cfm?CMP=1903

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Learning Objectives

• Inside the project intake process – why is intake so

dysfunctional?

• The action plan – simple steps that drive project

clarity and milestones that deliver benefit

• Targeted result – time tested deliverables that work

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50,000 foot view – what is

happening in the intake process?

100 Projects

1,000 Concepts

300 Proposals

sponsorship, stakeholders, governance, objectives, benefits,

cost boundaries, time sensitivity

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What‟s wrong with the process?

• Some companies don‟t admit that it exists

• Minimal resources available to deal with large volume

• Governance, project management and requirements

are at war

• Stakeholders are over-enthusiastic, under-directed,

unimpressed, and unavailable

• Need to set expectations too early in the process

Out of every 100 IT projects started, 94 will start over again at least once…

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Answer Some Questions

• When do you know your project is organized and has

momentum?

• How do you know when a general expression of

interest is a project?

• How long does it take you to go from concept to

business requirements on a very complex project?

No target outcome… No trigger… No consistency in action… = 1 messed up process

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Answers that simplify the process

• When do you know your

project is organized and

has momentum?

• How do you know when a

general expression of


• How long does it take you

to go from concept to

momentum on a very

complex project?

• When you have scope, know

the stakeholders and have a

workable requirements plan

• When the stakeholders agree

to an action plan and commit

required resources.

• Never more than 2 weeks.

Use requirements to define and drive your project

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EFFICIENT ACTIONTHE BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS SCOPING PROCESS

“CRYSTALLIZE” YOUR PROJECTS

… define your „go-to‟ process core that always works

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Sample project

- Pizza Delivery -

• Scope: Piazzano‟s wants you to implement a new customer order

management system.

• The company wants to modernize and reduce its time to deliver orders by

15 minutes and use this as a centerpiece of its new campaigns in the fall.

• This project needs to include the applications, head office infrastructure, the

corporate store and franchise operation assets for our 5,000 stores, and

modify the network infrastructure.

• We must extended the system to 24/7 to cover the enhanced demand and

operating hours expected and look into rolling out new card authorization

terminals as we sunset supplier 1 and get rolling with supplier 2.

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Understanding the Two Dimensions of Scope

Internal Perspective External Perspective

1. What starts this process?

2. Quick overview: what broad

steps are in the process?

3. When is this process done?

4. What general variations

should we be covering?

1. Who or what are we sharing

information with?

2. What is being shared?

“Context Diagram”“High level scenario”

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Internal Perspective

• Taking an Order

• Pricing an Order

• Preparing an Order

• Delivering an Order

Describe what you do in this process?

1. What starts this process?

2. Quick overview: what broad

steps are in the process?

3. When is this process done?

4. Who does this activity?

High Level Scenario

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Internal Perspective

what typical scenarios or

variations exist when…

• Taking an Order




Describe what you do in this process?

• Take-out, Delivery, Phone-in, Walk-in Orders

• Call might be for General, Store, Product, Order

Inquiries or modifying/cancelling and order

• Current, New, Preferred, Active, Inactive Customers

Order Amounts over and under $50

• Promotions: % off, $ off, Coupon

• Franchise and Company owned Stores

• Credit Card Payments, Cash, Check or Debit Card

• Order Amounts over and under $50

• All product types: Pizza, Sandwich, Dessert, Beverage

• Eat-in

• Delivery

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External PerspectiveI‟ve already asked “who”, Now we are looking at “WHAT”

What else might “Marketing” do to

interact with “Customers” • Direct marketing to Customers.

• Automated Loyalty Program

– Is that part of the system?

How about that Third-Party Delivery

Company… once we give them

order details, is there anything else

they need to get from us, or we

need to get from them?• We need to know delivery details

• We want our money (Ohh… who does that?)

As a result of COM, what changes

might be necessary WRT each

identified party?

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Summarize

In Scope Use Cases:

• Taking an Order

• Receiving an Inquiry




• Modifying an Order

• Canceling an Order

In Scope Scenarios:

• Current, New, Preferred, Active, Inactive Customers

• Order Amounts over and under $50

• Take-out, Delivery, Phone-in, Walk-in Orders

• Credit Card Payments, Cash, Check or Debit Card

• General, Store, Product, Order Inquiries

• All Product Types: Pizza, Sandwich, Dessert,

Beverage

• Promotions: % off, $ off, Coupon

• Franchise and Company owned Stores

Out of Scope:

• All Purchasing related functionality is outside the

scope of this document (will be addressed in a

separate Business Requirements Specification

devoted specifically to the subject).

• The COM System will not include functionality to

conduct direct marketing to Customers.

• Eat-in Orders

• Automated Loyalty Program

Roles / Actors:

• Order taker (call center employee)

• Order taker (in-store employee)

• Cook

• Delivery person (in-store employee)

• Delivery person (third party delivery company

employee)

• Store manager

• System (the system under discussion)

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Using these Two Techniques, What

Have we Accomplished?

• We know the stakeholders that MUST be involved

• We know roughly how many processes we‟ll need to

analyze

• We know many of the high level interfaces and

interdependencies

… and assuming you have a consistent process for eliciting requirements

• We know how much time is needed from

stakeholders to define the requirements

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THE TOTAL PROCESS

… Add the context of momentum

Do

something

Crystallize

using

Requirements

Scoping

Techniques

Do

something

else

Know your

project is

organized and

has momentum

Become aware

that a large

project is lurking

and has your

name on it

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What do you need to know before

you start scoping?

1. Project Description:

2. Business Objectives:

3. Business Risks:

4. Business Assumptions:

What outcomes need to be achieved by implementing

Think about the stakeholders, 6 or 12 months from now after this is

implemented, what would they say was different for them that would

cause you to know this was successful?

Risks the team needs to be aware of in undertaking the project

(Customer, supplier, stakeholder, productivity, compliance/regulatory)

Any assumptions being made? Issues. Project or process

interdependencies?

… maybe give me a project name (for convenience)

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After you are done scoping – What do

you need to do?

Process for setting scope of analysis should be formal and adaptive:

– Scoping session (very large projects may need up to two weeks)

– Requirement work plan (schedule for stakeholders)

– Requirement Plan• Stakeholders

• Scope/Estimate of time

• Strategy

• Tools (technologies involved)

• Level of detail in documentation

• Documents to be produced

• Formats for documents

• Special needs on chart types

• Etc.

………………………………………………………………………………………

– SMART business objectives (specific, measurable, achievable, results oriented, time bounded)

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Example of a Requirements Work

Plan

Communicate:1. What is the process

from here forward.

2. Who is involved?

3. For how long?

4. Optimize requirements

communication

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Why Plan Level of Detail in

Requirements Documentation

• Can‟t assume 1 size fits all… need to tune through

situational awareness

• Use these five factors:

• Focus: process level, business-activity level, task/function level

• Style: formal/semi-formal

• Detail: High/Medium/Low Level (comprehensiveness of use case)

• Visibility: Black versus white box (degree to which internal behavior

of system and calculations/algorithms are defined)

• Type: Business versus System/Design

• Must have if you want accuracy in the plan!

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Simplify the Process

• When do you know your

project is organized and

has momentum?

• How do you know when a

general expression of


• How long does it take you

to go from concept to

business requirements on

a very complex project?

• When you have scope, know

the stakeholders and have a

workable requirements plan

• When the stakeholders agree

to an action plan and commit

required resources.

• Never more than 2 weeks.

Use requirements to define and drive your project

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RECOGNIZE THE COMPLEXITY

OF ORGANIZATIONS

Add real-world spice

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Business Processes Impacting Early Stage

Projects

Corporate Governance

Project Management

Business Requirements

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Analysts do not OWN all these processes – but they can

kick-start momentum

Business Requirements

Project Management

Governance

In-scope/OOS activities/variations

Elicitation plan

Timing

Risks/Issues/Assumptions

Requirements Deliverables

Scoping of Analysis

Business areas impacted

SMART Business objectives

Stakeholder interaction

General concept of project size

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Which comes first?

Detailing the

business process

Having a good business

case for a project

Having sponsors with

committed objectivesHaving a project charter

Having the project scopeHaving the requirements

Don’t play this game… have a simple go-to action plan that always works

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Closing Thoughts: Guiding principles

Using requirements to drive project planning

• Architect to „process‟ a large quantity at a relatively low

cost… quickly

• Set standards in the workflow that always work

• Don‟t re-architect everything if you can be surgical about

2 or 3 core principles

• People realizing a concept is unworkable is also a

successful process outcome

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Learning Objectives

• Inside the project intake process – why is intake so

dysfunctional?

• The action plan – simple steps that drive project

clarity and milestones that deliver benefit

• Targeted result – time tested deliverables that work

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Typical next steps

• 1:1 conversations about your projects

• Start leveraging the IAG assets to help you with

your stakeholders

• Let us help you scope the business analysis effort

• Tell us about your ugly ducklings

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Thanks

Keith Ellis

Sr. Vice President

IAG Consulting

1-800-209-3616

[email protected]