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Fast Tracking Project Concepts

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Fast Tracking Project Concepts

So youve been assigned a complex, poorly-defined
project concept now what?

Keith Ellis
Sr. Vice President
IAG Consulting
1-800-209-3616
kellis@iag.biz
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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:

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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

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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?

1,000 Concepts
300 Proposals
100 Projects

sponsorship, stakeholders, governance, objectives, benefits,

cost boundaries, time sensitivity

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Whats wrong with the process?

Some companies dont 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?

When you have scope, know

the stakeholders and have a
workable requirements plan

How do you know when a

general expression of
interest is a project?

When the stakeholders agree

to an action plan and commit
required resources.

How long does it take you

to go from concept to
momentum on a very
complex project?

Never more than 2 weeks.

Use requirements to define and drive your project

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define your go-to process core that always works

EFFICIENT ACTION
THE BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS SCOPING PROCESS
CRYSTALLIZE YOUR PROJECTS

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Sample project
- Pizza Delivery

Scope: Piazzanos 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
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?
High level scenario

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External Perspective
1. Who or what are we sharing
information with?
2. What is being shared?

Context Diagram

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Internal Perspective

Describe what you do in this process?

Taking an Order
Pricing an Order
Preparing an Order

High Level Scenario

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?

Delivering an Order

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Internal Perspective
what typical scenarios or
variations exist when
Describe what you do in this process?

Taking an Order

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

Call might be for General, Store, Product, Order
Inquiries or modifying/cancelling and order

Pricing an 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

Preparing an Order

Delivering an Order
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External Perspective
Ive 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

Pricing an Order

Preparing an Order

Delivering an Order

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

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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 well 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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Become aware
that a large
project is lurking
and has your
name on it

Do
something

Crystallize
using
Requirements
Scoping
Techniques

Do
something
else

Know your
project is
organized and
has momentum

Add the context of momentum

THE TOTAL PROCESS

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What do you need to know before

you start scoping?
maybe give me a project name (for convenience)

1. Project Description:

What outcomes need to be achieved by implementing

2. Business Objectives:

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?

3. Business Risks:

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

4. Business Assumptions: interdependencies?

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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
Cant assume 1 size fits all need to tune through
situational awareness
Use these five factors:

Focus:
Style:
Detail:
Visibility:

Type:

process level, business-activity level, task/function level

formal/semi-formal
High/Medium/Low Level (comprehensiveness of use case)
Black versus white box (degree to which internal behavior
of system and calculations/algorithms are defined)
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?

When you have scope, know

the stakeholders and have a
workable requirements plan

How do you know when a

general expression of
interest is a project?

When the stakeholders agree

to an action plan and commit
required resources.

How long does it take you

to go from concept to
business requirements on
a very complex project?

Never more than 2 weeks.

Use requirements to define and drive your project

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Add real-world spice

RECOGNIZE THE COMPLEXITY

OF ORGANIZATIONS
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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 areas impacted
SMART Business objectives
Stakeholder interaction
General concept of project size

In-scope/OOS activities/variations
Elicitation plan
Timing
Risks/Issues/Assumptions
Requirements Deliverables

Governance

Project Management

Scoping of Analysis
Business Requirements

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Which comes first?

Detailing the
business process

Having a good business

case for a project

Having sponsors with

committed objectives

Having a project charter

Having the requirements

Having the project scope

Dont 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

Dont 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
kellis@iag.biz
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