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Fast Tracking Project Concepts

… So you’ve been assigned a complex, poorly-defined
project concept… now what?

… Presented in association with

Keith Ellis Adrian Marchis
Sr. Vice President Publisher
IAG Consulting ModernAnalyst.com
1-800-209-3616 (818) 284-6800
[email protected] [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:

14 Years of living requirements excellence:

• Completed over 1,200 requirements projects
• Worked with over 300 of the Fortune 500 companies
• Trains over 1,200 business analysts annually
• Somewhat in excess of 700 clients using our methods
• 50 staff members all 100% focused on excellence in business
requirements
• Annually invested 10% of our revenue in developing our methods, processes
and techniques to assure that these are harmonized and industry best practices

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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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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 • When you have scope, know

project is organized and the stakeholders and have a
has momentum? workable requirements plan

• How do you know when a • When the stakeholders agree

general expression of to an action plan and commit
interest is a project? required resources.

• How long does it take you • Never more than 2 weeks.

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

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: 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? 1. Who or what are we sharing

2. Quick overview: what broad information with?
steps are in the process? 2. What is being shared?
3. When is this process done?
4. What general variations
should we be covering?

“High level scenario” “Context Diagram”

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Internal Perspective

Describe what you do in this process?

• Taking an Order High Level Scenario

1. What starts this process?
• Pricing an Order 2. Quick overview: what broad
steps are in the process?
3. When is this process done?
• Preparing an Order 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?
• Take-out, Delivery, Phone-in, Walk-in Orders
• Taking an Order • Call might be for General, Store, Product, Order
Inquiries or modifying/cancelling and order

• Current, New, Preferred, Active, Inactive Customers

• Pricing an Order 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

• Preparing an Order • All product types: Pizza, Sandwich, Dessert, Beverage

• Eat-in
• Delivering an Order • Delivery

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External Perspective
I’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: Out of Scope:

• Taking an Order • All Purchasing related functionality is outside the
• Receiving an Inquiry scope of this document (will be addressed in a
separate Business Requirements Specification
• Pricing an Order devoted specifically to the subject).
• Preparing an Order • The COM System will not include functionality to
• Delivering an Order conduct direct marketing to Customers.
• Modifying an Order • Eat-in Orders
• Canceling an Order • Automated Loyalty Program

Roles / Actors:
In Scope Scenarios: • Order taker (call center employee)
• Current, New, Preferred, Active, Inactive Customers • Order taker (in-store employee)
• Order Amounts over and under $50 • Cook
• Take-out, Delivery, Phone-in, Walk-in Orders • Delivery person (in-store employee)
• Delivery person (third party delivery company
• Credit Card Payments, Cash, Check or Debit Card employee)
• General, Store, Product, Order Inquiries • Store manager
• All Product Types: Pizza, Sandwich, Dessert, • System (the system under discussion)
Beverage
• Promotions: % off, $ off, Coupon
• Franchise and Company owned Stores

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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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Become aware Know your

that a large Crystallize Do
Do project is
project is lurking using something
and has your something organized and
Requirements else
name on it has momentum
Scoping
Techniques

… 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

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

2. Business Objectives: 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

3. Business Risks: (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
• 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 • When you have scope, know

project is organized and the stakeholders and have a
has momentum? workable requirements plan

• How do you know when a • When the stakeholders agree

general expression of to an action plan and commit
interest is a project? required resources.

• How long does it take you • Never more than 2 weeks.

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

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 Governance

SMART Business objectives
Stakeholder interaction
General concept of project size

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

Scoping of Analysis

Business Requirements

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Which comes first?

Detailing the Having a good business

business process case for a project

Having sponsors with

Having a project charter
committed objectives

Having the requirements Having the project scope

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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PMI REP: 2858

IAG Consulting
Category A
Course #: IAG809

Thanks

Adrian Marchis
Publisher
Keith Ellis ModernAnalyst.com
Sr. Vice President (818) 284-6800
IAG Consulting [email protected]
1-800-209-3616
[email protected]

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