Getting IT Requirements Right!


By Marti Henning

As professional negotiators we are often brought in by a client to negotiate a deal that has already been in negotiation for a while. Usually the client perceives that they do not have enough time or that maybe we can make a better deal than they can. A typical situation might be where a RFP has been issued and then we are asked to “negotiate the deal”. In many situations we find that there is disagreement or lack of understanding between the client and the bidders as to what is being sought. Indeed we often find disagreement between the staff of the client themselves! This is almost always a sign that the requirements were not properly defined, prioritized and agreed.

If the IT staff doesn’t get good, concise, detailed requirements from the business user area, even the best, most current development tools and methodology will not produce the desired results. It means the business requirements document, which is given to application developers to create a system, must contain information that comes from the business user areas. Their input is required.

So why doesn’t the business area write the requirements document?

The IT staff must be persuasive in helping them see the value of their ownership of requirements. Usually, IT business analysts have a tenuous relationship with the business community. The business area says they have no time or energy to invest in attending requirement sessions, which leaves the IT staff to ‘guess’ at the details of system requirements, often with disastrous results. In that scenario, the refrain most often heard from the business area is, “But the system is not what we wanted – or needed!”

The IT staff can ask three questions that go a long way in getting requirements right the first time.

1. For each requirement, the IT project staff needs to ask, “What happens if we don’t get this right?” The requirement must be stated correctly and documented accurately and must be understood by both the IT staff and the business area. The question allows the users and IT staff to set priorities on each requirement. Those with a high, absolute must-have priority and impacts the business, must be included. At this point we recommend that a facilitated session in which the requirements are ranked in terms of their importance be held with an impartial outside facilitator.

2. The IT staff needs to ask the business users, “How well do you understand your requirements?” Often, you’ll hear business analysts say, “The business doesn’t know what they want.” The business must articulate and document what they want. If they are unable to state their requirements, then IT can assist them by prototyping several system solutions so they can ‘see’ what the systems would be capable of doing. Prototyping is usually an option that is undertaken only when there are doubts from the business area on how a system would look and work. It is not always needed or desirable due to the expense.

3. After the requirements document is drafted, the IT staff needs to ask, “How would you test the system in order to ensure that we’ve successfully implemented this requirement?” Business analysts and business users ideally should write the acceptance test before writing the requirement. This helps the business users understand each requirement and how they fit together to complete the system.

In all the above activities there is ample room for people to honestly disagree with each other. Nonetheless, it is desirable and often essential that a consensus be reached. This is where a skilled facilitator/mediator is extremely useful. We will review these skills in a future article.

Yes, requirements definition and planning can be involved and time consuming at a time when there are many other fires to put out. However, our experience is that investing the time and effort up front is much cheaper and less time consuming than fixing it later. If resource is constrained, consider bringing a skilled consultant to help. We strongly recommend that you take the time and energy to create well worded requirements the first time so frustrating failures do not occur.

 

Maxelerate's goal is to help Sourcing, Procurement, Purchasing, Engineering, IT and other professionals in all industries and government agencies to get better deals from suppliers. We accomplish this by providing Consulting, Training, Seminars and Leadership Implementation.

To get more information about Maxelerate and find out how you can get better results quickly, call toll free (866)855-5335 or contact us by clicking here.