Business Strategy & IT, sitting in a tree...

With respect to all projects, regardless of size, a marriage- if not a healthy relationship between the business domains and I.T. are essential. In enterprise projects that affects all the domains within the business a marriage is demanded. If this isn't the case then...

Let the courting begin. The goal is for Joe hourly down in shipping to notice the courtship and to say "Business and I.T. sitting in a tree, K.I.S.S...." you get the point. Why? Well dynamic synergy is based on true interdependence between the synergizing bodies. In English when the staff accountant understands the value of the business software running his bean counting program and quantifies the value past one's and zero's to the I.T. technician who maintains the actual server running the program. Furthermore the I.T. manager understands that this bean counting program is called "payroll" pivotal in cutting her check. Thus by applying the KISS principal to this scenario, I.T. and Business Management are in agreement that the bean counting program is critical therefore the server hosting the program is extremely important. Once this is agreed by both departments then the relationship should move forward with a memo or policy dictating the care and feeding of that server/application and the respective users and stakeholder. The memo or policy is kind of the announcement to the company that I.T. and Business are getting together.

This approach should help mitigate the budget battles regarding upgrades and staff. Primarily because there is now a mutually defined item that both parties have a vested interest in its survival. To often I.T. gets stuck justifying upgrades for servers that the CFO, GM, or COO relies on. Memo’s and Policies are important, as far as formalizing the relationship, but its essential there is a sincere face to face relationship. Immature organizations should start with this approach first and work their way up to an actual strategy map or enterprise scorecard.

As the relationship matures hopefully, you will hear wedding bells in the distance. True consummation occurs when I.T. and Business domains are visibly, physically, and technically aligned. The result is true interdependence in the form of a strategy map, scorecard, or business plan- something that provides a road map for shipper Joe, the accountant, and CFO. More importantly, everyone is on the same page and acting in unison toward a common goal.

Tools for this post

Strategy Map
http://www.sas.com/apps/whitepaper/index.jsp?cid=3514
http://www.sas.com/solutions/spm/StrategyMaps.pdf
http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,1397,1375257,00.asp

Memorandums and SLA’s
http://windowsservices.acns.colostate.edu/ServerContract0708.pdf
http://search.techrepublic.com.com/search/SLA+and+benefit.html?t=5&s=0&o=0

GBA:Show me the money! Part I

Have you ever been told by senior management that we need to get this fixed or some of the star employees have identified a broken process that could be easily fixed with some technology.

Due to your GBA you have the urge to start fixing this process. You conduct some informal verbal interview. You hash out some hard requirements. Next comes Google. Your web search comes up with some web apps and some antiquated client server app. Hosted solutions are priced just...



Wait a minute- whose paying for this?

You got everyone hot and bothered and didn't even ask them "HOW MUCH?"

I prefer "Show me the money"

Depending on the structure and culture you may not have a budget- just trust. It could be as simple as walking into the CEO's office and pleading your case and walking out with a check. Or you might have to fight the CFO in a epic battle of numbers and politics. Thus the point of this post is to encourage you to treat your GBA with the following treatment.

The treatment is called a "BC" or "Business Case."
BC is usually adminstered via a document to senior management types.

These links goto templates (word docs) for BC

Template 1
Template 2
Template 3

Guerrilla-Business-Analysis (GBA)

Do you feel the urge to champion or run small special ops projects in your department or company? You might have Guerrilla-business-analysis and not even know it. Guerrilla-business-analysis or GBA is a common ailment that affects IT pros, Business Managers, and or SMB Owners. GBA is a collection of symptoms that often can lead to a full blown Business Analyst.

I suffer from GBA. This is first post of many that documents/deconstructs my GBA experiences.

My hope is that more people will come forward and share their GBA experiences too.

Pain Points

Pain is a great motivator. I wonder how many real requirements in any project in the SMB space was birthed out of growing pains? I believe the more we understand the pain points the better the requirements are going to be.

Require What?

No matter what size the project, requirements gathering should occur. Why?
1. Good Practice
2. Traceability
3. Artifacts