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.