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The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 2: Nuts and Bolts (Contd.)

Arun Nithyanandam -

This is a series of posts, if you haven’t read the earlier ones, please read it here.
The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 1: Overview
The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 2: Nuts and Bolts

Business Templates

These are the standard business language that is used for documentation, agreements, system generated emails, etc.

• What kinds of templates are usually used in conjunction with the business object?
• What sections of these are modified often? List out relevant sections here.

Master Data

This topic would, in some cases, include vendor master, supplier master, clients, personnel information, etc.

• Please list out sources or systems that are currently used to maintain master data. Examples will include vendor master, supplier master, clients, products, etc.

Integrations

This is a common feature of a large project. Invariably you will end up with integrating data to various other systems within the company.

• What are the integration points for the new system to talk to? The integration includes information exchange that could go in to the new system and/or out of the new system.
• What is the company standard for directory services?
• Is there a single sign-on currently implemented within the company?

Products, IP, etc

• Do you maintain a list of products, services, or solution offerings?
• Do you maintain any knowledge or IP-related information?

Legacy Data

This section covers the already-existing data for the business objects. The data can be located in legacy systems, in various spreadsheets, documents, or even hard-copy information.

• What is the volume of the legacy information for the business object?
• What is the volume of the legacy information for associated objects?
• Is the legacy data in a mix of stages in the lifecycle? Do they include objects in creation, review, approvals, executed or published, etc?
• What is the format of the legacy data? (Examples could include Excel, PDT, etc)

Search and Reporting

• Is there a currently a report that is used by your organization?
• If yes, what are the data points being reported on?
• How frequently are these reports run?
• What is the report format? (Examples could include Excel, pivot tables, etc.)

Next week on these pages : The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 3: Take aways

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About the Author

Arun Nithyanandam is a Strategy and Management Consultant based in Silicon Valley. Arun has managed multiple multi-million dollar IT projects in US and Europe across verticals. His current focus areas are Enterprise Contract Management Systems (deploying Nextance proposal-to-revenue and source-to-savings solutions to help companies improve financial performance and lower risk) and Enterprise Content Management Systems. Arun works with CIGNEX Technologies, a provider of Open Source based enterprise content management solutions.

During his spare time (if any) Arun enjoys hiking and reading.

Arun is currently working on a book (co-authored with Bill Sherman) code named “Managing Multi-million dollar projects” to be published in 2008.

For the collection of all Arun’s articles, please visit Squidoo Lens Arun Says

(3 votes, average: 10 out of 10)

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The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 2: Nuts and Bolts

Arun Nithyanandam -

This is a series of posts, if you haven’t read the earlier ones, please read it here.
The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 1: Overview

A Four-Part Cook Book

While every cook book will be different, we find that they generally share common core elements.

Below are some of the sections and questions that we have used in the past. Time and again, these tools have proven really valuable for us. In this example, the cook book is organized into the following four parts:

• Contact Information
• Interview Questions
• Conclusion
• Interviewer Notes

You can certainly create your own cook book format. In fact, we encourage you to do so!

Section One: Contact Information
This section covers the stakeholder’s information. This information allows you to code and file the stakeholder’s responses.

• Name,
• Phone
• Date of Interview
• Department
• Organization Name

Sometimes, you will have some follow-up questions for them before you meet them. This is a great means to reach out to them via email or phone before you meet them in person. If you do have questions, or clarifications, you should reach out during the Pre-Analysis stage. This helps in getting the relationship going along even before you meet.

Section Two: Interview Questions

This section serves as the core of the cook book. It is split into sub-sections, based on the domain and the industry. Not every cook book will contain all of these elements. However, here are some common areas:

Technology Wish List

This sub-secton is targeted to the Shared Services or the IT Services team within the company. Typical questions will include:

• Database
• Application Server
• Web Server
• Email Server
• Clustering?
• VMWare?
• Content server

These questions will allow you to benchmark the current state as well as the desired or ideal state.

Business Objects
These questions focus on the core business object(s) of this initiative.

• What are the functional responsibilities of your group?
• Describe the current business object creation process.
• Described how the business object is published/executed.
• Describe how the business object is maintained/managed/purged.
• What types of the business objects does your organization deal with?
• What is the volume by type of the business objects created per month?
• How often do they get modified once executed or published?
• Do you currently have a system that manages this? Please explain.
• Is there any compliance risks involved with the business objects?
• What kind of meta-data would you like to capture about the business object? Please include details and list the fields that you will be interested in capturing.

These questions should be asked for each group impacted by the project. Remember that different groups may have radically different needs and expectations for the system.

We have also seen these questions uncover unexpected differences between how parallel groups use the current system. For example, two groups—one in San Jose and one in Mumbai—perform similar roles for the company, but they have developed different processes. When you capture these differences through the pre-analysis, you (as the project lead) can manage expectations more effectively.

Users

• How many users are currently involved in the process, and what types of users?
• Where are they located? (Provide a list of areas for them to select from).
• How many of these users are involved in creation of the business object?
• How many of these users are involved in maintenance or management of the business objects?
• What level of access would these users require in the system? Examples could be read, write, can access only basic information, can download information, etc.
• Do you need to share the information with someone outside of your organization? List out other organizations or functional groups.

Security

• How many user groups will you want in the system? Examples could be Managers, Approvers, Reviewers, Read only users, Administrators.
• Will some users be wearing multiple hats in the system?
• Will there be segmented users? (users who will only be able to see sections)

Workflow

• Describe the current workflow process. Typical examples could be creation, lead up to publish (review, approve), publish/execute, Maintenance, management, etc.
• List out the roles that you will see the users performing in the new system.

Next week on these pages : The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 2: Nuts and Bolts (Contd.)

————————-
About the Author

During his spare time (if any) Arun enjoys hiking and reading.

Arun is currently working on a book (co-authored with Bill Sherman) code named “Managing Multi-million dollar projects” to be published in 2008.

For the collection of all Arun’s articles, please visit Squidoo Lens Arun Says

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Bill Gates: A hell of a nice guy but no IT visionary

By Dan McLean

As he fades into the sunset of IT retirement Bill Gates definitely deserves to be remembered as a man of great philanthropy, rather than the IT visionary that many seem to give him credit for.

As an IT journalist for 15 years, I can’t recall one occasion where I thought Bill Gates said anything truly inspiring about IT. Definitely nothing that most of us who followed the industry didn’t already know. Certainly nothing that was exceedingly insightful – something I would have expected to hear from IT’s most famous founding father. The fact is that Bill was mostly pretty dull and seemingly uninspired when discussing IT. He certainly wasn’t dynamic and hardly the overtly passionate tech nerd that he’d often been portrayed as being. Yet Bill is an IT superstar, albeit duller than a butter knife. Over the years, Bill could pack them in like nobody’s business at keynotes, conventions and many other events happening around the globe. During most of his tech diatribes, however, Bill never really had much to say. Read the rest of this entry »

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Can Microsoft speak reliably in the unified communications space?

Would you buy a unified communications solution from Microsoft Corp.?
If the product is anything like the operating system software the company sells, then most definitely not. Unified communications (UC) isn’t something to invest in without some rock-solid guarantees of performance and reliability. There’s no, “we’ll work out the kinks as we go,” with this sort of application. It’s not Windows. It has to work - all the time. There’s nothing more important to a business than its ability to communicate. Read the rest of this entry »

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Private Avaya needs to make some public noise

Upon hearing recently that networking company Avaya Communication is becoming a private company, the thought did occur that perhaps there would finally be an infusion of aggressive competitiveness in what has become a dull, dull company.
Public ownership, among other things, can do that to an organization. Big old companies operate too cautiously, move too slowly towards change, and all too readily accept a decline in status without putting up much of a fight. It’s why, in my opinion, the network communications equipment industry in general has become a wasteland outside of Cisco Systems. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Cisco keeps fighting and has parlayed disaster in the networking equipment business at the turn of the century into \unparalleled dominance. Seems most of the competition - if you want to call them that - weren’t nearly as determined. Most continue to stumble and fumble (think Nortel, 3Com and Enterasys) or they are content to lay low and scurry for the few scraps of business that Cisco doesn’t own or care about. Read the rest of this entry »

(8 votes, average: 7.75 out of 10)

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The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 1: Overview

Arun Nithyanandam -

When you kick start a project, you’ll begin with the discover phase—sometimes also known as the requirements phase. This initial step frequently involves an exhaustive stakeholder analysis. In our experience, this first phase often determines whether the project will be a success or a nightmare. If a project launches without a proper stakeholder analysis, the system’s requirements will not align with the actual needs of the business users.

Asking Relevant Questions

The stakeholder analysis can be a tricky phase of the project. If you ask relevant questions, you will get the answers you need. More importantly, you will over the stakeholders, and identify the relevant requirements.

However, if you don’t ask relevant questions, you will come across as someone who doesn’t understand the stakeholders and their needs. People will perceive you as unsure of yourself. You may even come across as inexperienced. Read the rest of this entry »

(2 votes, average: 8.5 out of 10)

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Green is the new ethics

Had an interesting and enjoyable conversation with Professor Norman Ball recently for the final instalment of a series we’re doing in conjunction with the University of Waterloo. Although the talk veered down many paths, the official discussion was around ethics and governance, and one point Professor Ball made that really jumped out at me was a short and simple one:

“Green is the new ethics.”

It’s hard to disagree. With messages from the likes of David Suzuki finally penetrating the moral conciousness of a large number of North Americans, “saving the planet” and “going green” are convenient mantras for the corporate world to hang its battered ethical hat on. Especially in the hardware market, whose products eat up huge amounts of energy, a green message allows companies to at least look like they care about something other than the bottom line.

Whether there is an earnest interest in the environmental movement amongst this group is cause for skepticism. But at least they are saying, and in many cases doing, some positive things around the environment. Let’s just hope that while they’re talking about planting trees and saving fish, corporate strategists are not forgetting about more traditional ethical matters around finances and good governance.

(2 votes, average: 5.5 out of 10)

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Project management’s dirty little secret

In speaking with Michael Sheppard, a PhD student at the University of Waterloo and a veteran IT project manager, I heard a refreshing bit of insight into the minefield that is the art of project management. Sheppard pointed out, quite matter-of-factly, that a big part of a team’s responsiblity lies not just in ensuring the successful completion of the project, but also in managing expectations and putting an appropriate spin on things when they break down.

Speaking of his own experiences, Sheppard commented, “It may sound a bit manipulative, but in a sense, we often have made failures into succeses by readjusting expectations and good corporate communications.”

That means mentioning the deployment of 500 new laptops on time even though the new software deployment is a month behind schedule. It means sending the right message to ensure mass panic does not set in amongst decision makers. It means keeping partnerships as healthy as they can be. And it is a dirty little secret about project management that most managers have faced and which they must be prepared to handle in most situations.

(3 votes, average: 10 out of 10)

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Sell Business to Business Users – Part 3: The Exception

Arun Nithyanandam -

This is a series of posts, if you haven’t read the earlier ones, please read it here.
Sell Business to Business Users – Part 1: The Need
Sell Business to Business Users – Part 2: The Design & Execution

When All Else Fails

There are times when, despite your best efforts, you can’t get buy-in. People miss meetings; they show little interest in the solution; they find excuses to evade their commitments. If this happens, there are probably underlying tensions within the company and its groups.

Be especially careful when relying on executives to provide a top-down message for change without an underlying consensus from the user community. For example, the COO can send out an e-mail to all of the stakeholders that dictates the company’s vision and direction for the project. Such a message will dutifully be addressed by all of the communities within the company; however, you’re likely to see begrudging resistance. Read the rest of this entry »

(6 votes, average: 10 out of 10)

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Sell Business to Business Users – Part 2: The Design & Execution

Arun Nithyanandam -

This is a series of posts, if you haven’t read the earlier ones, please read it here.
Sell Business to Business Users – Part 1: The Need

Let’s look at a few ways that you can sell the system to the users:

Planning

* Identify Your Champions
Identify the heads of departments, key stakeholders or users who will champion the project. You should work upfront to get their buy in, take care and address their concerns. It is always helpful if the directive to use the system comes from the department heads.

* Identify Your Evangelists
Your evangelists will be the people who conceived the project, people who attributed to the concept getting critical mass, and people who are very directly benefitted by implementing the new system. As with the champions, you should get your evangelists on board upfront, and involve them in your design process. These people will eventually evangelize the system, talk about it with passion and enthusiasm and sway the other users to adopt and use the new system.

Design

Empower the users to get involved during the design process. If it is logically not possible to get the entire user base, which could very well go into a large number based on the complexity and size of the project, you could pick out certain key users and get them involved. The users that you pick should be influencers, people who are looked up to in their respective domains, Subject Matter Experts. In our experience, we have always seen, users are committed to what they helped build.

Development Read the rest of this entry »

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The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 2: Nuts and Bolts (Contd.)

The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 2: Nuts and Bolts

Bill Gates: A hell of a nice guy but no IT visionary

Can Microsoft speak reliably in the unified communications space?

Private Avaya needs to make some public noise

The Anatomy of a Pre-Analysis Cookbook – Part 1: Overview

Green is the new ethics

Project management’s dirty little secret

Sell Business to Business Users – Part 3: The Exception

Sell Business to Business Users – Part 2: The Design & Execution