Enterprise Apps Requirements: Where to Start?
New project, plum assignment, clean sheet of paper and pen in hand.
What next?
Where to start to develop enterprise apps requirements?
1. Start with the business justification for the project
There has to be a compelling business reason why senior executives have approved a new enterprise solution. It’s going to consume considerable time and money, and expose the company to undeniable risk and disruption. Often, the decision is preceded by a discussion about upgrading vs. replacing. But once a decision to replace has been made, there are typically 2-5 key benefits the executives are looking for. Be sensitive to their ROI by relating all requirements you develop to one of their key benefits.
2. Position your project strategically
To many organizations, IT is a cost center. Hardware and software are commodity purchases that allow the business to operate efficiently and not much more. But to some organizations – and it’s worth noting that they are all industry leaders, like Wal-Mart, Dell, FedEx, McDonald’s, Staples, and many, many more – IT has a strategic role that no competitor in their space can touch.
Strategy is about performing the same activities as your competitors, but in a manner that delivers a unique value to your customers and a sustainable competitive advantage to your business. While not every company needs or wants to leverage IT for competitive advantage, it is an opportunity that should be considered before you make any enterprise apps decisions. Leaders in customer-facing and fulfillment roles may be especially interested.
3. Define the top 3-5 show-stopper requirements
In every search, there are typically a handful of requirements that cannot be compromised. These requirements are core to your business and core to the business justification for the project. For instance, if your users are decentralized, you’ll likely want a web-based solution; if your organization is project-oriented, you’ll want rich features around monitoring multiple concurrent projects; by default you’ll want a solution that is compatible with your IT hardware infrastructure.
Your goal at this early stage is to reduce the vendor list down to a handful of viable candidates. You’ll want to do this very quickly, before you dig deep into any offerings, so that you spend the vast majority of your time on the most promising solutions.
4. Define your operational sweet spot
No solution can be everything to everyone. What you are looking for is a solution that greatly increases the efficiency of your organization’s most frequently repeated tasks, and is dead easy to use in the sequence that these frequently repeated tasks are typically performed. This is your operational sweet spot. This is where the time, cost and risk of a new enterprise solution are readily justified.
In order to target your operational sweet spot, you’ll need to have a very good idea of the business processes you’ll be automating. Will it be your processes as they stand today, a new process design, or a hybrid model?
The primary reason why 70% of IT projects fail or fail to meet expectations is because of a lack of synergy between the application and business processes. To stand firmly in the 30% that succeed, it takes being very realistic and pragmatic about the business processes your solution will synergize with. It takes broad involvement and solid buy-in to change business processes. Never target a solution towards business processes that you plan to redefine “later.”
Out of this decision, you will have a clear direction for next steps and developing more detailed requirements.
5. Engage business, process and technical stakeholders
Technical and process requirements typically represent about one half to two-thirds of your requirements, but not all technical requirements should be treated equally. Requirements that will drive your operational sweet spot should carry more weight than requirements for occasional tasks performed by few individuals. Remember, the early success that will drive additional funding is meeting your ROI goals. Develop a long-term vision, but think and act small, focused and iteratively.
Do not forget to include business requirements. Put yourself, for a moment, in the position of the executives who will sign the checks. The more critical this application is to your company’s success, the more personal risk your executives are taking on. Deliver to them a balanced scorecard on the vendors you recommend and respect their budget. Today more than ever before, Software as a Service (SaaS) makes it possible to find enterprise class solutions for literally any budget. For more information about qualifying a vendor as a business partner, download our free white paper, The Technology is Great, Not So Sure about the Vendor.