3. Define Business Requirements for New System 

Define business requirements deals with gathering and defining the organizations business requirements for the new system.

This phase includes:

MyKnowledge:Prepares the user by giving insights into data collection as well as learning on how to conduct interviews and workshops.

MyDelivery: Provides the user with templates to collect stategic, structural, process and technology requirements, along with sample documents to assist.

MySignoff: Online or downloadable signoff sheet to ensure proper completion of the phase.

Key deliverables from this phase are:

1. Completed organizational structure document.
2. Completed strategic requirements document.
3. Completed IT environment document.
4. Business requirements listing.
5. Process maps (If required).
6. Project communication and reporting.
7. Completed signoff checklist.

Phase objectives

On completion of defining business requirements you should have :

1. Identified relevant organizational strategies and linked these to project objectives;
2. Identified and documented key business processes, needs and potential opportunities;
3. Identified and documented the IT environment;
4. A clear understanding selection criteria and differentiators

Phase risks

The risks of not completing this section include:

1. Poorly defined business requirements, which will impact the outcomes of the system selection and ultimately the system implementation.

Ensure you understand the unique processes in the organization and where the organization has competitive advantage and focus on these during this process.

Important to note:

Content under each section of the KADS method will differ, based on the phase being worked on. Initially the focus is on learning, moving to delivery and signoff during the life of the project.

What you need to know

The objective of the defining business requirements phase is about :

• Defining detailed business needs for the new system;
• Identifying opportunities for improvement;
• Ensuring you get agreement on both of these from the organization.

This is an important phase, which can impact the outcome of the system selection project if not completed properly.

1. Defining business requirements is a critical part of the process and for obvious reasons can also be the most challenging. You will be attempting to gather data from your organization and be confirming insights and understandings about this data, with those who have provided it.

Getting this done may require support from the project sponsor and steering committee, to ensure key individuals make their time available for the process and also give their feedback on the work done within reasonable time periods.

Once you have collected the data it will need to be analyzed to develop the business requirements for the system selection.

If you have not conducted a business requirements phase before, reading the following document is even more important.

Name: Defining business requirements

Priority: 1

Type: READ

Phase: Define business requirements

Estimated time: 20 minutes

Length: 11 reading pages

2. Key to conducting this phase is the need to gather data from the organization.

Methods of data collection include interviews, workshops, hard and soft copy reports and questionnaires and surveys.

Delivering the approach and plans

3. Communicating the project is an essential part of getting the organization to buy-in to the project, as well as ensuring they are aware of the projects goals and objectives.

During <2. Planning the project> you will have prepared the Project kick off briefing presentation. If you have not already done so, use this to communicate the project to key stakeholders within the organization and externally if appropriate.

You might also consider another simple, to the point communication to the broader organization and external stakeholders if appropriate in the form of a voicemail or email on some key points about the system selection project. Making the Project kick off briefing presentation available on the organizational intranet is also a good idea at this early stage.

4. Understand the structure of the organization. Request the information from the relevant internal or external parties and get the structural requirements document completed. If the information is already available in a different format, use that. This will assist in defining scope for the vendor and with developing selection criteria.

Name: Structural requirements

Priority: 1

Type: User

Phase: Define business requirements

Estimated time: Depends on size of organization, no more than 30 minutes           

In steps 5 - 7, you will use various techniques including interviews and workshops. If you have not completed the ELPs on these topics, do so now. Use the templates provided below to assist as required with the data collection. Download them and store them in one of your directories for repeated later use.

Senior management interview outline    : (structure for interview)

Sample interview questions                 : (Generic interview questions)

Interview sample guide                      : (Interview support document)

Workshop agenda                    : (Workshop communication and agenda)

5. Understanding the strategic direction of the organization. This may be as simple or as complex as the organization itself. The key is establishing future business requirements which could translate into either selection criteria or differentiators.

Name: Strategic requirements

Priority: 1

Type: User

Phase: Define business requirements

Estimated time: Depends on the size of the organization and the number of interviews

6. Get an overview of the information technology (IT) environment. Document the existing IT environment. Depending on the size and maturity of the organization, this could be an onerous task. If the data is already available in a different format, use that.

This information is required to brief vendors, as well as ensure there is no redundancy in system functionality.

Getting an understanding of future projects will assist in setting system implementation dates.

Name: Information technology environment

Priority: 1

Type: User

Phase: Define business requirements

Estimated time: Depends on the size of the organization and the complexity of the IT environment.

You should starting to get a feel for the organization needs. You will know the entities and structures, the strategic direction and the supporting IT environment in detail. Ensure all these are properly documented and agreed.

7. Developing the business requirements can be done one of two ways:

1) Process mapping
2) Developing requirement listings

If you are uncertain how to proceed, read the defining business requirements document in MyKnowledge again, before starting.

This section can involve dealing with a lot of unstructured data from many sources. Don't panic. Select relevant categories to structure the data with, these can be by process, function, department etc and ensure you capture the data under these headings. Slow order will emerge from the chaos as you remove duplications and get common interpretations and consistency into the data.

A combination of interviews and workshops are usually the most effective ways of gathering data for this phase.

Use the templates provided above to assist in structuring the data collection.

If you are developing a requirements listing, the following user document is a good format to use. This can also be used as a control form for process development:

Name: Defining business requirements

Priority: 1

Type: User

Phase: Define business requirements

Estimated time: Depends on the size of the organization and resources available, from 2 weeks to 6 months.

Example business requirements by process : use this document to assist developing functional requirements.

Example general system requirements : use this document to assist developing functional requirements.

Example financial functional requirements listing : refer to this document for common finance system requirements

If you are developing process maps, the following user document is a good format to base these on. Use the save as function to download editable file:

Name: Process maps

Priority: 3

Type: User

Phase: Define business requirements

Estimated time: Depends on the size of the organization and resources available, from 2 weeks to 6 months.

Sign off on the phase

1. Update the project plan and project milestone document developed in <2. Planning the project>. Report as scheduled.

2. Complete the following checkist to ensure all items have been completed to signoff the phase:

Phase 3 Defining business requirements: Completion checklist

• Have you confirmed the organizations strategic objectives and considered the impact of these on the system selection?
• Have you collected the organization structure information relating to the organization and considered the selection criteria that will arise from it?
• Have you documented business processes and analyzed them and/ or built a system requirements listing?
• Are you comfortable you have identified the unique differentiators of the organization and included these in the requirements listing?
• Have you developed solid selection criteria and differentiators for the request for proposal process?
• Is there a clear understanding of the benefits the new system will deliver?
• Have any proposed process or other changes identified as a result of this process been signed off and agreed with the relevant business leader and steering committee?
• Have you identified the IT environment in sufficient detail to communicate this adequately in the request for proposal?
• Have you updated the project milestone and plan document for reporting to the steering committee?
• Have you communicated to stakeholders as is appropriate on the status of the system selection?
  

Move onto the next phase when ready : [ Phase 4 - Identify vendors ]