| Article Index |
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| Creating Clear Project Requirements (1 of 5) |
| Part 2 |
| Part 3 |
| Part 4 |
| Part 5 |
| All Pages |
Page 1 of 5
Differentiating “What” from “How” Requirements Definition: Through our experience working with project teams, in many industries, on hundreds of projects, we recognize that although Project Managers may understand the theory for developing project requirements they don’t have viable tools, techniques or processes for enabling project stakeholders to clearly define their needs and the expected outcomes for the project. On many projects, the requirements definition effort can take months or, in extreme cases, years to complete before any tangible benefits are realized by the project effort. In this case, it is not uncommon for the environment the project was originally established under to have changed.
All too often, project teams dive into the solutions they want to implement before ever gaining alignment on and fully understanding the underlying needs they should be solving for. Many times project team members believe they can save the team time by starting with a solution, rather than starting at the beginning of the project and defining the needs. These “silver bullet” solutions rarely pan out. In fact, this often results in project teams implementing what appears, on the surface, to be a great solution, but in reality is a solution that fails to address the true needs of the organization. Project requirement definition requires a progressive elaboration approach. This approach starts with high level definition of the project scope, which sets the boundaries for areas within the organization that are anticipated to change. Then, the team expands on the scope statement by collaboratively uncovering the need statements to be solved for (business requirements). Finally, the team can drill down to a technical approach and appropriate solutions for satisfying the project needs. This concept may seem simple, but unfortunately 71% of projects either fail outright, or are “challenged” – projects deliver fewer features and functions than the customer expects, are completed over budget, or are completed behind scheduled. (Standish Group, 2004)
The top four factors associated with project failure are:
- Poor end user / customer involvement (stakeholders)
- Poor executive management support
- Improper planning
- Unclear statement of requirements
Project Requirement Definition Facilitated Meetings
Project teams struggle with developing clear requirement statements when they lack the tools and techniques to ensure there is appropriate stakeholder involvement throughout the requirements definition activity. In far too many project environments, Project Managers do not possess skills enabling them to effectively engage all necessary project stakeholders, in collaborative meetings, to describe their needs for the project. As a result, on these projects, the Project Manager, or a small subset of project team members, write the requirements for the stakeholders. These requirements are then routed throughout the organization in an attempt to gain alignment and buy in. Often, the requirements are not uniformly understood and do not represent the full breadth of the project needs. This can lead to costly rework later during the project lifecycle, or after the project implementation, when these missing or misunderstood needs are identified.
JAD (Joint Application Design) facilitated meetings effectively improve the requirements definition activity by incorporating collaborative meeting and group management techniques led by a neutral facilitator (i.e. someone without a stake in the project outcome). These facilitated meetings engage all the appropriate stakeholders as participants who collaboratively meet, make decisions and interactively build their project requirements.
To increase the success of any JAD meeting, it must be fully planned prior to starting the meeting. Planning enables the project management team and the Facilitator to set expectations and agree on the deliverables, activities to be created, and techniques that will be used to produce project requirement deliverables, during the meeting. The Facilitator conducts the meeting, using collaborative techniques to collect information, validate this information, and continually adjust it to ensure it is clear, complete and addresses the needs of the project. The results of facilitated JAD meetings are consensus among participants, ownership and buy-in on all decisions and deliverables produced during the meeting.
