What are the best practices for analyzing proposed business system changes?

Analyzing proposed business system changes involves several best practices. Start with thorough requirements elicitation and conduct a comprehensive impact analysis, feasibility study, and cost-benefit analysis. Identify and mitigate risks, involve stakeholders throughout the process, and utilize prototyping and testing to validate proposed changes. Ensure regulatory compliance, develop a change management plan, and maintain detailed documentation. Foster continuous communication, consider agile methodologies for flexibility, and benchmark against industry best practices. These practices collectively enhance decision-making, minimize risks, and optimize the chances of successful implementation.

Understand Why the change is needed and clearly define What the minimum viable outcomes will be. There are four major drivers of business system changes: 1. Merger / Acquisitions or Divestitures 2. Major system upgrades, like S4 Hana 3. Business Transformation Programs 4. Cleaning up Failed Implementations or Overly Complex Implementations. Each category has different business and technology drivers (the Why) and each has different requirements for setting expectations of What the outcomes should be.

Changes are usually associated with process. Most tools are designed to be integrated into a number of similar business operations. Frequently this creates process gaps because the new tool "skips" some functional requirements. Normally the process is modified to fit the tool. The missing steps are often overlooked. My best advice is to map the ideal process. Then overlay the current process. Note all of the gaps. Remap the new tool to the ideal process to note any gaps. Revisit the solution to address the gaps. Talk to the users - they know the process and its shortcomings.

Analyzing proposed business system changes is crucial for success. Key practices involve defining clear objectives, conducting a comprehensive impact analysis, engaging stakeholders, identifying and mitigating risks, evaluating scalability and future needs, understanding technical implications, performing a thorough cost-benefit analysis, creating a realistic timeline, addressing user training and change management, testing prototypes, planning data migration, ensuring regulatory compliance, establishing post-implementation monitoring, documenting the process, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. These practices increase the likelihood of successful implementations and align business goals with system changes.

Before defining the (proposed) changes of a system, define the appropriate view of the system at a proper abstraction level. Only then will it be possible to see what was there before, what was "wrong" with it, and what will be changes ("improved").

Based On My Experience, The Role Of Visualization In Information Processing Cannot Be Overstated. The Strategic Integration Of Charts Alongside Textual Content Serves To Enhance Comprehension Significantly. This Approach Not Only Simplifies The Assimilation Of Information But Also Underscores Its Critical Relevance. Such Clarity Elucidates The Anticipated Impact Of A Process On All Stakeholders Involved. Incorporating Charts And Graphs In Data Presentation Is An Indispensable Facet Of Ensuring The Meaningful Absorption Of Essential Insights, Culminating In A Comprehensive Understanding Of The Far-Reaching Implications Of Any Given Procedure.

Creating clear and concise documentation of gathered requirements. By using the right tools such as use cases, user stories, process flows, and data models to capture requirements effectively. It's also very important to prioritise requirements based on their importance, impact, feasibility, and alignment with business goals. This would help in focusing on critical aspects during implementation.

Technical Aspects of the System are also of great significance in the sense that the system must be: - User Friendly - Scalable - Robust - Reliable - Maintainable with minumum to no downtime - Perform Optimally - Secured Impact analysis on as is and to be is of utmost importance in ensuring that the system changes are going to significantly increase productivity and profitability.

Before jumping into system and process changes, understand why we want to make the change. What will the changes achieve? We want to ensure that the proposed changes contribute to project or organisational vision and goals.

The most important aspect of the change is communication to the customer, which comes usually at low priority of the organisation. It should always begin with the customer & end with the customer. Any change that don't take customer into account may fail drastically.

It's also good to create a process for feedback and learnings from the analysis process to continuously improve the quality of future analysis and decision-making.