Intersection 3: Analysis

Once all of the requirements have been identified, shared and verified - the analysis of those requirements can begin. There is often debate as to whether the prioritization of requirements is one of the final parts of Discovery or one of the first parts of Analysis......either way, it is critical to prioritize requirements. While all requirements are important - they do not all have the same level of importance and impact and ensuring you understand that hierarchy is critical to analyzing the various options and choosing the "best" option.

Let's take a moment and talk about options - in most situations and with most IT / business problems - there will be more that one solution. However, by understanding the hierarchy of requirements - there will typically be one or two solutions that meet or exceed a higher number of the requirements than the rest. If we look close enough....one of the solutions will rise above the rest.

This is the fundamental work that must be done in the analysis phase - working with the customer to explain the various options with them, adjusting the requirements hierarchy (if needed) and identifying the "best" solution to solve their problem and/or provide the requested business outcome. Less refined presales processes use Analysis to identify all the potential options and carry all of those options into the Design phase - the challenge with that is two-fold. First it requires exponentially more work to complete design tasks across more than one solution (which typically means less actual design work is completed which compounds implementation issues), and second it simply "pushes the can down the road". Ultimately a "best" solution decision is going to have to be made - the sooner that decision can be made - the better - for both the vendor and the customer.

Additional tools/processes such as proof of concept, customer case studies, customer reference calls can all be used during the Analysis phase to help identify the "best" solution. Far to often, everyone wants the Analysis phase to be fast - spending extra time here reflects lack of technical acumen. "If we know our product well, the solution should be obvious" or "let's just take multiple options into Design and we can figure it out later" are common discussions that happen in Analysis. Fight the urge to make quick decisions but I encourage you to make a decision - work with your customer(s), partner(s), OEM(s) to discuss the alternatives, create a comparison matrix and identify the "best" solution. Having a "best" solution doesn't mean you don't have alternatives, it just means you focus on the "best" solution (and only the "best" solution) until the project is completed or roadblocks are identified that can't be overcome - at which point you return to an alternate solution.

In the scenario where you have to choose an alternate solution - it probably does require more total time than if you had simply chosen to take both options into Design. However - the likelihood of having to choose a new solution is low (assuming Discover and Analysis are done well) and you might not have chosen the right alternate - since the roadblock wasn't known at that time.

Every hour spent in Analysis will save many more hours in future presales stages and will lead to much better implementations - which ultimately leads to happier customers. Happy customers become repeat customers.

Let me know you thoughts on the process I outlined above........is it overkill?

Long may your big jib draw!