[Reprint] Give IT personnel a weapon: how to talk to the business unit needs analysis?

With the business people doing "demand analysis", many IT staff immediately head up, or not in the same "channel" speech, or "change to change, cannot be set down." How to talk to the business department about demand analysis, we take this issue, with the Yang Chunbo of the advisory consultant to start a discussion.

1. some it supervisors complain about the needs of the business unit, IT Why do you think this happens when people don't understand or even simply call it a requirement?

Poly Crown due to Shang Yang Chunbo:

This is a more common phenomenon, "language is not through" is one of the main causes of this situation. In the case of low-level enterprise informatization, the business people have less experience in the system use, they put forward the demand is often used in the "Business language", for example, "I need to input these two data, cost sharing can be in this window directly pop out ...". And our IT staff is familiar with the "system language", such as "can use this field as the keyword, according to the Order of settlement time, out of a report."

From "Business language" to "system language", a "translation" process is required. If it is not long in the company, or is not familiar with the business, the difficulty is really not small. Our IT executives don't get angry and complain, they should be aware of the business knowledge of the IT staff and encourage IT staff to communicate frequently with the business unit. It has long been heard that financial personnel are "out of the Zhangfang" and that our IT staff should be "away from the computer" from time to times.

2. business people and it What is the division of labor in the demand analysis phase?

Poly Crown due to Shang Yang Chunbo:

In the demand analysis phase, IT staff should not only do "listeners", but also to do "translators" and "trainers."

"Listening" to the needs of business people is the first step, but it staff should try to avoid the "you just say, I just do" situation. "The system anyway is according to the business department to make the demand, do not blame me", this idea seems very safe, in fact, it is trouble, until the system was changed to change the time, only to find that both sides wasted time.

IT staff should also be good translators. The business requirements are collated and translated into "Business requirements Specification", and the collated documents are fully communicated with the business unit to confirm that the business unit needs are accurately and completely expressed.

IT staff should also be a "trainer". In the case of low-level enterprise informatization, training is particularly important. IT staff should recommend the business backbone to participate in information-based internal training or external training courses, so that they listen to "it philosophy", more understanding of "information case", to promote the two sides have more "common language."

3. How do you think you can ensure that the needs of your business are fully reflected in the requirements analysis phase?

Poly Crown due to Shang Yang Chunbo:

We found that the business people in the demand, often from the actual business needs of individuals, very concerned about their daily work-related content. If the demand research process only to find the individual business personnel to ask, there will inevitably be a situation of incomplete demand.

In the phase of demand analysis, we should choose the object of demand research in "multi-faceted" and "multilevel", not only to find different business managers to understand the requirements of business management, but also to find multiple business executives to understand operational requirements. This way of demand research, it is possible to get a relatively complete business needs.

4. in the requirements analysis phase it What are your experiences in communicating with the business unit?

Poly Crown due to Shang Yang Chunbo:

My advice to the IT staff and business units is, "treat people with sincerity, learn to listen, be lively."

"Treat people with sincerity" is the basis of good communication. No matter whether the position of the business staff is high or low, to understand the information or do not understand, we must be sincere and open-minded to communicate.

"Learn to listen" is not to let us put a "attentive listening, serious notes" posture, more importantly, to "will listen to", to understand the business people behind a sentence is actually want to say what you want, this requires IT staff have certain business experience and understanding ability.

"Lively" is a recommendation for more serious IT staff. Communication with business people, especially marketers, may be a little more lively, closer to each other, more able to collide with sparks.

In the previous section, we exchanged information on the Division of Labor and communication between the IT department and the business unit in the process of demand analysis, and the Yang Chunbo consultant. Next we continue to discuss with the experts the following three questions on "How to talk to the business unit about demand".

1. in the requirements analysis phase, you feel that acquiring it What are the ways to "demand"?

Poly Crown due to Shang Yang Chunbo:

There are at least three ways. One is "take doctrine", one is "direct research", one is "mixed".

First say "Take doctrine". Now is the "knowledge explosion" era, on the internet is easy to find a reference to the needs of documents. Even if there is no information in the same industry, it is not difficult to find a business area. For example, to find "heavy truck budget quote system demand", although it is difficult to find the "automotive industry" demand documents, but found on the Internet "budget quote system Requirements" or relatively easy. By reading and understanding "Take doctrine" files, IT staff find similarities in functional requirements that will help us better capture the IT needs of the real business.

Say "direct research". It is also one of the most common ways to directly find the business unit to conduct demand research.

More interesting is the "hybrid", that is, "take doctrine" and "direct research" a way to combine, first let the business unit directly to ask for demand, and then provide "take" the requirements of the document to them to do the reference, to further inspire the purpose of demand.

Some it people will say, there's no need to be so complicated. Say this people generally like "direct research style", anyway, according to the requirements of the Business department to do is, he would like to eat sesame cake, we will bake, no need to recommend what "pizza." The direct consequence of the way in which business units tailor their needs is that the systems that the IT staff have worked hard to make are being asked to change endlessly.

2. sometimes business units often ask for "excessive" demands that you think it How do supervisors make trade-offs with these needs?

Poly Crown due to Shang Yang Chunbo:

The business unit may raise some "over-the-top" requirements that are more common if the system happens to be led by the IT department.

"Excessive" This is certainly for the IT department, from the business perspective, any "excessive" demand must have a reasonable place. To the IT department, "excessive" demand is either a system implementation is very difficult, or the performance requirements of the device is high.

It executives should evaluate "over-the-counter" requirements in four ways:

The first is the importance of demand, the actual business, to determine whether the demand is the core needs, followed by the difficulty of the requirements, from the overall level of difficulty, the third is to achieve the cost of demand, such as the number of developers months and months of testing, how much money needed to improve equipment performance; Finally, there is no alternative to the solution, For example, the business department requires the personnel information in the business system to be in real-time synchronization with the personnel information in the HR system, it is difficult to real-time, whether you can consider three-day synchronization, or one day synchronization.

The IT director communicates the results to the business unit and can even discuss the possibility of getting resources from the top with the business unit leader. In this way, the IT department is working with the business to solve the problem, rather than simply saying "no" to the business unit, producing some extraneous results.

3. After the requirements analysis phase is over, even as the project is going on, the business unit will often add new requirements, which will undoubtedly disrupt the original project deployment, have you ever encountered this situation? What to do with it? How to avoid this situation?

Poly Crown due to Shang Yang Chunbo:

Have ever met. If it is a core requirement, consider adjusting the plan immediately and adding it. If this is a non-core requirement, consider convincing the business unit to implement it in the next phase.

In this case, I think there are two reasons, the first is the inadequate demand analysis, followed by a lack of classification of requirements.

Demand work is not fully reflected in two points, one is a clear omission, one is the lack of pre-judgment. To solve the problem of missing demand, we can only rely on multi-level research interviews, data collection, communication and exchange to complete. Addressing demand pre-contracting is a higher requirement for IT personnel to analyze their needs. In the process of demand analysis, we should not only face the existing business processes, but also make full pre-judgment and discussion about the possible business changes in a certain period. For example, it executives should discuss with senior and business units whether there is a change in organizational structure in the short term, whether the business model or business process changes, and so on.

The classification and grading of requirements is an important part of the demand analysis work, it is unrealistic to complete all the requirements in a project. We classify the requirements by business areas, from the importance and implementation of the difficulty of the classification, with the business unit discussion, the implementation process of the stage is clear, the first phase to achieve what needs, the second phase to achieve what needs, so that the entire project can achieve "clear planning, progressive, rapid effect", To make business units happy and easy for it.

[Reprint] Give IT personnel a weapon: how to talk to the business unit needs analysis?