About Strategy | Requirements Analysis: From Business Views to Architecture


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	Requirements Analysis: From Business Views to Architecture By David C. Hay
	Table of Contents

	Chapter 2. Managing Projects

About Strategy

It is extremely difficult to do an effective requirements analysis project if the company has not done a proper job of strategic planning. The first step in building systems of any significant size is for all involved (from the CEO on down) to understand exactly why they are being built. Ultimately, a system's success must be measured in terms of its contribution to the vision and mission of the enterprise, but this can't happen if no one really knows what those are.

A proper strategic study should address most or all of the following components :

Articulation

The strategy study should articulate what the company is aboutto wit:

Motivation : Why does the company exist? What are its identity and its purpose? What are its vision, mission, priorities, and constraints? What is it trying to achieve? What obstacles does it face?
Data : What key performance indicators are used to determine success in carrying out the company's mission? What overall categories of things does the enterprise need data about?
Activities : What does the company do? What does it make, or what services does it offer?
Locations : Where does the enterprise operate ? What are the overall functions of each location? Why are they located here (e.g., close to raw material)?
People and organizational units : What is the company's philosophy of organization? Hierarchical? Matrix? What values drive its human-resource activities?
Timing (planning cycle) : Is the company driven by its annual budget cycle? What events in the world require it to take action?

Definition

The strategy study should also provide clear definitions for the projects to follow. The system development plan itemizes projects and their purposes, addressing the questions: Which projects come first and why? In what order do others follow? This sequence should be based on the inherent dependencies among the projects. Specifically, for each project, the plan should include:

Scope and purpose : What is the project about? What information-processing capabilities is it to create? What part of the enterprise is it to address?
Personnel : Who is assigned to the project? Who is ultimately responsible for it? Who owns the data and functions involved?
Performance criteria, key performance factors : How do we know if the project is done? How do we know if it was a success?

Fundamentally, a strategy study must describe the strategy of the organization, the information-systems components of that strategy, and the scope of the resulting efforts.

An excellent guide to conducting strategy projects is Stephen Spewak's 1992 Enterprise Architecture Planning .


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