Process Two: Plan the Process
Process Two: Plan the Process This chapter, as well as other books on the subject, can give you templates for developing your own project plan. There are many good sources for the definition of required tasks . Oracle Corporation, for example, sells a product called the "Custom Development Method", which is a collection of manuals, MS Project templates, and MS Word templates. The set of steps described in this chapter was informed by that product, although it is not identical. In addition, Suzanne and James Robertson in their 1999 book, Mastering the Requirements Process , have created a very good template for Process Six, defining requirements. Other companies have similar products. Project management tools can be helpful, and there exist commercial templates for these as well. Your project is your own, however, and fundamentally you must define the exact steps, resources, and timing that will be your project. Among other things, the planning process includes identification of the key users and others who will be the source of the analysis information. These are often referred to in the industry as subject matter experts . These are the people who will be interviewed, attend modeling sessions, and so forth. These will be the final arbiters of whether the resulting system performs its intended functions. Ideally, a subject-matter expert should be high enough in the organization to provide perspective, but not so high as to be ignorant of the detailed business processes. Try to include people who will take a more strategic approach as well as those who are more concerned with the day-to-day running of the operation. Don't rule out, by the way, selected individuals whose title might appear to be outside the area of interest, but who in fact have deep, specialized knowledge about the business. These people often turn out to be your best sources of information. For example, an engineer who knows a lot about oil refining, or a former technician who knows about clinical research, may be an excellent source of information. Sometimes you can include experienced information technology personnel, although be careful that prejudices in favor of older systems don't corrupt the data-gathering process. Interestingly enough, a good measure of the size of the project is the number of subject-matter experts identified. If there are more than about 12 to 15, it is likely that the project scope is too big to be practical. It may be worth revisiting Process One to cut it down to manageable size. The length of the project will be in direct proportion to the number of people involved. Estimate one day per interview, plus a multiple of that for modeling. (This multiplier depends on the skill and experience of the modelers.) Add, also, fixed amounts of time to prepare for and conduct modeling feedback sessions and to prepare the final report. The deliverable from this process is the first draft of the project plan or project charter. |
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EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 129