In today’s world of “Cloud Everything” using “Hyper Everything” we still see an old problem creating challenges. Most IT organizations are still struggling to translate business requirements into technology requirements. Cloud has allowed us to simply accelerate the process of seeing the disconnect.
I had the opportunity to hear about this experience from one of our clients recently. They captured the business requirements however, when the technology translation was completed they forgot to validate the translation.
They left out many stakeholders like compliance, security, networks, operations, and even the business entity. This created a lot of rework that could have been avoided. If they had been following a basic project management or software development life cycle it could have been avoided.
In this brave new world some things have fundamentally changed in the way we deliver technology solutions. We must be careful to not forget the basics like validation and feedback loops. In order to deliver a solid technology solution it must meet a minimum set of requirements as defined by your organization.
It is easy to get caught up in the daily scrums and “Agile” everything driving toward instant results. This can often lead to inadequate solutions that failed to meet all the stated requirements.
The funny part about this common challenge is that we have better cloud based tools today than anytime in the past. These tools make it easier to manage the basics with the check box’s included.
These tools allow us to not only reduce the time it takes to check the box but also allows us to capture the data associated with “checking the box”. This is important in our environments today with a “…assume you have been compromised already” mindset.
Of course, I am not advocating we should go back to waterfall, serialized methodologies. However, I do believe we should train business and technology stakeholders on modern tools.
These tools need to part of our everyday life during a project cycle and simple to use. A little upfront planning and training can deliver astounding results throughout the project lifecycle.
Think it Through !
Victor Wolters
Read more about people and Digital Transformation
