“There is never enough time to do it
right the first time, but there is always enough time to do it over.”
Classic Murphy’s Law … good one for
those of us who’ve worked long enough in IT (and sooner or later have had to
come to terms with…)
When it comes to performing a current
state assessment - my own experience has been that for projects of a certain
size and complexity, it’s definitely the right thing to do. Yet sometimes
we’re still told that there’s “not enough time” to do it. Having been the
BA on various projects where the choice has been to go one way or the other - I
can say for sure that the benefits of performing a current state assessment can
work wonders for project delivery. Unfortunately, the costs of not
performing one when it’s needed can have the quite the opposite effect.
What is a Current State Assessment?
A current state assessment should
minimally capture the following 3 components:
- As-Is
business process
- Key
business stakeholders
- Current issues (i.e. “Pain-Points’)
It should always be one of the first
steps undertaken for significant automation projects. Yet project
leads may show resistance towards investing in a current state assessment –
either because they don’t understand its value, or tell us that we don’t have
the time to do it. But not investing in a current state assessment could
have a negative impact with regards to capturing good requirements. This
in turn increases the risk of a implementing a limited solution that doesn’t
fully meet the needs of the system’s users. Therefore, it’s my belief the
value of a current state assessment is that (at least in the long run) it can
actually save the project time & money – as well as reduce
risk. The good news is that the time and effort to perform the current
state assessment should be more easily quantifiable when compared to estimating
the time and effort to implement the actual solution.
If a current state assessment is not
planned (or has not been performed), the BA should push hard to ensure that
this activity happens. Listed below are some considerations to you
can bring to light if you believe that a current state assessment is needed,
but you’ve come across a level of resistance:
1) It
helps us get to know our stakeholders & the optimal way to elicit
requirements from them
A current state assessment allows us to
understand the work that needs to be performed by the organization, and who
needs to complete it. Knowing this will help us identify the key
stakeholders, their role within the organization, and their level of influence
on the implementation. This can provide us with the opportunity to develop
positive relationships at the beginning of the project, and help reduce the
risk of missing key stakeholders (who later in the project may feel left out of
the process). Also, from a project planning standpoint - when certain
activities need to occur in a specific order (i.e. scope definition phase,
followed by requirements workshops, etc.) - it’s critical to know who the key
stakeholders are as early as possible.
Identifying the stakeholders early on
also provides us with the opportunity to use important elicitation techniques
during the current state assessment (i.e. such as surveys, interviews, etc.),
which can help us to better understand their concerns and opinions. This
can also help us elicit information on as-is processes, issues, gaps, and
desired requirements.
In addition, having this level of
understanding will help the BA determine the different types of requirements
models to be used during a workshop. This promotes more efficient
requirements workshops, since the problem to be solved is better
understood.
2)
It helps us determine the capability
gaps between the current state and desired future state
There is a certain level of performance
that the organization is getting from the current solution (even if it’s
manual). Therefore, we need to make sure that any key benefits the
organization is receiving from the current solution are not lost when
implementing the new solution. These benefits should become apparent
while capturing the current state, and this having this knowledge will be
necessary when the time comes to determine the potential value that the new
solution would bring.
For instance, if upgrading an existing solution,
the business may ask the following questions:
- Will
features that currently add value be retained or enhanced?
- Will
existing issues or pain points be reduced or eliminated?
- Will
the new solution also include new capabilities?
Providing answers to these questions
can help us work with the business to determine what changes need to be made to
the current state so that any new features can be optimally consumed.
Having this understanding also allows us to make decisions that involve process
change vs. configuring the solution. This also provides us with the ability to
present recommendations up front vs. stumbling across solutions later in the
project – thereby causing rework or postponement of features.
3)
We can inventory our existing
information assets
Having at least a high level
understanding of what’s in the current system can be critical to understanding
what will be involved with migrating to the new system. For example, if
we are upgrading an EDMS system, then we will want to inventory information
such as content types, number of documents, taxonomy being used (if any) and
the cleanliness of the metadata. Having this information can at least
give us a high level view of our existing system’s current state, so that we
can then plan for the effort involved with migrating to the new platform.
4)
It helps with defining the change
strategy
Since performing a current state
assessment helps us determine the future state, organizations can use the
knowledge gained from this to help define and plan for their change strategy.
The change strategy will involve performing an impact assessment that defines
what set of activities, communications, training, and updates to documented
procedures will be required. Additionally, the organization’s ability to adopt
these changes will drive the timing for the release of different features.
5)
It helps with assessing potential
future solutions
A current state assessment will help us
define the organization’s future needs. Having the correct set of needs will
then help us outline a cohesive set of user requirements, which will in turn
enable the desired future state. This will better position us to accurately
assess alternative solutions that can meet these user requirements. In
addition, it helps prevent the organization from being overwhelmed by a chosen
solution that they are not ready for or capable to consume.
Additional
thoughts or ideas are certainly welcome – especially from those of you have
also reaped the benefits of performing a current state assessment. Or, if
perhaps Murphy showed up at your project and decided that you should charge
ahead without a current state assessment when it was truly needed – it would be
good to hear about your experience as well.
