The Importance of the Current State Assessment

“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.