What I Know It’s About Experience

Business requirements versus Technology

This is my major bug with IT staff especially those in security and administration. When you sit around a table talking to IT people, their eyes shine when you start talking about technology. The newest and the greatest....Well, what are toys for, but to have men spend time on them. 

Talking bits, nibbles and bytes to IT is not a problem provided you have no requirement for motivating the purchase of the technology to business. This is when the wheels come off the proverbial geeky cart, ask IT to deliver a business requirement specification that sells the new technology to business and wait.

It all usually starts with, 'uhm', followed by, 'you know', then by....(pause) 'they need it'! Maybe they do, but how do you sell it? Well, 'it has x CPUs, 4 Gbyte RAM, can handle 20 quadzillion processes' and for additional money, it can make coffee.:mrgreen:

Well, lets see, business does not know what a quadzillion is, has no idea about the RAM and the CPUs. It may be interested in the coffee but surely a coffee machine is better suited? This is where Service Management comes to play. Business has a requirement, what is it and what do they need to meet it?

At this point, all the techies start saying, 'how are we supposed to know what they want, we know what they have to have'. Nope, wrong again! Business needs to see what it costs and what the benefits will be. Point to note; NEVER mention Return on Investment (ROI). Gartner trashed that one by stating that it was never measured after the fact.

The solution is simple, take off the techie hat and put on the business analyst hat, very similar to baking a cake. Talk to business of their requirements (make some up if you don't  think they know) and confirm this with management. Taking what they want, measure what technology they have and see what is lacking. Take the stuff that is lacking and look to see if any of the current could be upgraded or if a purchase is required. With the investigation, you should determine what the risks are to business if they do not upgrade or purchase.

You now have the reasons for;

1. the current stuff will not meet business requirements
2. the list of stuff that will meet business requirements (for at least 18 months)
3. Strategic/Tactical/Operational Risks

Based on the business requirements and the reasons, you have the business motivation to purchase your new toy.