Business - IT engagement

Standing in for the Boss while he's away has given me an insight into processes I would not normally be exposed to so closely.

Over the last few days, I have had cause to consider the mechanism by which the Business areas communicate their needs to the IT Division. Business Requirements could be the subject of an entire blog, and much has been written about it elsewhere, but I am referring to the bit before the requirements get written.

Let's say Geoff in one of the Business areas has a great revenue-generating idea. The first thing he does is consider how much money this idea could generate. Armed with some promising figures, and assuming this idea requires some IT work, he now wants to know how much it will cost, right?

So how does he find out in your organisation? (post a comment with your answers, please)

We have a very formal means of providing an Indicative Quote for the work, based preferably on an initial draft of a requirements document, but often on no more than a paragraph explaining the idea. Because there are obviously loads of these, they are prioritised, and a select band of people get together on a weekly basis to review all the requests and come up with a quote from each of the affected areas. If this sounds a little long-winded and cumbersome, it is.

Geoff spent maybe a couple of hours thinking about it, made a couple of phone calls to Marketing or Finance and came up with some profit projections. Then he wrote it down on a piece of paper and sent it to IT Work Reception.

Six weeks later, he gets a response:

"Unable to assess. please clarify which web pages are considered in scope of this request". Or something similar. Is Geoff a happy customer? Exactly!

The Business need two processes:

1. the 'I have an idea; is this cheap, expensive or somewhere in between' process, and
2. the 'here are my detailed requirements, can I have a detailed cost breakdown within a 10% tolerance' process.

I think it's fair to say that we all have process number two in place, right? But how many large companies are there out there with a decent process number one in place? If so, I'd love to hear about them.

The problem as I see it is that you want a suitable forum to discuss ideas without getting swamped by a million random thoughts, with no prior consideration of a business case, or even if it's feasible from a Business perspective. If you have some properly-trained analysts in your Business areas, great. If not, what do you do?

What you don't do is create an overly bureaucratic centralised forum with limited time and a limited budget to consider each and every request that Geoff and all his colleagues come up with. You see, that's what Geoff may be paid to do - come up with money-making ideas. And, being a bright chap, Geoff may have loads of ideas!