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IV: Determining Business and Technology Requirements

Identifying Disconnects and Proposing Alignments

Having received the technology team's report, as well as the business process teams' reports, which include the appropriate technology reality information, the project management team will be able to identify possible discrepancies or disconnects between the strategic direction provided by the steering committee, feedback from the business process teams, and the technology team's findings based on analysis and review of the existing and potential technology infrastructure. From these discrepancies or disconnects, the project management team can develop recommendations on how to resolve these issues.

The recommendations, therefore, should have related benefits for the project and tie back to the review of institutional strategies and business requirements. (See Table 7 for examples of the items that might appear.) These proposals may provide valuable insight in aligning the visions of the business area with those of the technical area and, ultimately, with the vision, principles, and strategies set forth by the steering committee to help establish an institutional approach to financial systems solutions. The relative values of these recommendations should also be discussed and documented.

Table 7: Sample recommendations and related benefits

Recommendation

Institute open systems architecture
Outsource application development
Implement improved or integrated databases
Expand network connections
Develop client/server technologies

Proposed benefit

Greater platform selection, reduced costs
Faster response to requirements
Improved decision support information
More faculty access to data
Effective platform for applications

Providing a summary of the relative values of new technology alternatives can provide major benefits in subsequent stages of the process (for example, in the selection process, it will be easier to decide on priorities if not all requirements can be met). It will make visible the deliberations of the technology team and provide a useful tool for discussion within the team and with other project teams. It also will provide a basis for the analysis and final selection from different alternatives.

The project management team will need to identify the key benefits and concerns of new technologies reviewed during the consciousness-raising activities, and to relate these benefits and concerns to the institution's strategic directions, taking into account the possible impact on existing technologies and IT policies and procedures as well as the inputs from the business teams.

This work of the project management team will help to redefine how the institution does business using technology. The objective is to get a maximum return on the technology investment from a user standpoint while preserving the institution's standards and directions. This alignment of vision will be increasingly important as the project moves into the proposal request and evaluation stages, and will result in a set of recommendations that will move the information technology organization and the business organization into improved areas of performance and effectiveness.

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