Inside Small Business | Small Business & Home Business Marketing
Defining Requirements
David Grenda, Founder, Grenda Computer Consulting
Last time, we began the discussion of acquiring technology and how approaching the process from the right angle at the very beginning can make or break the entire process. In this installment, I’ll describe the process of defining your requirements the proper way.
The key component to the definition of your requirements involves defining the problem to be solved solely from a business perspective. Remember the philosophy that computers and technology are tools with which to solve business problems. They are not the solution in themselves.
So using our printer example from the previous installment, instead of saying “Our business needs a printer” you would say “We have a specific set of printing tasks to accomplish”. You would then list the various kinds of printing tasks you need. After the tasks are listed, you prioritize them. Beginning your printer search with a list or prioritized requirements will help you narrow down your field and avoid becoming distracted by features you don’t really need.
I recently had a client with a warehouse full of materials. The bags of material were spread out across the warehouse in different locations so that a quantity of one material might be filled from 5 or 6 locations. Instead of thinking “inventory” system when we discussed the software I was to develop, we listed the requirements and thought more of “location management”. They needed to know where things were and not just how many pounds.
The main rule to remember is always view the process from the business problem perspective and not the technology solution. The printer example we used is a simple one, but you can see how a complex software system would benefit from the same approach.
In the next installment, I’ll discuss what to do with your requirements when it’s time to implement the solution.
Posted on Thursday, October 11th, 2007 at 10:23 am and is filed under Computers, Marketing, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
