5 things to avoid when investing in any technology – big or small
People are used to doing their homework when it comes to major purchases in their personal lives. But when it comes to major IT purchases at work - such as new software or phone systems - business owners often throw up their hands in confusion.
Be sure to use these five steps as a guide when embarking on a technological solution to any business problem.
1. No vision or charter. Before you spend any time or money making changes to your organization (either system or organizational), make sure that you have a goal or charter. Even though your vision may change during the course of the project, it’s critical to start with a team shared goal.
2. No vendor selection strategy. Most companies do not apply the same level of scrutiny in selecting a vendor as they might apply when finding a new house. When shopping for a home, most people use more than price as the primary decision-making criteria.
They prioritize attributes, such as number of rooms, size of lot, age of roof, etc. Apply the same strategy of prioritizing wants and needs when searching for the right vendor. If you don’t know what you want in a vendor, then you may need to find a consultant (if you don’t have the skill set in your company) to aid you in the selection process.
3. Coding with no documented requirements. Many companies tend to rush through the process of gathering and documenting requirements. Some companies even believe that documenting requirements is a waste of time. Developers do not have telepathic abilities. If you don’t spend the time understanding your requirements, expect to pay for it later. You’ll often end up with an implementation that is either over- or under-engineered. Also, your costs will increase because of all of the bug fixes and feature creep that will inevitably find their way into your project. Furthermore, you will most likely be far off from your original target release date of the overall product.
4. Development using waterfall practices. A “waterfall approach” is when the development of a product is performed in a sequential manner where a given step has to be completed before moving to the next. For example, development cannot begin unless all of the requirements have been documented; testing cannot begin unless all of development has been completed. If you have outsourced development and your vendor uses a waterfall product development approach, expect to pay more than their original price quote and be extremely disappointed in the results.
5. No revisit of the vision. No matter how short your development cycle is, always ask yourself, “Does this requirement support the vision of the solution?” Imagine a requirement that will cost your company $20,000, will take two months to develop, and will take resources away from another project. Then imagine that it doesn’t even support the vision! If you can’t answer the vision question and you’ve already instructed your developers to code to the requirement, then you have bigger problems and you may want to take a big step back.
Remember, just because your developers (internal or outsourced) can code fast doesn’t mean that the code will ultimately match your vision or your requirements. Spend ample time on “non-tech” matters such as defining the vision of the project and documenting requirements. Scrutinize your potential vendors and keep an eye out for waterfall practices. And resist the temptation to jump immediately into coding.
Cynthia Hipona Gray is a Senior Consultant for the Business Process Engineering practice at Grace-Hunt. She can be reached at cgray@grace-hunt.com or 508-847-0888.
WBJ Web Partners
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