Business Analysis

Requirements maturity is the single most important factor in the determination of overall system development effectiveness. Yet, it is one of the most difficult aspects of any project to get right. Starting with the 1995 Chaos report, statistics prove over and over again that poor requirements contribute to or are the sole contributing factor to project failures, rework and cost overruns. Take a look at these facts:

Requirements problems have been proven to contribute to 20-25% of all project failures. The average project overran its budget 189% and its schedule by 222%—Chaos Report/The Standish Group 1995

Requirements Errors account for 70% to 85% of rework—Liffingwell, 1997

Poor requirements account for 71% of project failures—Grady, 1999

Between 40 and 60 per cent of all software defects can be attributed to bad requirements—Abbott, 2001

Only 34% of projects expected to finish on time; 52% had proposed functionality; 82% had time overruns; 43% had budget overruns—The Chaos Chronicles/The Standish Group 2004

Flawed Requirements Trigger 70% of Project Failures—Infotech Research, 2005

Gaps in the Technical Requirements accounted for more than 70% of program problems—United States Government Accountability Office, 2008

As an operational definition, good requirements are cohesive, complete, consistent, correct, feasible, modifiable, necessary, prioritized, reusable, testable, traceable, verifiable and unambiguous. If requirements aren’t captured to this high standard, rework, cost overrun or project failure is the natural consequence.

A proven, effective, real world approach to Business Requirements Analysis is one of the most significant factors in ensuring the success of any system development project. A defined and consistent method that is easily learned and easily applied leads directly to increased IS productivity and reduced systems development and maintenance costs.—The Gartner Group

The Information Architecture Group (IAG Consulting) located in New Castle, Delaware is one of the 28 founding members of the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA). They are a heavy contributor to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK) and a thought leader in requirements maturity best practices. In 2008, IAG conducted a survey of over 100 larger companies with development projects in excess of $250,000 where significant new functionality was delivered to the organization. The average project size was $3 million. The survey resulted in the publication and distribution of their first Business Analysis Benchmark: The Impact of Business Requirements on the Success of Technology Projects, written by Keith Ellis, Vice President Marketing & Strategic Alliances, IAG Consulting. In Q2 of 2009, just under 550 companies chose to participate in a second survey, the Business Analysis Benchmark 2009: Path to Success, leading to 437 qualifying responses. The intent of this survey was to “assess the link between an organization’s maturity in requirements definition and management and project outcomes."

According to IAG’s 2009 findings, “Requirements maturity may be more important than any other single factor in the determination of overall development effectiveness." Not only are high requirements maturity organizations noticeably better at servicing the needs of the business, they perform nearly twice as well on every measure of development productivity:

• On time delivery
• On budget delivery
• Percentage of projects delivering the required functionality
• Percentage of projects deemed successful

IAG believes if an IT organization:

• is continuously late in delivery,
• is continuously well over budget,
• continues to deliver only one third of projects successfully; and,
• consumes unnecessarily large amounts of its resources in maintenance rather than delivering substantially new functionality to the business,

a crisis of confidence in the leadership of this IT organization will eventually occur.

How I Can Help You

If you are struggling with your project success rate, business analysis processes and/or requirements maturity, let me know so I can help you. Even before there was an IIBA or BABOK, I established and managed a Business Analysis Center of Excellence for Pfizer's R&D Division. Since then, I've not only been a member of the IIBA, but have also developed over 40 hours of video training materials for CARQUEST Technologies, LLC and trained over 100 business analysts in the six rudimentary BABOK Business Analysis areas of knowledge along with the associated activities, tasks, required skills and underlying competencies necessary to be effective in their execution. The six areas of knowledge are:

Victor Font Consulting Group, LLC Business Analysts are highly adept in the following skills:

Two of the books I've authored The Ultimate Guide to the SDLC and Winning With The SDLC: Requirements (Series Volume 2), are either dedicated to or have a section dedicated to Business Analysis (i.e. The Ultimate Guide to the SDLC, Chapters 3-5). In these books I teach the activities, tasks and required skills to develop the competencies to build mature requirements to reduce rework, lower project costs, improve project success rate and deliver a superior product that meets or exceeds stakeholder expectations.

When it comes to Business Analysis, you will not find anyone that can accomplish your project goals better than our team. Give us a call so we can discuss your project. We'll hit the ground running and deliver superior results.