Developing high-impact: requirements for wireless applications.

Step 1: The interview process.

SOFTWARE FOR MOBILE DEVICES can give employees in the field more up-to-date information, reduce the use of paper, and help them more easily communicate with centralized resources. But, if you can't find commercial software that fits your needs, you might have to build the application yourself.

Clunky interfaces, poorly targeted functionality, and underdeveloped administrative tools can all lead to applications that are difficult to use and manage, Add the costs of deploying a wireless application to the field, and the expected benefits may never materialize. The best way to avoid headaches down the road is to utilize a well defined business requirements analysis process before you write any technical requirements or code.

In this article, I explore the concepts behind a high-impact requirements analysis (HIRA). The process I describe utilizes many of the traditional requirements-gathering steps, such as interviews and requirements definition; but you're also developing visual scenario flows, having process owners perform impact analysis, and refining requirements to focus on high-impact functionality. The focus is on defining business processes and functionality, not on detailed technical requirements. In this article, I pay particular attention to the first step in the HIRA; the interview process. The interviews are important because you'll base the rest of your application design on the information you gather in this step.

The HIRA processes is analogous to creating an architectural drawing of a building, and the next step is to create the detailed blue print (i.e., traditional requirements gathering). You want to make sure you aren't spending time and resources building the wrong application. An extreme example would be building a full-blown reporting engine when all you really need is a simple reporting capability. Through the HIRA analysis, what may have initially seemed like requirements for a full reporting engine may reveal itself to be simple report.

After you complete the HIRA, you can start on the traditional development phases: writing detailed application requirements, building prototypes, etc. Your key strength going into the development process is that you're basing your decisions on well defined requirements that have a high level of buy-in from the people who'll be using your application.

The process

Developing a HIRA typically follows five phases. You start with interviews and, over the course of the process, end up with a prioritized list of functionality. Figure 1 shows the basic steps of executing a HIRA.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

In the first step, you conduct interviews that focus on gaining an understanding of the functional environment where the application will operate. In the second step, you analyze the business process data collected from the interviews. When you complete the analysis, you can build basic requirements and application utilization scenarios. The result is an outline of potential application functionality. The goal is to represent what's possible so the business process owners can determine what will have a high impact. In the fourth step, you help the business process owners perform an impact assessment. This lets them indicate what potential functionality will have the highest business impact. The last step is to analyze the assessment and prioritize the application functionality.

The process results in a clear understanding of what major functional components you should build into the application. You don't end up with detailed requirements such as data dictionaries, field names, detailed process maps, etc. But, you have something just as valuable, if not mureso: a clear understanding of the functionality and the top-level business requirements.

Step 1: Conduct the interviews

The process begins with interviews of key process owners. The goal is to gather the data you need to analyze and determine the potential functionality of the application. It's also The first step to involving the business process stake holders in prioritizing application requirements.

The interview process takes place in at least two stages. The first stage focuses on a broad set of interviews to gain a basic understanding of the business environment. It also gives you guidance on where to focus attention and educate the interviewers. Additional rounds of interviews emphasize key topics related to the application. The process stops when the interviewing team is confident all the key processes have been discussed and are understood.

It is also important to use a 360 degree interview process (figure 2). For example, if you're building a data-entry application for warehouse inventory management, your list of interviewees should include the staff performing the inventory management, mid-level department managers, supply chain inventory management personnel, systems administrators responsible for the application, and executives responsible for the warehouses. Everyone from information technology staff to key executives are involved.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

During the interviews, it's important to focus on understanding what the major responsibilities and actions are for the individuals and their departments. Having a solid understanding of the day-to-day responsibilities of the individuals using the application gives you valuable insight into how the functionality can impact their specific work. Table 1 outlines suggested discussion topics. The personnel conducting the interviews should walk away with a comprehensive understanding of the business processes and environment where the wireless application will be deployed.

It's critical to ensure that consistent, high-quality, and comprehensive interview data has been collected. This data provides the foundation for steps two through five of the process. From this data, you can determine what kind of application we should build which then drives the formal project development process.

Laying the groundwork

The strength of the HIRA process is that it involves key business process owners early in the analysis and lets them define their requirements and determine business impact. At the end of the HIRA process, you've created a number of critical elements:

* Defined processes for business areas where the wireless application will be deployed

* High-level functional application requirements

* Functional impact ratings by business process owners

* Functionality findings and recommendations

In the next article, I'll explore the second step of the HIRA process: defining and analyzing business processes related to the application. In this step, you start to build on the foundation of interview data you collected in the first step.

MOBILE BUSINESS BENEFITS

Spending the time up-front to gather information about the how your wireless application will be used is well worth the time and effort. Not only does it let you focus your effort on the functionality with the highest impact, it gets the key business process owners involved from the beginning, so they have a stake in helping you create a successful application.

Noel Jerke is an author and independent consultant with a focus on helping companies better manage information technology, Clients have included the American Diabetes Association, Martha Stewart, and the Air Force. [e-mail].