The Key to Project Success: Reducing Solution Scope

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1 The Key to Project Success: Reducing Solution Scope Contact Us: Copyright 2014 Enfocus Solutions Inc. Enfocus Requirements Suite is a trademark of Enfocus Solutions Inc. All Rights Reserved. February 2014

2 Huge projects with big requirements documents can be very risky. They are complex and according to Standish Group are almost impossible to deliver on time and on budget. Often, they address too much functionality at one time, creating unnecessary complexity and waste. Using traditional methods for developing and managing requirements, it is nearly impossible to prioritize what is important and what is not. The result is that we end up falling short on delivering the value we intended. Instead of developing unruly requirements documents, the solution is to break up the scope of large projects into more manageable components called features, which can be independently discovered, developed, built, and delivered. By dividing projects into independent, manageable components that each relates to a specific goal, we are able to speed up the process of delivering value to our customers and ensuring every project achieves tangible results. According to the CHAOS Manifesto 2013 by the Standish Group, large projects are completely unnecessary, and all large projects can be broken into a series of independent components that can be worked on at the same time by different development teams. Each component helps users achieve a specific goal. It s better to develop the solution scope using components such as features and treat each component like a small project with a designated project team. It s not enough that we divide our projects into manageable components, we also need to eliminate features that provide little or no value: 20% of features are used often and 50% of features are hardly or never used. The gray area is about 30%, where features and functions get used sometimes or infrequently. CHAOS Manifesto 2013 by The Standish Group Instead of wasting time and building all of those features that are never going to be used, the key is to focus our energy on designing and building the 20% of features that give us 80% and then deciding what part of the next 30% to build that will maximize our investment and improve user adoption and satisfaction rates. Eliminating unnecessary features can have a significant impact on project success, including significantly increasing the chance of delivering the project on time, on budget, and, most importantly, on value. In this white paper, we will discuss the benefits of reducing our scope to a manageable set of independent components and provide guidelines for how to do it. Copyright 2014 Enfocus Solutions Inc. All Rights Reserved 1

3 By meticulously pruning the feature backlog, we ll be able to deliver more valuable results. According to the Standish Group, Projects with controlled scope have more than a 70% chance of success, but large projects have almost no chance of being delivered on time, on budget, and within scope, which is the criteria used by the Standish Group to determine a successful project. Not only do we have a greater chance of success, but we ll be delivering value earlier and more often than with large projects that take a long time to complete. One of the biggest benefits of developing and delivering solution components on an individual basis is that we get our return on investment (ROI) sooner than with large initiatives because we re constantly developing and delivering individual improvements to our product or service. Not only does a small project have a much greater chance of delivering value, and therefore we will get a return, but we will get the ROI faster. Project Scope vs. Solution Scope When we talk about solution scope, we need to define exactly what we re talking about, because many project managers and business analysts still seem to have a difficult time grasping the difference between project scope and solution scope. Solution scope, also known as product scope, describes the characteristics, features, or functions of the product or service that is to be built. Solution scope is all about the solution to be implemented: how it will look, how it will function, and other characteristics. Business analysts should generally be responsible for solution scope development, but product managers and project managers need play a part, as well. What the solution scope does not describe is everything defined by the project scope: the work that needs to be done to create the product or deliver the service described in the solution scope. Project managers generally prepare the project scope statement. The purpose of the solution scope is to conceptualize the recommended solution in enough detail to enable team members and stakeholders to understand which new business capabilities a solution will deliver. Written correctly, the solution scope will support the shared vision of the project. This shared vision helps the project team to stay focused during requirements elicitation, and it also helps to reduce scope creep, reduce time-todelivery, and increase user satisfaction. Using Business Objectives to Define Scope To figure out which 20% of features will deliver the most value, we need to start with a strong understanding and shared vision of what the team is trying to accomplish. The features that we decide on must perfectly align with the goals of our project, so the business objectives describing our goals need to be 100% clear. Before we can define solution scope, we must develop objectives that will guide the rest of the project. According to the ROI Methodology, published by the ROI Institute, we need to define a series of hierarchical objectives to ensure we achieve the main goal on which we re focused a high ROI. Copyright 2014 Enfocus Solutions Inc. All Rights Reserved 2

4 The business objectives need to help the project team and stakeholders understand what the project will achieve and how it aligns with overall goals of the organization. Business objectives are very important to scope, because every feature within the solution scope will have to match up to the business objectives and fit within the context of overall organizational strategy. By only focusing on features that align with business objectives, we eliminate features that do not meet the needs of our users and do not have a high chance of delivering value. Early User Involvement A key factor in solution scope development is user input and involvement. Whether or not we address user needs will majorly affect project success. According to Standish Group research, projects that lack user participation perform poorly because they lack necessary guidance. Ensuring users are involved in the early stages of the project helps keep the project aligned with user needs and also helps to avoid scope creep later on. At the beginning of every project, we need to identify the users of the product and establish its value for each user group. Establishing the value of the solution to our users is vital to the success of the project, because we need to be absolutely certain that what we build will make them happy. As we develop the solution scope, it should be validated with the help of project stakeholders. It is important to review the business value of each feature in the context of our users needs. The most efficient way to validate that the features we decide to build meet user needs is to assign a feature sponsor to each feature, making this individual responsible for representing business stakeholders or users of the feature. Every time we have a question about the feature, we know to go directly to the feature sponsor, and that the sponsor will provide us with the most accurate and complete information. To ensure we only develop and deliver the 20% of features that deliver 80% of the value to our customers, we need to perform rigorous validation activities with all relevant stakeholders. Users must be involved in these validation activities; without their input, we cannot be certain that the solution we re developing is going to deliver value. We need to validate the following aspects of each feature, eliminating features that don t match our criteria: Accuracy Does the requirement accurately reflect the needs of the stakeholders? Completeness Is any necessary information missing? Have assumptions and dependencies been clearly stated? Prioritization Is the feature necessary? Feasibility Can the feature be feasibly built? Clarity Is the requirement stated clearly, concisely, and unambiguously? Are there words in the requirements that are used that are not understood? Testability Is the requirement testable? Is it possible to develop a thorough set of tests based on the information that is provided? If not, what information is missing? Copyright 2014 Enfocus Solutions Inc. All Rights Reserved 3

5 A positive outcome of focusing on developing and delivering independent components is that it is easier to keep the promises we make to stakeholders, establishing integrity and trust. Each independently developed and delivered component allows us to save more time and serve more customers. And since we end up delivering value more often when we focus on individual components, we will see a more frequent increase in customer satisfaction. Benefits of Dual-Track Agile Development When working on small projects, an agile software development methodology usually yields the best results, according to Standish Group research. Even if the organization doesn t strictly follow agile best practices, it will benefit from incorporating some rules of agile development in the project lifecycle. In the CHAOS Manifesto 2013, many of the organizations that delivered the most value with their projects used an agile approach because it makes it easier to complete projects. In agile development, software is built in small, iterative steps by small, focused project teams, an approach conducive to developing and delivering independent components. There s more built-in interaction than with a waterfall methodology because of the scheduled stand-up meetings, demonstrations, and retrospectives, ensuring users are involved throughout the project. Whether or not you choose to follow a strict agile methodology, the CHAOS Manifesto 2013 suggests you incorporate agile practices that improve your project outcomes. To control the scope of our project, we need to perform a lot of work on the frontend to lock down the 20% of requested features that will deliver the most value. We need to perform various analyses to cut out low-value features before beginning development to reduce costs and rework. If we re following the concept of dual-track agile (see sidebar), the discovery team is constantly grooming the backlog, identifying and validating ideas in the context of the project s goals and the customer needs we re trying to meet. This way, the delivery team only receives validated user stories for high value features that are aligned with the project objectives. What is Dual-Track Agile? Dual-track scrum, or dual-track agile, is an approach to software development invented by Jeff Patton at AgileProductDesign. com that assumes there are two key tracks for agile product development: discovery and delivery. Discovery: Quickly generating validated product backlog items in collaborative sessions for Delivery Track. Delivery: Developing releasable software based on backlog items qualified and defined in the Discovery Track. This approach has tremendous merit, and when properly applied can eliminate a great deal of frustration and cost during agile development. Discovery teams focus on problems first, products second. Great product teams gain a deep understanding of what the customer problem is before defining the product and its features. The goal of discovery is to understand the customer s core problem and to validate the potential solution before building the solution. Validating ideas using code and development iterations is slow, expensive, and wasteful. In dual-track agile, the discovery team uses better validation techniques, which may consist of paper prototypes and surveys not code to validate ideas. The discovery team s job is to validate each idea and eliminate ones that do not add value for users. Following a dual-track agile approach and constantly grooming the feature backlog is helpful in deciding on solution scope because we need to ensure we re building the features that deliver the most value. Copyright 2014 Enfocus Solutions Inc. All Rights Reserved 4

6 Guidelines for Reducing Solution Scope To reduce solution scope, it is important to focus on the 20% of the requested features and functions that will deliver 80% of the value. This may mean that we have to do more work on the frontend of the project than we would have in the past. Spending a lot of time on the solution scope is a good thing though, because it reduces costs and rework, shortening development and time-to-delivery. If we follow the guidelines below, we can successfully control the size of our scope to ensure we deliver the features that provide the most value, increasing our chances of user adoption and overall project success. Develop clear and concise business objectives so the project team understands exactly what they are working to achieve, and ensure all features within scope tie into at least one business objective. Constantly refer to the business objectives during scope development to ensure features align with the goal of the project. Do not address other organizational goals or any user needs that do not align with the project s goal. Get user input directly from users and make sure stakeholders are involved throughout the project, from business requirements discovery to solution delivery. Without user validation, we don t know for sure if what we re building will make our customers happy. Analyze the impact that each feature or function within solution scope will have on other projects and other areas of the company, like its people, processes, technology, data, and governance/rules. Prioritize solution scope according to each feature s technical feasibility, business impact, related risk, complexity, cost, and ROI. Rank features against the goal of the project and only focus on the high-value features within scope that have the highest chance of meeting the project s goal. Gradually evaluate and eliminate the features with the lowest value. Validate according to feasibility, clarity, and testability. Also, validate against user needs for accuracy, completeness, and prioritization. Successfully executing small projects requires a standard infrastructure and development process, according to Standish Group research. A requirements management and business analysis tool like Enfocus Requirements Suite helps greatly in the investigation and analyses required to discover and develop a solution scope that will deliver value and achieve user adoption. All business requirements and solution scope information is easily stored in a central location for all project team members and stakeholders to access, providing an environment that encourages collaboration and communication. Vital solution scope activities like impact analysis and prioritization can easily be performed in the tool to determine the set of features that will deliver the most value to users at the lowest cost, complexity, and impact on the organization. Copyright 2014 Enfocus Solutions Inc. All Rights Reserved 5

7 About Enfocus Solutions Enfocus Solutions Inc. powers business value by capturing, managing, and leveraging the requirements of enterprise assets such as people, processes, and technology. Its flagship product, Enfocus Requirements Suite, a web-based tool, automates business analysis and requirements management best practices to enable successful product discovery and delivery. The tool is the only application available that permits and encourages stakeholders to directly contribute needs and collaborate with solutions teams. Enfocus Solutions Inc. is a privately held company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. Please contact us to learn more about how your organization could benefit from the use of our technology and services to achieve higher project success rates. Contact Information info@enfocussolutions.com Phone: (210) Toll-free: (877) Copyright 2014 Enfocus Solutions Inc. All Rights Reserved 6