Making Smart IT Choices: Understanding Value and Risk in Government IT Investments
Print Chapter (html)Phase 1. Understand the problem and its context
Having identified a significant need or problem, the first phase of the analysis is to understand it as fully as possible in the context in which it occurs. Three kinds of work help you reach this depth of understanding: specifying objectives, identifying and assessing the influence of all stakeholders, and then analyzing the need or problem in detail. A more detailed description of the tools that can help gain a greater understanding of the problem and its context can be found in Part Two.
The first kind of work leads you and the others involved to a clear, unambiguous, shared understanding of the business or program objective you want to achieve. This sounds simple, but in practice is often very difficult. Many projects go wrong at this very first step because those responsible assume everyone sees the situation and its resolution in the same way. This is almost never the case. Even simple programs or processes can be approached from different points of view. One participant may see a service that could be more accessible to its customers, another can look at the same service and want to reduce the cost and effort to deliver it, and still another may take an evaluator's perspective and ask what value it delivers to society.
Specify objectives
Several tools can be used to work through this essential first step of setting objectives. One simple tool is called a hopes and fears exercise in which the members of a work group individually state what they hope the project will accomplish - and what they are afraid might happen instead or as a consequence. These individual statements can be grouped into themes that often reveal multiple, competing, and sometimes conflicting objectives. Once specified in this public way, the group can work toward the specification of a shared statement of objectives. The public statement of fears works in a similar way. It represents early indications of problems that are likely to be encountered along the way.
Other tools such as visioning, service objective and strategic framework are different approaches to the same goal - a clearly specified, unambiguous, agreed-upon objective.
Identify and assess stakeholders
The next step in this phase is careful identification of all stakeholders and the ways they can influence or be affected by the project. This can be done with a stakeholder analysis exercise. Many projects limit stakeholder considerations to those who are directly involved in the development of a system. Generally, this is not enough. Those who are indirectly affected count, too. Often, this kind of analysis does a good job of identifying positive effects such as who saves time or money, but they often ignore the negative effects such as who gets lower priority or picks up the cost of making things cheaper for someone else. Stakeholder influences are also critical. Some stakeholders are essential because of their legitimacy or power regardless of how active they are in a project.
A positioning chart is a good first stakeholder analysis tool. The chart places stakeholders on a two-dimensional grid that shows both the degree to which they support or oppose the project and their importance to its success. Those stakeholders who are important to success, whether they are supporters or opponents, deserve careful scrutiny and a clear-cut plan of action. A partisan analysis can be used to uncover potential conflicts and competing interests among stakeholders.
Analyze the problem and the process
The last work in this phase is where you begin to tackle the problem itself. Often the problem or objective is embedded in at least one work process. Process analysis is therefore a good way to delve into the details, understand the bottlenecks, see the handoffs, and identify where information is added or recorded. A process map that shows this in sufficient detail is then ready for preliminary process improvement ideas where the work team identifies ways to streamline or get more value from it.
Other problems are not process oriented so they demand different tools. Self-assessment tools can help gather information about the current situation. Models of the problems can help to make your situation more explicit. Sometimes you need customer satisfaction information and may want to conduct interviews or a survey. Statistical data about some aspect of performance or cost may be needed. The important point is to analyze the problem fully, using the tools at your disposal. You will often be surprised by unexpected findings and new ways to understand cause and effect.
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© 2012 The Research Foundation of State University of New York