“Analysts report that as many as 71% of software projects that fail do so because of poor requirements management, making it the single biggest reason for project failure“ – CIO magazine, Nov 15 2005

Requirements are the key to project success. Gathering good quality requirements is critical to the design and development of software that must meet strict business and quality criteria.

CBF Consulting Requirements Analysis is intended to:

Conduct a Qualitative Analysis of client pains and needs

Build credibility and trust to establish a working relationship

Demonstrate technical competency and industry-specific manufacturing knowledge

Facilitate cross-departmental discussion and derive consensus on the primary inefficiencies and challenges

Distinguish between workflow and organizational inefficiencies

Deliverables as part of the Assessment Process:

1. Assessment Findings Summary

2. Executive Summary (Top challenges identified and possible methods of improvement)

3. Business Case

4. User Requirements (Solution requirements to meet business objectives)

5. Solution alternatives and lowest-risk migration path

6. Project Plan outlining solution path at a high level

7. RFQ/RFP development

8. Vendor proposal review with client

The assessment develops the short and long term strategies that ensure a solution is a process enabler of the company’s 21^st Century business practices such as Lean manufacturing or Six Sigma.

Point of clarity: Engagement tailored to each client needs. A qualification call with a CBF Consulting representative is required before final contract price.

CBF recommends:

The Human challenges are addressed through specific Lean, Six Sigma, TQM, and other techniques applied within the organization.

The Technical challenges are addressed through automation and solutions that specifically enable optimized process practices.

A gap often exists on software projects between the software delivered and the users’ real needs. This gap is a direct result of the processes used by development organizations to capture and gather requirements. Our process is designed to be not only cost effective, but rapidly produce results that define areas of improvement, and business value around those improvements. CBF Requirement assessments will:

• Identify the systems currently in place at each facility.
• Identify the basic system architecture in place and how to integrate those systems to meet business and operational needs.
• Identify the process flow, and the interactions with between personnel and the systems.
• Identify the overall flow of information.
• Make recommendations around feasibility, architecture and overall system design for the operational improvements as identified during the assessment.
• Identify systems that support corporate goals and initiatives, and, at the same time, provide the needed functionality to support customer centric operations.
• Understand the roadmap and strategy for how to move forward with a project.
• Determine which systems investments will have real economic and operational effectiveness and paybacks and which will not.
• Understand how information systems can help achieve business goals and objectives, implement key strategic action points, and address head-on some identified deficiencies.

A Standish Group study revealed that over two thirds of all software projects experience major problems and over one quarter outright fail. Building great software shouldn’t be this hard. A large portion of the problems in software development are a direct result of how requirements are captured and implemented.