Requirements Gathering: Boon or Bane?

Some time back I had written on how so many banks use IT Applications as electronic record keeping books. Today, I read an article by Paul Glen* titled Project Managers: Stop "gathering" IT requirements. It seems to be pointing to the same problem but some another angle.

What Paul says is probably the root cause of - what I had mentioned - why IT fails to deliver competitive advantage to users; I quote:

Requirements don't exist out in the ether just waiting to be discovered. They aren't out there whole and finished. Clients and users aren't playing an expensive game of hide-and-seek with us. Usually, the clients' pockets are empty. Most of the time, they don't exactly know what they require. And even if they do, it's in the form of incomplete and inconsistent ideas that can be only partially articulated. Projects rarely start out with clear objectives or requirements; they begin in confusion and ambiguity.

While Paul blames the IT organization for this ["... it suggests subservience or disinterested passivity on the part of the IT group"], I think the onus lies on both sides. While IT organization should be the initiator of the change to make systems enrich business processes, the business users will also have to yield and give up some territory. They need to agree to putting in automation and technology wherever it can be, even if it is at the cost of loosing some control of the process.

Lets hope .. someone's listening!! :-P

*Paul Glen is the author of the award-winning book "Leading Geeks: How to Manage and Lead People Who Deliver Technology"

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