Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Tech: business/technical engagement always problematic

I may have said this before, but I’m not above reiterating it: there is too often a disconnect between business requirements and technical delivery.

In an ideal world, the business requirements are specified, and the technical team delivers.

In a real world, the technical team delivers something, the business team finds it’s not quite what they wanted because of the way the technical environment structures the business information, and there are several more iterations to go through.


A few weeks ago, I pushed to have access to the technical environment, although I was going to be specifying business requirements, as oppposed to delivering on them. It was a struggle to get the technical access, but they eventually acceded.
Benefits:

a) the technical environment frees me from the shackles of the technical team’s limitations, including resource availability;
b) without navigating the business information within the technical environment, I couldn’t get a clear picture of what was achievable, and broadly how to achieve it.

Now I know better what to tell the technical guys, so they don't get it wrong. And I push onto them the technical issues that I can see need resolving.

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