12 cbsce bw2
- 1. BW2 Concurrent Session 11/7/2012 10:15 AM "Using Business Objectives to Design Better Products" Presented by: Joy Beatty Blue Ocean Services at Seilevel, Inc. Brought to you by: 340 Corporate Way, Suite 300, Orange Park, FL 32073 888‐268‐8770 ∙ 904‐278‐0524 ∙ sqeinfo@sqe.com ∙ www.sqe.com
- 2. Joy Beatty Seilevel Joy Beatty is vice president R&D at Seilevel, a professional services company helping customers redefine how they create requirements to ensure only the most valuable features get built. Joy drives new methodologies that improve elicitation, requirements modeling, and business analysis COEs. She developed Seilevel’s BA training curriculum and provided training to more than 600 BAs through seminars, industry conferences, and Seilevel classes. She has authored several papers in refereed journals, is currently working on the IIBA® BABOK v3, and writes about Seilevel methodologies on seilevel.com, on the blog, and in a new book Visual Software Requirements.
- 3. Using Business Objectives to Launch Better Products Seilevel Training Series Joy Beatty © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved joy.beatty@seilevel.com Agenda Why we need to cut scope Business objectives defined Using business objectives to select features © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved 1
- 4. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… Blue, the BA, focused his battle strategies on ON-TIME DELIVERY © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved But today, it’s not enough, budgets are being CUT DRASTICALLY 65% of features can be cut X © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature feature X X X X X 2
- 5. We have difficult decisions to make about cutting scope © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved How do we decide what features to cut? Does the squeakiest wheel get to build their features? Does the most senior member of the team pick? Why don’t we roll the dice? Can you justify the value of your most needed features? © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved Select features that add the most value by using…. BUSINESS OBJECTIVES! 3
- 6. Agenda Why we need to cut scope Business objectives defined Using business objectives to select features © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved What’s your definition of a business objective? © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved Measureable target that specifies when the business problem is solved 4
- 7. How can we identify business objectives? Confidently ask “why” stakeholders are doing the project Understand the problem they are trying to solve BUSINESS PROBLEM BUSINESS OBJECTIVE © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved It’s okay to not know! Copyright Seilevel Focus on money Business objectives relate to “money” Reduce costs Increase revenue © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved 5
- 8. PDM Secrets Revealed Inside! Popular Business Analyst Attire Monkey Wins Elicitation Contest See inside for “Our Top BA Model” October. Issue 007 The Best & Worst of 2012 Work with a partner to identify your best and your worst business objectives © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved Cover story: Look at what companies set as the best business objectives of the year and where they simply fell flat Agenda Why we need to cut scope Business objectives defined Using business objectives to select features © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved 6
- 9. Typical business analysis approach SUCCESS METRICS PRODUCT CONCEPT PRODUCT FEATURES © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved A business objectives approach Product Concept may have changed PRODUCT CONCEPT BUSINESS PROBLEM BUSINESS OBJECTIVE FEATURES PRODUCT CONCEPT FEATURES Features may have changed © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved 1
- 10. The Business Objectives Model BUSINESS PROBLEM 3 BUSINESS OBJECTIVE 1 BUSINESS PROBLEM 1 BUSINESS OBJECTIVE 4 BUSINESS PROBLEM 4 BUSINESS OBJECTIVE 2 PRODUCT CONCEPT FEATURE 1 BUSINESS OBJECTIVE 5 FEATURE 2 BUSINESS PROBLEM 5 BUSINESS PROBLEM 2 FEATURE 3 BUSINESS OBJECTIVE 3 BUSINESS OBJECTIVE 6 BUSINESS PROBLEM 6 © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved Example of a Business Objective Model PRODUCT CONCEPT ONLINE TRAINING BUSINESS PROBLEM 1 SALES PEOPLE NOT SELLING ENOUGH PRODUCTS BUSINESS OBJECTIVE 1 BUSINESS PROBLEM 2 INCREASE SALES TO $1 MILLION SALES PEOPLE DON’T UNDERSTAND PRODUCTS BUSINESS OBJECTIVE 2 PROVIDE TRAINING TO SALES PEOPLE TRAINING SURVEYS DOWNLOADABLE TRAINING © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved 2
- 11. We can use Objective Chains to select features Evaluate the value of features or sets of features INCREASE REVENUE/ DECREASE COSTS Objective Factor Objective Factor Objective Factor Objective Factor © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved FEATURES Objective Equations Data Needs FEATURES Example of an Objective Chain Current state & Assumptions: 1000 sales reps 600 take training today 90% pass tests if trained 25% pass tests if not trained 640 pass tests today INCREASE REVENUE Increasing # sales reps who passed tests increases sales $39K increase in sales ($200 x 195 new passed tests) Taking training before tests increases # passed tests Providing training options outside classroom increases participation 835 pass tests now (90% of 900 + 25% of 100) Participation increases by 30% © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved Providing online training increases # of reps taking training 300 more reps take training (30% of 1000) ONLINE TRAINING Providing offline training increases # of reps taking training DOWNLOADABLE TRAINING $39,000 $3,600 Participation increases by 2% Feature value = $3.6K 3
- 12. Agenda Why we need to cut scope Business objectives defined Using business objectives to select features © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved Why don’t you have business objectives? Confusion about what business objectives are Management won’t tell us Stakeholders don’t want to be measured Stakeholders don’t actually agree on the objectives © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved 4
- 13. There are challenges in measuring the value of features Complaints about time to write and evaluate Data isn’t collected today Organizations don’t want to take time to measure © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved Business objectives aren’t defined to use in prioritization What if I can’t do this? © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved 5
- 14. Take-away: You get a business objectives cheat sheet! © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved What questions do you have? joy.beatty@seilevel.com www.seilevel.com/blog www.seilevel.com/resources © Seilevel, Inc. All rights reserved 6