Client: A North American Mortgage Services Company

Duration: Ten days

Objectives:

• Firstly, engage senior executives to establish a clear vision and direction for the project and fully define the objectives, scope and high-level requirements for the project.
• Secondly, produce a sufficiently detailed Requirements Specification to enable the software vendor to design, develop and launch the application within a four month window.

Participants:

• Line of Business Executives
• Project Sponsor
• IT Leaders

Accomplishments:

• High-level Requirement Spec and Scope document defined in 3 days.
• All stakeholders in agreement with specific vision, direction and scope of the project.
• Detailed Requirements Definition completed in 6 days.

Project Impact, Results and Success Factors

1. It was a high-visibility, high-impact project for the company—a priority that was communicated to the entire company, not just the project team.
2. Aggressive delivery was expected with only four months to launch the application.
3. The project was 'business-driven' with management commitment and ownership from the very beginning, and throughout.
4. The software vendor was involved throughout analysis and design.
5. The rigorous business requirements process significantly streamlined the technology integration effort.
6. The requirements documentation was used to develop a more detailed functional design document than is typically done - requiring only a single one-day joint design/review session with the software vendor. "In the past, technology integration of this magnitude would have taken two or three weeks. This time it happened in a day."

Customer comments:

“We had the business people in the room for the Requirements Discovery Sessions -- and they stayed in the room through the building and implementation of the system. We had weekly meetings to ensure we stayed on course. There was a strong link between business and IT, which is unusual. The business people owned it, and they stayed engaged.” J. A., Vice President of Credit and Executive Sponsor

“IAG brought a proven methodology, and their documentation was absolutely first rate. There is nothing like working with experts.” P. S., Associate Director of Architecture

“IAG was critical in helping us get to consensus. They brought their methodology and business requirements expertise to the table, as well as their senior facilitation experience.” B. M., Director IT Practices and Disciplines

"With the help of IAG, we took a hard look at what we were designing and worked to future proof it. We kept the long-term vision front and center during development. And we worked with constant consideration for re-use opportunities.” W. M., Lead Business Analyst on the project