Tag: Peter Brooks

Fresh Links Sundae – March 16, 2014 Edition

http://www.dreamstime.com/-image9076544Fresh Links Sundae encapsulates information I have come across during the past week. Often they are from the people whose work I admire or resonate with me. I hope you will find these ideas thought-provoking at the minimum. Even better, I hope these ideas will, over time, help my fellow IT pros make better decisions, be awesome, and kick ass!

Bob Lewis believes that initiatives like Cloud, Shadow IT, and the digital enterprise are trends CIOs cannot do much to affect, but still have to respond to. Through a 3-part series, he suggests the actions that IT should consider taking. Storming around (Part 3) More storm warnings (Part 2) An imperfect storm (Part 1) (IS Survivor Publishing)

IT is well positioned to make positive contributions to many aspects of the business operations. Michael Hugos suggests how a CIO can collaborate effective with the COO through supporting business agility. The CIO & COO Relationship (Enterprise Efficiency) Michael Hugos

Some IT organizations believe that providing quality services has to equate to higher costs. Using a recent personal experience, Stuart Rance explains how quality services can still be provided without needing to cost more. Excellent service doesn’t have to cost more (The ITSM Review)

Automating a process can sometimes create tricky ownership issues. Ryan Ogilvie reminds us that some level of oversight and accountability are still required even after a process had been automated. Process Automation – Enter the Numbers and Push the Button (Service Management Journey)

Many leaders find it difficult transitioning into a new organization due to the pressure to act quickly and deliver rapid results. Lon Zanetta outlines the keys to success in transitioning into a new leadership role. Leadership Transitions: Focus on the Human Touch (CIO Leadership Council)

The Snowden/NSA incident highlighted the reality that no amount of security can truly deter disgruntled personnel or whistle blowers. To strengthen the security in your own environment, Peter Brooks recommends a list of action items which include governance and investment in people and open source technologies. Security after Snowdon – what do I need to do? (The ITSM Review)

Analyzing a business process is a major part of a business analyst’s work. Laura Brandenburg discusses various approaches to analyze a business process effectively. 3 (and only 3) Reasons to Use BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation) (Article 1) How to Analyze an “As Is” Business Process (Article 2) How to Analyze a “To Be” Business Process (Article3) (Bridging the Gap)

Some are advocating that estimating is not an essential activity and producing the result is what matters. Glen Alleman explains why estimating is not just nice to have – it is essential for a credit job. Back To The Future (Article 1) Some more answers to the estimating questions (Herding Cats)

Many of us have difficulties in getting an idea or initiative off the ground. Denise Brosseau recommends several easy-to-implement techniques that can help you gain support for your initiatives. 3 Smart Change Agent Techniques to Get Your Business on Track (Salesforce Blog)

Part of leadership practice is to make your supporters feel supported by their leader. Marshall Goldsmith illustrates a single skill that set the great leaders apart from the near great. The Skill That Separates (Marshall Goldsmith Personal Blog)

Book Review: An Integrated Requirements Process by Peter Brooks

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-tablet-pc-computer-book-image23624210Summary: Compelling recommendations for instituting an integrated requirement management process in any enterprise

After managing IT projects and practicing IT service management for a number of years, the idea of having an integrated requirement process (IRP) for an enterprise intrigues me. I am certified in ITIL and have studied IIBA’s BABOK and ISACA’ COBIT frameworks. I was particularly interested in reading Peter’s recommendations for managing enterprise requirements.

The author proposed IRP based on the premises that:

  • Requirements are corporate assets and should be methodically captured, tracked, managed, and re-used for the benefit of the enterprise.
  • Many frameworks describe the needs of capturing and managing requirements but do not go into more details on how requirements should be properly captured and managed
  • An unified view of the requirement is necessary and can be leveraged by other IT frameworks and activities

Why would you want to read this book and examine the proposed process? I think the book is relevant if you are looking for:

  • A starting point into a more organized and formalized requirement management process for your organization
  • Ways to capture requirements from discrete projects into a centralized enterprise repository and to leverage their re-use
  • Recommendations for integrating requirement management more seamlessly with other IT activities/lifecycles such as application development, business analysis (BABOK), ITSM (ITIL), and IT governance/audit (COBIT).

How would this book help you? After reading the book, I think you will be able to:

  • Define or design a requirement management process for your organization. For example process flow, roles and responsibilities, recommended CSFs and KPIs
  • Define or design categories and statuses to enable a requirement managing workflow for logging, tracking, and re-use of the requirements
  • Define or design the necessary measurements for evaluating the IRP’s effectiveness
  • Understand or identify the necessary controls for governing and sustaining IRP
  • Understand or identify the integration points between IRP, BABOK, ITIL, and COBIT
  • Understand or identify supporting tool requirements

In summary, Peter has provided some compelling reasons and recommendations for instituting an integrated requirement management process in any enterprise. The book has defined all the necessary elements for designing, implementing, and governing the IRP. Peter also has taken a great deal of care by adding plenty of worked examples to help explain the process. I believe his recommendations provide an excellent starting point for those who are ready to manage requirements as corporate assets, rather than just one-time project occurrences.