The Bucket List

Requirements gathering for a Data Management Program could be very daunting especially because of the high number of stakeholders. Requirement Gathering if not done properly could lead to a redundant system which no one would use. Some of the common challenges that I have come across while being part of the requirement gathering process are the following.

1. Lack of participation from all stakeholders
2. Lack of Vision for the program
3. Lack of awareness/knowledge of Data Management domain
4. Lack of preparedness on part of the project team

I have just touched the tip of the iceberg with these challenges, there could be many more from your individual experiences.( Please share them in the discussion thread below.) A lot of them are not in control of the project team but there are somethings that the project team could do in advance to mitigate those challenges. For example — Publish the Project Plan with meeting invites sent to all participants (required or optional) well in advance and request their confirmation. Prepare a vision for the program, you may choose to follow the advice in the earlier article All I want is everything and the article Simplify the design. You can conduct Workshops and 101 session in the beginning of the program to ensure everybody is on the same page and there is a shared common understanding of the domain among participants.

The last of the challenges is actually one of he major pain points and this is where the project team as a whole can sit together about 2–3 weeks prior to the commencement of the program to chalk out a well-defined plan for the next phase of the program. There are a number of things which can be done in advance — Creating a project plan, setting up meeting invites, booking conference rooms, dial in numbers, webex/livemeeting, creating a project wiki[1. A lot of open source tools like mediawiki or plone could be used here], upload all project related documents on to the wiki and many more. I have a bucket list of items and I hope people find it useful while planning for their requirement gathering sessions.

• Name for the project
• Create a Project wiki — use a opensource one like mediawiki or plone or sharepoint if you have one.
• Provide a brief description of the program on the project home page
• Upload all relevant documentation to the reference section of the wiki
• Publish list of participants with names, designation and role in the program./li>
• Publish a plan for the Requirement Gathering workshop
• Send meeting invites to all required and optional participants with a clear agenda for each scheduled meeting
• Book conference rooms, projectors, conference dial in numbers, webex/livemeeting, video conferencing, telepresence — whatever works for your organization.
• Print out large posters for the Program Vision and High Level Business Requirements for putting up in the workshops for ready reference and bringing people focus to the agenda.
• Prepare and upload pre-reads for participants for each day of the workshop in the wiki.
• Print handouts for the workshops
• Have markers, flip sheets, post-its and whatever else you may need during the workshops.( We even had treats, coffee and pizzas in our list, so add your own touch to the list)
• Prepare Story Cards for Requirement Gathering

Till now the list did not talk about anything specific to an Information Management program and honestly there is no major difference in preparedness from a regular project. However what goes into some of these items would be specific to a data management program like — Data Model, Specification, Data dictionary and architecture documents for various participating systems. Handout and pre-reads should introduce and reinforce the basic concepts of data management and setup a common terminology like data quality, MDM, master data, meta data, reference data etc for all participants. The last item on the list Prepare Story Cards is one of my favorite techniques for gathering requirements and I shall discuss them in my next article.

The advice is based on my personal experience and I have found these to be practical and have applied them in my projects and I hope you found the list useful too and it helps you with ideas for your own list. If you have any additional items which you think I have missed and you feel should be there please feel free to suggest using the comment section below and I shall update the list.