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The premiere software and product delivery event. June 6–10 Orlando, Florida
Closing the Gap Between Business and IT Smart practices are the key to successful collaboration
Ivar Jacobson Founder and Chairman, Ivar Jacobson International [email protected]
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The Potential Transformative Role of IT
It is hard to imagine a successful business today that is not driven by a need to
innovate, enabled by technology
– Publishing
– Entertainment
– Communications
– Banking
– Insurance ...
Consider publishing - the greatest growth
is coming from e-Books
–Those companies without an e-Book strategy will
likely not survive
–Those with a superior e-Book strategy will
prosper
–Market leaders will change
Technology creates the
opportunity for disruption and
enables new business models
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The Gap between Business and IT
Business and IT treat each other as
adversaries
– Distrust and lack of cooperation prevent
teamwork
They do not communicate in the same
language
– IT talks in technical terms, not in the
language of the business
They do not have the same goals
– Business often sets goals for IT that make
success impossible
Innovation and creativity cannot occur
because the two sides cannot work
together
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IT:
•Waits for the Business to tell it what to
do; doesn’t proactively offer solutions
•Lacks deep knowledge of the business,
hampering innovative solutions
•Technology churn causes loss of focus
on business value
•They often measure the wrong things
rather than the better, faster, cheaper
and happier metrics
•IT team members often do not respect
each others’ contributions
The Business:
•Fixes cost & schedule without
understand what problem they are
solving
•Often unclear about real needs;
demands things that it doesn’t need &
never uses
•Won’t invest time in understanding
needs; blames failure on IT
•Regards software development skill as
a commodity
•Won’t support IT projects with the right
business resources
Why Can’t We All Just Work Together?
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• The traditional model is a “consumer-supplier” relationship
– But IT can’t go find other business when it finds the terms of trade fair
– And the Business couldn’t find other suppliers who would accept those
terms of trade
• The Business is not IT’s customer
– The real customer of both is the
customer of the Business
– It is the satisfaction of those customers
that leads to success or failure
– Trying to pretend that the Business is
the customer simply creates confusion
about the real goal
The Traditional Model for the Business-IT Relationship is Broken
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A Better Model for Business-IT: A Real Team
Think about a soccer team:
– Everyone is focused on winning
– Even though they may play different positions and have different skills, they can all
advance the ball if it comes their way
– They win or lose together, and everyone must work together to win
In order to win:
– Everyone must understand the rules of the game
– Everyone must be good at their position
– Everyone must have an understanding of,
and respect for, what their fellow team
members contribute
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Key Attributes for Real Team Success
Common, shared objectives
Trust and respect for each others’ contribution
Consensus on how the team will work together to
achieve those objectives
Specialization of skills, built around a common set of
core skills
Business agility
We need practices that
bridge the gap
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There are different kinds of practices…
Specialist business practices that help run the
business.
Specialist software development practices that help
software developers develop good software.
Shared practices that
bridge the gap.
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…that need to come together….
…to help people work together
The practices
support and
complement each
other rather than
compete and
interfere.
The practices
come together to
form a
collaborative way-
of-working.
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Practices break the knowledge into bite-sized chunks…
Untangle process into independent practices
– A practice provides a way to systematically and verifiably address a specific
problem or issue.
– It has a clear goal and a way of measuring success.
– A practice is an end to end thread. Practices are the elements to make a lean
process.
That make the important knowledge accessible
And focus on the touch points between teams and individuals
Things to Produce
Things to Do
Competencies Patterns
A Practice
…and focus on the key knowledge needed to help the people involved learn how to work together
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Practices bring people together
People can appreciate each others expertise
People without formal training can make a
sensible start
They create an awareness of the
competencies and skills needed on the team
They give structure to the knowledge within a
specialty
They enable specialists to work together
Business
IT
Other
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Things To
Produce
Key Concepts
Things To Do Skills Needed
The “Essentials” are in the cards
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Be smart with knowledge
Individuals just need enough to get the job done
– Not the whole composed process
– Just the bits needed for the specific point in time
– Context sensitive to the problem at hand
– Focused on the essentials
Teams just need enough to work together
– Not the whole composed process
– Just the touch points…
– …and the collaborative activities
– Focused on collaboration and team working
– Focused on bridging the gap
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Even experts need guidance!
Especially when working on the unfamiliar
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How many practices are there?
Hundreds… at least!
Risk Management
Financial Planning
Business Modeling
Business Process Re-Engineering
Prince2
Product-Line Engineering
User Experience Design
Benefits Realization
Systems Engineering
Test-Driven Development
Product Development
User Stories Scrum Retrospectives SOA
Use-Case Driven
Development
Risk-Driven Iterative
Development
Use-Case Modeling
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Where to start?
Bu
ild
Tru
st
Sh
are
d
Lan
gu
ag
e
Sh
are
d
Ob
jecti
ves
Wo
rk
To
geth
er
Bu
sin
ess
Ag
ilit
y
We’ve found these practices are useful for
most teams
Iterative Essentials
Use-Case Essentials
Product Essentials
IT Business Dashboard
Business Feature Teams
Business Use-Case Essentials
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Iteration Essentials – Smart with Projects
Most companies still follow the waterfall approach
Bus Modeling
& Requirements
High-Level
Design
Detailed-Level
Design
Coding
Testing
Crash!
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Iterative Essentials – Deliver Business Value Incrementally
• Build a skinny system (the “architecture”) to demonstrate that you
have eliminated all critical risks
• Start from a model of the Business, build executable code
• Add more capabilities on top of that skinny system
Skinny System Full Fledged System
Focus on producing working software.
Think big, build in many steps 18
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An example of working together, iteratively
Understand
Needs
Explore
Possible
Solutions
Evaluate
Proposed
Solutions
Confirm
Business
Viability
of Selected
Solution Scope &
Plan
Iteration Scope &
Plan Phase
Inception Phase Business & IT
identify possible
ways to meet
needs
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Refine
Solution
Specification
Develop
Increment
Evaluate
Results
Confirm
Technical
Viability
of Solution Scope & Plan
Iteration Scope &
Plan Phase
Elaboration
Phase
Another example of working together, iteratively
IT and the
Business
confirm that the
“skinny system”
will work
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Traditional requirements approaches (e.g.
Features) lack connection to business value
– Use Case provide a natural connection
Deriving Test Cases from Use Cases
provides a direct connection to business value
– Making sure that nothing of value is missed
Driving Development work from Use Cases
ensures that “features” don’t creep in
– Everything ties back to things the business
needs
Use Cases connect development and testing
with business value
Use-Case Essentials – Providing the Link to Business Value
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Product Essentials – Smart with Release Planning
Most solutions require a number of releases to
reach the goal
– Each release must demonstrate value and advance
toward toward the goal
Releases are co-determined by business
objectives and technology constraints
– They must be balanced
Business and IT must have a long term partnership
– Sound technology investment requires consistency
between vision and execution over a long period of
time
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Business Feature Teams – Smart With Business Change
People from Business and IT should work together as one team
– Common goals, shared Success - win or lose together
– No “Business side” and “IT side”
– No “we” and “they” - only “us”
Business Feature Teams provide the common ground
– Form teams around a “business feature” -
something that delivers value to the
business
– A “business feature” is usually described
by one or more use case modules
– The team is cross-functional, with
contributors each possessing different
skills
– The team is measured on their success
delivering business value
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IT Business Dashboard – Smart with Measures
People look at the wrong things:
– Things that are easy to measure but meaningless
– “Checking boxes” rather than results
– Few, if any, qualitative measures
And present them in the wrong way:
– Confusing and contradictory data
– Meaningful only to specialists - and maybe not even to
them!
– Unclear purpose
– Point data and not trends
– Hard to understand and use to make decisions
To close the gap, how well you are doing needs to be
measured in business terms
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• Business is concerned with:
– Better
– Faster
– Cheaper
– Happier
• Present measures that:
– Eliminate seasonal fluctuations
– Graph with obvious trends
– Provide simple meters for compliance
– Are focused on results
– Include quantitative and qualitative measures
IT Business Dashboard – Smart with Measures
Better Faster
Business IT Dashboard
Communicate the effectiveness of IT in a way that
everybody can understand
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Business Use-Case Essentials – Smart with Business Modeling
Two extremes:
Traditional business modeling widens the gap
Mr Technology
No business
model, no
requirements,
just code
Mr
Business Architect
Thou shalt model everything until it’s one
person, one place, one time.
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What is needed to bring the practices together?
Practice Each practice contains practice-specifics to add to the kernel.
The kernel defines a very small “empty process”
Kernel
Practices “slot” into the common
kernel.
Way of Working
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Closing the Gap needs precise, shared practices
Team building through shared practices – the only way forward!
A single team united by
shared objectives, shared
practices, and shared results
Two teams separated by
their way-of-working.
Two teams using shared
practices to work
together.
1 2 3
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Summary
IT can transform businesses, but not the way we run it now
IT and Business should play on the same team - to win!
Culture and tradition stand in the way - we need a new way of working!
Practices provide a simple, easy to adopt way to change the way of working
– Modular - choose what you need
– Just what is needed - minimize change
– Just the “essentials” - not too much detail
A few key practices are usually all that
is needed
The most important thing is to take the first step:
Let IT and Business play together on the same team… … and WIN!
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