In answer to your questions:

A “division” generally is used to refer to 1) a large subdivision of an organisation, for example, the European Division or 2) a large self governing sector of the organisation, for example, the Engineering Division.

A department tends to refer parts of the organisation created for the purposes of carrying out a specific group of tasks under one manager, for example, the Finance Department. This would not be self governing.

Product line is a single product or variations of a single product, for example, televisions could be a product line.

Product portfolio refers to the entire catalogue of products that an organisation create or sells.

A capability is something that the organisation is capable of doing, for example, the capability to produce 1,000 units of a product per minute, hour or day.

An offering is a vague term and can mean many things. Hoewever, it tends to mean some product or service that an organisation or individual is offering for sale or proposing as a solution.

Regards
John

Thanks for your comments. Frontline staff are excellent for Detailed Analysis Workshops. However, for Strategy InterviewsONLY Senior Executives will do.

Its a fallacy that they do not give interviews. Because people believe this, they do not expect it to happen and so do not set up the interviews. Apart from that, if the senior executives of the enterprise are not willing to get involved then STOP THE PROJECT! It is pointless proceeding with a project for which the direction and strategy has not been defined by senior management. This one of the major reasons why so many IT projects continue to fail!

If the captain of the ship is not willing to take time to tell the crew what the ship is meant to be doing and where it is meant to be going, then it is not up to the crew to guess the destination, set sail and hope for the best.

A mind mapping tool can be useful, however, the products of these interviews have got to be formal business models. At the very least they must result in a Function Model and a Logical Data Model. Remember, the analysis is not complete until the models have been built.

Again, thank you.
Regards
John

This Rule of Thumb on numbers was put in because it has been proven to work. It prevents wasting the time of senior executives. Senior executives not included in Strategic Interviews should be included in a scoping session. I will cover this more when I talk about ‘Slaying Dragons’. When choosing your senior executives use the 80/20 Rule of the Parato principle.

Front line staff are definitely not suitable for strategic interviews, exactly for the reasons I gave. They do not have the strategic view nor are they empowered. They will definitely have great ideas about how to make the existing systems better. However, this is the ‘Achilles Heel’ of all information gathering as it concentrates on trying to make existing systems better. What it does NOT do is define WHAT the enterprise OUGHT to be doing in the first place. The existing systems may well not support this ‘ought’!

Front line staff can definitely contribute to Detailed Analysis Workshops.

Longer meetings are split up into one hour sessions. However, when you are trying to get into the diary of a very busy senior executive, it is better to do it once and get it right.

Totally disagree about recording devices and stifling conversation! I have been using this technique with senior executives around the globe for over 20 years now and it has NEVER stifled the conversation. These people are not afraid to say what they mean, quite the reverse, it is there ability to speak out and say exactly what they need that has taken them to their positions. However, I would always, as a matter of courtesy and policy, guarantee that the recording was only for use by the analysis team.

Also remember, everything that each or the seniors executives says in their interview, whether recorded or not, will be shared with the other senior executives at the Executive Feedback session at the end of the Strategy Stage of the SDLC

Recording conversations is an absolute MUST as it prevents anything being lost and the need to call on the busy executive again.

Again, thanks for the feedback.

Regards
John

I like to use a mind mapping tool to distill the interview. My clients love it.

Although I agree with most of the suggestions in this article there are a few points which I believe are ill advised.

“Whatever the size of the organisation, interviewing numbers greater than 12 will give diminishing returns – great extra effort expended with little extra to show for it.”

Rules of thumb are helpful but perhaps a better rule would be to interview as many senior executives as you can, all departments and all functions (major business processes).

“Many projects fail because interviewees for early in-depth interviews are chosen at too low a level in the business, generally people with detailed “hands on” knowledge of existing systems. Such people are (generally) unsuitable for in-depth interviews, as they tend to see the business only in terms of the current system(s) and procedure. They seldom appreciate the underlying Business Functions and lack a vision of what ought be happening.”

Make sure you sit with the people on the front lines. Sales, customer support, production etc. These folks will give you the “facts’ the way things really work with all the exceptions and workarounds, while many others will describe the text book or ideal perspective. Also make sure you get the history of the organization because buried inside the history are the successes and failures that may impact your project.

“These interviews will typically last between two and four hours depending on the size of the organisation and scope of the project.”

Any meeting of more than one hour is an interrogation. Interviews should be one hour. If you need more details schedule another interview.

“Ideally, all in-depth interviews should be captured by an audio recording and a manuscript produced from which all the analysts in the project team can work.”

This stifles the conversation. Do not bring recording devices into any meeting.

The KPIs for the current ‘As Is’ business are already known. You do not have to build an ‘As Is’ model to find them out, they are what is happening in the business as it is today.

The question is, “Is the business currently doing what is is supposed to be doing?” You cannot answer this question with Process Models. If you have not built the Business Function Model, then you cannot answer the question at all.

The Function Model is a definition of WHAT it is that the business OUGHT to be doing.

From this model you can straight away build ‘To Be’ Process Models, define their KPIs and compare them to the KPIs in the business as it is today. Thus showing the improvement to be had over the ‘As Is’.

Even if the ‘To Be’ KPIs do not show a big improvement re FTEs, etc, the business will be much better off as it will now be doing what it OUGHT to be doing.

The Function Model is essential, as you cannot derive ‘To Be’ processes from the ‘As Is’. I explain why in ‘Tuning Processes is a Waste of Time’

I hope that this helps.

Kind Regards
John

I work in the filed of Business process mgmt for a few years, and would have practical question related to as is process modelling and KPI.

We, as BPM’s are supposed to show to our mgmt effects of the business process improvement. So, we have to define KPI for this new/revised/remodelled process (if TO BE process will bring us some savings in: FTEs, costs, time…).
That brings us that we have to have all indicators for as is process, and to compare it with to be process…am I right?
The question is how we can define KPI’s if we do not have as is model /its indicators produced. Do you have any practical suggestion on how to avoid too much time on as is modelling for the KPI purposes?
Thank you in advance,
Amela

That purpose of the Function Model is to define what functions ought to be in the the business area being analysed, it defines the core activities of the business or business area in question. It is the model that portrays senior management’s definition of WHAT the business (or business area) OUGHT to be doing, independent from who does it, how it is done or the sequence in which it is done.

The Function Model or Function Catalogue is a unique, ‘non-redundant’ (i.e. no duplication) listing of the core activities of the enterprise. It is the only model that is non-redundant. All other models (e.g. Process Models, Procedure Models and DFDs) can have endless duplication as each one makes multiple use of Functions, for example, any number of Processes can contain the same Business Function.

So, the context of the Function Model is that it defines the business. Because it is a unique catalogue of the core activities of the business, it is probably the most powerful business model that a business can have.

I hope that this helps. I expand on all of this in my eBook IMM Function Modelling.

Kind Regards
John