Document & Business Rule Analysis

Document analysis is a means to elicit requirements by studying available documentation on existing and comparable solutions and identifying relevant information.  Business Rule Analysis analyzes the rules that govern decisions in an organization and that define, constrain, or enable organizational operations.  Both of these analysis techniques help the project manager and business analyst identify the needs of the client, as well as the requirements and expectations for the project implementation. 

Document analysis is used if the objective is to gather details of existing solutions, including business rules, entities, and attributes that need to be included in a new solution or need to be updated for the current solution. This technique also applies in situations where the subject matter experts for the existing solutions are no longer with the organization, or are not going to be available throughout the duration of the elicitation process.

Business rules analysis is a subset of document analysis and can be development in two distinct forms:

1. Operative rules are rules that the organization chooses to enforce as a matter of policy. They are intended to guide the actions of people working within the organization.  An example...An order must not be placed when the billing address provided by the customer does not match the address on file with the credit card provider.
2. Structural rules are intended to help determine when something is or is not true, or when things fall into a specific category. They are expressed as rules because they describe categorizations that may change over time.  An example...An order must have one and only one associated payment method.

The impact of changes to business rules resulting from projects can be assessed more easily when they are documented separately from the processes they detail or the means used to enforce the rules.  It is also important to question existing business rules for continuing relevance to current and projected modes of organizational operations and structure after a project implementation.  The same can be said for all other supporting system documentation. 

Project Management: Schedule Management

Organizing the various components of a project -- the activities, the resources, and the logical relationships between each -- into an effective schedule is a discipline that all project managers must develop and nurture.

Scheduling provides a detailed plan that represents how and when the project should deliver the products, services, and results defined in the project charter and project scope.  Since projects are complex endeavors, a detailed schedule results in decomposing the project into manageable phases or groupings.  Project performance can then be reported and monitored when progress is measured against these activities. 
More specifically, the schedule supports the project by allowing for:

• Time phasing of required activities
• Mobilization of resources in the most efficient manner
• Coordination of events within the project
• Early detection of risks and problems
• Resource planning
• Forecasting of time and cost estimate at complete

A schedule method provides a framework for the creation of a project schedule.

1. Critical Path Method (CPM) - determines the minimum total project duration and the earliest possible finish date, as well as the amount of flexibility in the schedule 
2. Precedence Diagramming Method (PDM) - also known as a project network diagram, PDM is a cleaner, easier to follow, graphical representation of a project's process flow 
3. Critical Chain Method - developed from the CPM approach, it considers the effects of resource alloction, resource leveling and activity duration uncertainty on the critical path

Once a particular method is chosen, a number of estimation techniques can be applied to that method to derive the project schedule

• Rolling Wave - provides a detailed decomposition of project activities for the near term, focusing on activities to be accomplished over a 60-day or 90-day timeframe
• Agile - similar in nature to rolling wave estimation, agile estimation focuses on sprint development cycles, which typically last 2-4 weeks
• PERT - uses a comnination of optimistic, pessimistic and most-likely duration estimates in determining the length of schedule tasks
• Monte Carlo Simulation - an algorithmic approach to estimation that relies, which relies on repeated iterations, each of which represent a possible project result

Over the course of my posts here, I will delve deeper into schedule management, with further discussion on schedule models, schedule methods & schedule techinques.

Corporate Performance Management: Predictive Analytics

Research shows that analytics-based decision-making can contribute significantly to the achievement of a company's strategic objectives.

Analytics is defined as the application of technology, research and statistics to solve problems, and realize opportunities, in business and industry.  It's intent is to optimize a company's performance by developing decision recommendations based on insights derived through the analysis of existing and/or simulated future data. Business managers may choose to make decisions based on past experiences or rules of thumb, or there might be other qualitative aspects to decision making; but as soon as those managers evaluate & analyze data when making decisions, they are employing analytics. Common applications of analytics include the study of business data in order to discover and understand historical patterns with an eye to predicting and improving business performance in the future

Predictive analytics can be used as a way to enhance corporate performance management because it improves the quality of decision making, as well as the speed of execution of those decisions. 

Performance management has 3 components.  At it's most basic level, performance management includes reporting on historical performance. The next level is the alignment of company strategy, resources and finances towards achieving a stated objective (i.e. the balanced scorecard).  The final step, and the one many companies forget about, is to continually improve performance by having accurate answers to questions such as:

• Which measures drive the business, and which do not?
• Why did a problem occur?
• Is there an opportunity we can take advantage of?
• Are we acting or reacting?

Once a corporate performance management solution is in place -- with KPI's that have been linked to a company's strategic objectives -- it allows companies to come together across multiple functions to look at their situation, to understand what’s happening in their business & explore why it is happening.  Predictive analytics takes the next step by applying scenario analysis to the information, helping a company predict what will happen if these trends continue.  This will allow them to determine best case scenarios that will help them achieve their strategic objectives.  Decision makers will have access to data they need, when they need it, wherever they need it, in whatever form.  It will help deliver better overall decision making capabilities in terms of sustainable shareholder value.

Predictive analytics are important because organizations are shifting away from managing by control and reacting to after-the-fact data; they’re moving toward managing with anticipatory planning. The goal is to be proactive and make adjustments before problems occur. 

Corporate Performance Management: Cut through the confusion

There’s still some confusion in the marketplace about the meaning of the term “performance management." The confusion begins with the alphabet soup of acronyms. We often see in the press and media the acronyms BPM for business performance management, CPM for corporate performance management, and EPM for enterprise performance management. Fortunately, the industry is beginning to accept the short version, and simply calling it PM — performance management.

Performance management should not be confused with the more mechanical business process management tools that automate the tasks of creating, revising, and managing workflow processes, such as customer order entry and accounts receivable.  A similar confusion arises from the term being narrowly applied to a single function or department, as in marketing performance management or IT performance management. Then there’s the historical baggage that the term carries. In the past, performance management most commonly referred to the job performance of individual employees and the methods used by the personnel and human resources functions for processes such as employee appraisals. But today, the term is widely accepted as covering enterprisewide performance — the performance of an organization as a whole. Clearly, employees’ performance is an important element in an organization’s success, but in the broad framework of performance management, human capital management is just one component.

Performance management should be thought of as a way to manage the actual performance of the firms strategic objectives.  Think of it as an umbrella concept that integrates operational and financial information into a single decision-support and planning framework. Its capabilities include strategy mapping, a strategic balanced scorecard, operational dashboards, costing (including activity-based cost management), budgeting, forecasting, and resource capacity requirements planning.

Performance management gets its power by intergrating all the managerial methodologies, such as CRM (customer relationship management), SCM (supply chain management), business process management, human capital managemnt, as well as Six Sigma and other quality initiatives, into one integrated & unified view of the business.  Unfortunately, most organizations performance management’s methodologies are typically implemented in a silo-like sequence and operate in isolation from each other. It’s as if the project teams and managers responsible for each methodology live in parallel universes. But we all know that there are linkages and inter-dependencies, so we know that they should all somehow be integrated. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle — everyone knows that the pieces should fit together. Performance management provides that missing picture of integration, both technologically and socially. It makes executing the strategy everyone’s Number 1 job. 

In the end, organizations need top-down guidance with bottom-up execution. The way to get there is through integrating methodologies and applying analytics to complete the full vision of the performance management framework.