The Hidden Waste in Software Projects
Aug/24/2020 Filed in: Process Mapping
It’s invisible, yet it’s right in front of you. It’s invisible, yet it’s the most common topic covered in most of your project meetings. It’s invisible, yet everyone knows it’s a problem. It’s invisible, yet you’re unwilling to make any effort to improve visibility.
It’s the most costly impediment to project success. It negatively impacts every phase of the software development life cycle (SDLC). And it continues to rob productivity and profitability throughout the entire life cycle of the software product.
Invisible Ignorance
What's invisible is all the time spent in project meetings talking about business process details. It's a direct consequence of undocumented or insufficiently documented business processes. Typically, the majority of business process knowledge resides inside a few employees' heads. Whether or not that information is accurate or not is anyone's guess. Regardless, too many project meetings are spent learning about, explaining, and arguing about process details that could have been identified, clarified, confirmed and documented earlier in the project by skilled business process analysts.
Insufficient or No Business Process Documentation
The lack of sufficiently defined and documented business processes causes waste and delay throughout the SDLC. Nobody seems to recognize how much time is spent learning about, debating, clarifying, and confirming details about the business processes the software is intended to improve through automation. And the reason it’s a hidden waste is because nobody measures meeting efficiency. The entire management hierarchy negligently assumes their subordinate managers always run efficient, effective meetings. If managers were truly proficient in running efficient and effective meetings, then why do most of us generally hate meetings?
Furthermore, nobody seems to recognize that problems with software requirements are generally caused by an inadequate, imprecise, and inaccurate understanding of the business processes. Nobody seems to recognize that software testing takes longer than it should because testers often get bogged-down trying to understand the business processes. Nobody seems to understand how difficult, time-consuming, and inefficient training turns out to be because software trainers lack detailed knowledge about business process details.
Waste Qualified and Quantified
What's Discussed During Meetings:
The Type of Process Details Discussed:
Quantifying the Waste
The cost of this waste adds up quickly. Using a conservative estimate we come up with a six-figure sum.
Conservative Estimate:
The more people on the project, or the longer the planned schedule, the more expensive.
The Impact of the Waste
Prove Me Wrong – See for Yourself
Unless you’re looking for it, you’ll hardly notice. But once you do begin to deliberately pay attention to what goes on in meetings, you’ll become a believer. A good way to find out is to “audit” some project meetings. Assign an unbiased person to “audit” project meetings. Give them a quick reference document or checklist to help them recognize process discussions. Do this for a week or two.
How to Solve the Problem
Start by making a commitment to maturing your business process documentation and management capabilities. Part of that commitment is to include business process discovery and documentation as a deliberate, early phase in the lifecycle of every software development or upgrade project. Don’t scrimp on the time allocated to the work. And be sure to assign the work to business process analysts who have the knowledge, skills, and experience to adequately identify, define, and document business processes.
The more time spent on business process mapping at the beginning of the project, the less time and money you’ll waste over the life of the project.
It’s the most costly impediment to project success. It negatively impacts every phase of the software development life cycle (SDLC). And it continues to rob productivity and profitability throughout the entire life cycle of the software product.
Invisible Ignorance
What's invisible is all the time spent in project meetings talking about business process details. It's a direct consequence of undocumented or insufficiently documented business processes. Typically, the majority of business process knowledge resides inside a few employees' heads. Whether or not that information is accurate or not is anyone's guess. Regardless, too many project meetings are spent learning about, explaining, and arguing about process details that could have been identified, clarified, confirmed and documented earlier in the project by skilled business process analysts.
Insufficient or No Business Process Documentation
The lack of sufficiently defined and documented business processes causes waste and delay throughout the SDLC. Nobody seems to recognize how much time is spent learning about, debating, clarifying, and confirming details about the business processes the software is intended to improve through automation. And the reason it’s a hidden waste is because nobody measures meeting efficiency. The entire management hierarchy negligently assumes their subordinate managers always run efficient, effective meetings. If managers were truly proficient in running efficient and effective meetings, then why do most of us generally hate meetings?
Furthermore, nobody seems to recognize that problems with software requirements are generally caused by an inadequate, imprecise, and inaccurate understanding of the business processes. Nobody seems to recognize that software testing takes longer than it should because testers often get bogged-down trying to understand the business processes. Nobody seems to understand how difficult, time-consuming, and inefficient training turns out to be because software trainers lack detailed knowledge about business process details.
Waste Qualified and Quantified
What's Discussed During Meetings:
- Questions, answers, and debate from functional/process managers – about the details of the processes they’re responsible for managing
- Questions, answers, and debate from the performers - the people who actually carry out the work of the process
- Questions, answers, and debate from the so-called Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who may or may not be process managers or process performers
- Questions, answers, and debate from the upstream and downstream process stakeholders – the process managers responsible for the processes that impact or are impacted by the subject process
The Type of Process Details Discussed:
- Data Entry - What data should be entered in fields
- Data Fields: What fields are required on a screen or a form
- Tasks Required – What tasks are required within a process
- Sequence of Tasks – What is the sequence of work
- Decision Task Details:
- What business knowledge is required - What do I need to know to make a decision?
- What knowledge resources are required - Where does the knowledge come from? And how do I consume and learn/gain the knowledge?
- What supporting decisions are required - What decisions need to be made before this decision?)
- Input data (What data do I need to make a decision
- Decision Formula – What is the formula or structure of a decision? What are the discrete factor sets of facts, conditions, scenarios, and variables in the decision formula? What are the logical IFs, THENs, ELSEs, and ELSE IFs of the formula? What are all possible outcomes?
- Data Integration - What systems integrate with this process? What fields in one system “map” to what fields in another system?
- Data Migration – What data from the old system must migrate to the new system? What fields in the old system “map” to what fields in the new system?
Quantifying the Waste
The cost of this waste adds up quickly. Using a conservative estimate we come up with a six-figure sum.
Conservative Estimate:
- 5 people per meeting
- $60/hr loaded cost per person, per hour
- 4 meetings/day
- 5 days/week
- 24 week project
- = $144,000 total waste
The more people on the project, or the longer the planned schedule, the more expensive.
The Impact of the Waste
- Delays, missed deadlines
- Marginal/Unsatisfactory results and products
- Inefficient, ineffective, inadequate testing
- Long term software maintenance cost
- Negative impact on training quality and costs
- Negative impact on ability and costs to support (customer/user support, help desk)
- Mean time to resolve
- First time resolution
- No usability for upgrades, future projects, affiliated projects
Prove Me Wrong – See for Yourself
Unless you’re looking for it, you’ll hardly notice. But once you do begin to deliberately pay attention to what goes on in meetings, you’ll become a believer. A good way to find out is to “audit” some project meetings. Assign an unbiased person to “audit” project meetings. Give them a quick reference document or checklist to help them recognize process discussions. Do this for a week or two.
How to Solve the Problem
Start by making a commitment to maturing your business process documentation and management capabilities. Part of that commitment is to include business process discovery and documentation as a deliberate, early phase in the lifecycle of every software development or upgrade project. Don’t scrimp on the time allocated to the work. And be sure to assign the work to business process analysts who have the knowledge, skills, and experience to adequately identify, define, and document business processes.
The more time spent on business process mapping at the beginning of the project, the less time and money you’ll waste over the life of the project.