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Showing posts from April, 2014

Build Upon Rock: Understand the Business Need

Because software developers are in the business of delivering solutions our thinking and discussions with business owners tend to be solution-oriented. It’s not uncommon to hear things like this from business owners: “I really need a new column added to the F105 report – the total processing time.” “I need a new screen that tracks inventory.” It’s also not uncommon for developers to listen to business owners talk about their issues and jump to well-known solutions and say things like: “What you need is a CRM system.” “The F109 screen will take of everything you need. I’ll show you how to use it.” Thinking about solutions is not a bad thing but it can lead to mistakes if the business problem is not framed properly. You can tell that you’ve framed a business problem properly when its description has nothing to do with a system, per se. Take the case of adding a column to the F105 report. Rather than respond – “ok – we’ll get right on that,” start by getting to the underl