The “How” feeds the “What”

Organizations developing software internally encounter the natural tendency to create a stovepipe relationship between those defining the need for specific functionality, versus those that actually implement it. In this pattern, a business  team dictates requirements to the development group following extensive discussion and decision making process. In other words, people responsible for the “What” (e.g. business development) communicate via a one-way channel to people responsible for the “How” (e.g. technical teams).

This is a loss for the enterprise.

First of all, technical teams generally include very smart people, who naturally will have different perspectives than business teams. They likely have a lot of background on previous requirements execution. There is a powerful opportunity here to leverage this diversity of thinking up front and capture a complete picture of fundamental business need and response.

Second, including the input of technical teams from the beginning ensures that solutions will be idiomatic to the systems roadmap and organization of the technical team.  In other words, technical teams will guide the solution to fall most naturally with existing technology and exection responsibility. This is an excellent opportunity to build value across the enterprise.

“How” and “What” have a circular relationship. This is one of the significant characteristics of highly strategic enterprise information systems.