In the past, some projects did not take these problems into consideration when starting, which led to some projects being started blindly and hastily, resulting in unclear input-output analysis, repeated construction and chaotic organization, which brought great risks to the later project implementation, project maintenance and project use, and even led to the abandonment of the system by users after completion. In the end, enterprises will suffer losses. Therefore, more and more companies have become rational in the decision-making of starting the project, and strictly require the demonstration work before the project starts. Strike a balance between meeting immediate emergency business needs and long-term strategic needs. Ensure the success of the project construction.
Compared with product suppliers, the project start-up process of Party A is quite different from that of Party B, which is a complicated process, and the enterprise of Party A is in the contractual sense in the project construction. It often needs to consider a series of questions, such as: Is the demand reasonable? Is it necessary to start this project? What is the possible impact of the project? How big is the possible investment? What are the benefits? Can you support the current management mode? If not, in what ways can we be ready to change? What industry-related products are there? What is really suitable for demand?
Therefore, it is of great significance for enterprises to form a unified understanding of project start-up management.
Generally speaking, project start-up management can be divided into the following stages:
First, the stage of intention proposal
In the stage of intention proposal, the business department finds the business requirements that need to be realized by information means and puts forward the expectation of building an information system. Because the intention of informatization project is accompanied by the whole process of business development, the overall management and planning of intention has always been a difficult problem for enterprise informatization department.
For enterprises with centralized business planning period, the intention is often concentrated in the business planning period. For example, at the end of the fiscal year, when an enterprise evaluates its own model, it usually needs to improve or reform its business model, thus creating a demand for information tools. The ideas or requirements generated at this time are often not very mature, with great uncertainty and high risk of later change. But this period is also the period with the most concentrated intentions and the easiest to plan as a whole. During this period, the information department usually collects and sorts out all the intentions and initially forms a list of project construction. Considering the constraints of the company's strategic priorities and resource input, the projects are sorted and the construction priorities are determined.
For the project intention not put forward during the centralized planning period, it will often affect the original master plan and plan, and all aspects of argumentation should be more cautious, such as the necessity of the project, the rationality of investment, the possibility of resources in place, and the impact on existing and under-construction systems.
The information management department (or IT project management department) can guide the intention of business requirements by establishing some systems and processes, and try to make the intention put forward during the centralized planning period.
As a stage of project start-up, the intention proposal is managed, and its significance lies in the overall planning of intention to ensure the overall rationality of system construction.
Second, the demand analysis stage
After accepting the project intention, it will enter the stage of analyzing the project requirements. At this stage, IT is necessary to have a team composed of IT personnel and business personnel to conduct detailed research and analysis on business requirements. The methods used mainly include interviewing and meeting people at all levels of business.
At this stage, IT personnel and business personnel often have contradictions. IT personnel may think that the business needs are not clear, while the business thinks its own needs are very clear. The key to solve this contradiction is to have detailed management control methods to guide business personnel to refine requirements. For example, the framework of demand analysis report is formulated and documents are formed for key points. Generally speaking, demand analysis includes the following contents:
Current business process analysis
Future business process analysis
Analysis of differences between current business and future business
Information function point requirements
Non-functional requirements of the future system, such as performance requirements, environmental requirements, security requirements, etc.
Demand priority
After the demand analysis report is formed, it is necessary to organize the review of the demand in order to achieve the unanimous approval of the project stakeholders. This process may include:
Make review plan: make review work plan, determine review team members and prepare review materials.
Requirements pre-review: members of the review team pre-review the requirements documents.
Hold a review meeting: hold a review meeting to review the requirements specification.
Adjust the requirements document: re-analyze and adjust the requirements according to the problems found in the review.
Review the requirements document: review the adjusted requirements document according to the questions raised at the review meeting.
Third, the feasibility scheme demonstration stage
Feasibility scheme demonstration is a key activity in the start-up stage of the project, and its quality directly affects the implementation effect of the project. The demonstration team is generally composed of business and IT personnel within the enterprise. Depending on the importance, difficulty and scale of the project, professional consultant resources outside the enterprise may be needed.
The purpose of feasibility scheme demonstration is to confirm whether the future management and technical scheme is effective by confirming the management system and technical framework of the system. According to the difficulties in management, technology and implementation of the project, the customer's needs are gradually clarified. Plan the overall solution on the basis of demand as the basis of project input-output evaluation, product selection and the constraint of subsequent implementation plan.
The basis of project input-output evaluation: the project input and value analysis based on business demand analysis is often a rough macro feeling. Business people may not fully consider the relationship between it and other systems when putting forward information requirements, so the input-output analysis obtained is also very rough. On this basis, if we design a feasible scheme and consider the positioning of the project and the relationship with other systems, I believe the input-output analysis will be more convincing.
Basis for product selection: The feasibility plan is made according to business requirements and is not affected by any product. Therefore, it is the basis of subsequent product selection, so that enterprises always adhere to the principle of their own needs and planning in the process of product selection, and are not misled by supplier solutions.
Constraints of implementation plan: Feasibility plan and implementation plan are the relationship between overall design and detailed design. The feasibility scheme describes the overall business scheme and technical framework, while the implementation scheme is the refinement of the feasibility scheme in all aspects.
In addition, the difficulties in management, technology and implementation are expounded around feasible schemes, which can effectively analyze the risk of the project, formulate the risk management strategy of the project and provide guarantee for the success of the project.
Fourth, the product selection stage.
When the feasibility scheme needs to be completed by selecting new products, it enters the product selection stage of project start-up management. At this stage, after the preliminary screening of suppliers, according to the requirements of demand and scheme, the bidding documents are formulated, the project scheme of suppliers is received, relevant personnel are organized to review suppliers according to the evaluation criteria, and more than two suppliers are selected for business negotiation. And sign a contract with the supplier after the project report is passed. This stage can be subdivided into the following steps:
Create RFP: according to the analysis results of demand stage and feasibility scheme stage, formulate bidding documents for suppliers.
Solution evaluation: The core of this activity is to formulate product selection evaluation criteria, including: application software evaluation: investigating the function, performance, architecture, user friendliness, market evaluation, cost, etc. of the product itself;
Software operating environment Evaluation: Evaluate the hardware and software configuration of the server and client required for system operation. This is an easily overlooked part, which may have the greatest impact on the subsequent implementation, especially in the case of a large number of clients and complex environment.
Project implementation evaluation: In the construction of information system, the project implementation method and ability have become an important link in the success or failure of the project, so it is particularly important to evaluate the implementation ability of service providers. The evaluation content mainly includes: implementation method, implementation cost, implementation cycle, implementation consultant experience and similar implementation case investigation.
Training and after-sales service evaluation: including checking training methods, fees, after-sales service methods, fees, response time, etc.
Supplier evaluation: evaluate the fundamentals of suppliers, such as supplier's scale, performance, contract language and arbitration place, cooperation strategy with customers, etc.
Benefit risk assessment: that is, the assessment of project input and output. This is the most difficult one to evaluate. At present, there is no complete input-output quantitative evaluation index for information projects, and most of them adopt some qualitative analysis and comparison.
Trade negotiation
There are many special discussions on the organization and skills of business negotiation. From the perspective of information project management, business negotiation is a process of determining contract terms with the implementers of products and services under the guidance of certain strategies, with the aim of maximizing the interests of the company and determining the optimal price and service terms.
The basis of business negotiation is to evaluate the adopted scheme, and its process usually includes: organizing negotiation team, making negotiation plan, implementing negotiation and signing contract. It is worth noting that business negotiation and subsequent project report approval are not in strict order and can be carried out at the same time. However, the contract can only be signed after the project report is approved.