Resources

Are your business and IT managers constantly at each others throats when it comes to delivering real value back to the business? Are software development priorities constantly shifting and difficult to prioritize? If you answer yes to these questions, you aren’t alone as this is too common in today’s landscape. 

 

The combination of Ivar Jacobson Consulting and IBM Rational Software can help you deliver the right solutions to the business. Together, we provide the tools, services, process and mentoring to bring together these sometimes disparate worlds into a team of people working together to solve the most urgent needs of the business through technology.  

 

In a May 2003 Harvard Business Review article, Nicholas G. Carr said that “IT Doesn’t Matter”. Although he makes some good points, he looks at IT too narrowly and as just data processing and hardware. IT is much more than that; it is the difference between each of our organizations that compete with each other on a daily basis. If we just settled for packaged applications and limited customizations, how would we be any different, supply different services, cheaper rates, faster turnaround times or do things differently than the competition. 

 

In this presentation, we will discuss why IT Does Matter and why capturing requirements accurately with agreement between all constituents the first time won’t just make all parties involved happy; it will reduce rework costs more than tenfold. Putting the right processes and tools into place to ensure successful requirements management is the first step, but tools alone won’t ensure success. You need to not only understand how to use the tools, but how to do what you are attempting to do correctly. Writing good requirements specifications in a consistent and easily understood manner, capturing use cases that can be easily turned into design specifications and test cases are yet another instance of stress, yet places for success.