Idea Initiation Phase

• Concept Paper or RFC (Request for Change)

1. IT Management and Business jointly review the recommendations in the Concept Paper/RFC
2. IT Management and Business assign a priority
3. Initiator is advised of the assigned priority
4. If the Initiator disagrees with the priority, they can arrange a meeting with Business and IT Management to discuss.

• Prioritised Concept

A forum should exist consisting of Business and IT Management to consider proposals. In some organisations this is an IT Steering Committee. In others it is the Business IT Executive Committee. No matter what the name, the purpose is to consider proposals in terms of potential costs and benefits and make a decision as to whether they proceed.

The Business Analyst should discuss the priority with IT Management and Business Management, look at available resources and current workload. It is optional for the Initiator to attend this meeting. A decision should be made as to the priority.

There are basically three scenarios.

• The idea is given top priority and someone assigned immediately
• The idea is give medium priority and will have a resource assigned in the future
• The idea is not considered pursuing

If the Initiator is not happy with the priority assigned, they may take it up with Business/IT forum. The Initiator may recommend for example, that another approved top priority which has been initiated be deferred to allow work to commence on this idea.

Every department has limited resources so in order for something to take place, it will usually mean work has to stop (or perhaps not start) on something else. Priority changes should be focused on what can be swapped out rather than just adding more and more to the list.

The key things to consider are:

• Potential cost
• Potential benefits
• Alignment with Corporate Objectives
• Riskiness of the project to deliver benefits on time and within budget
• Availability of resources
• Capability of the organisation to undertake the work