We are concluding our Requirements.net consortium series entitled “The Economy and the Business Analyst” with a summary of the assets available for download.     The Requirements.net consortium is a collection of company’s supporting the industry trend toward IT efficiency through Business Analyst empowerment.  Members of the requirements.net consortium include RQNG (www.requirementsnetwork.com), HP Software (www.hp.com), Blueprint (www.blueprintsys.com), Orasi Software (www.orasi.com), SkyIT Group (www.skyitgroup.com), and CorTechs (www.cortechs.com).

As a summary of the series assets available for download:

Series Podcasts: We have published three Podcasts as part of this series, all of which are available for download at no charge.  As a summary:

1. Podcast:  Theresa Lanowitz on the Economy and IT Spending - In this exclusive podcast, Theresa discusses the importance of BA empowerment and the Requirements Definition Lifecycle to help control IT costs.    Download here.
2. Podcast:  The Grandfather of Requirements on IT Project Failure, the Economy, and Requirements -In this episode, Steven Davis (recognized as one of the minds behinds Requirements Management as an industry category) speaks on how CIO’s can transform efficiency of their projects through Requirements.  Download it here.
3. Podcast:  The Economic Crash -Kicking off this series, Matt Morgan and Keith Barrett discuss Gartner’s top three spending priorities from the ITXpo show in Orlando in October.    Matt and Keith also look at Carnival Cruise lines and how they are embracing requirements to cut costs.  Download it here.

Analyst Reports:   We focused on some advanced research from analyst firm voke on the requirements spending to ensure cost savings.    We also discussed the Gartner ITXpo findings on top spending criteria in this economic environment

1. Voke Analyst Report “Fortune 500 Company’s Must Spend to Cut IT Costs in 2009.   - written by Theresa Lanowitz and Lisa Dronzek discusses the importance of Requirements Definition to ensure IT control costs.  Download it here.
2. Gartner ITXpo Spending Priorities for 2009 - read the blog discussion around the top 3 spending trends for IT in 2009.  Read it now.

Whitepapers and Surveys -

1. The Business Analyst Workbench Whitepaper:  We posted an updated Requirements.net consortium BA Workbench whitepaper, which focuses on how BA’s can visualize requirements to reduce rework and eliminate costly mistakes with offshore teams.   Download it here.
   
2. The Voke Economic Survey: Voke has launched a survey looking at IT spending.  You can participate here.

Best reader quotes from email and from the blog comment system:

 ”I’m very interested in the “workbench” concept and the impact it will have on the BA role. Again, thanks for the great read. It definitely provided some food for thought.” - Jonathan

“First, it may be a good time for shareholders to engage. One may say it’s a CEOs who’re responsible for the results after all. But sometimes even CEOs can not cope with problems on their on, especially when major shareholders involved in business routine. How, for example, can you approach a slippery question of changing product distribution schemes, rules and policies within a retail chain if this particular part of the business is in possession of one of shareholder’s nephew? Difficult times are the best catalysts for business owners to start sorting out their priorities. The best and smartest changes possible elaborated carefully by greatest cross-departmental or cross-functional teams of business experts doomed to failure in situations when business owners are not entirely ready for them.”  - Yegor

“Hi Yegor. I think you have nailed a lot of our perspective here at our shop. I work for a large telecommunication company, one you may know by “the network”, but the problem is that even though I run a large 23 person shop, no one is asking me my opinion.” - Richard

“This is a good topic with a relevant connection to a lot of the purchasing approvals that we are trying to get out the door. I have 25% of my projects outsourced in 2008, but we want to see 40% in 09. Requirements is a big problem to making this transition. Our efficiency is way down with our outsourced teams and our do-over is way up.” - Nancy

“Listened to the podcast and it got me thinking about ways to connect requirements to outsourcing to virtualization.

In my mind, the idea of requirements to drive a lifecycle is only one of the big benefits. Theresa speaks to test case generation as a cost savings — never seen a requirements tool that does this, but should look around.  We see requirements as a way to “virtualize” the application before the task begins. What i mean is that by virtualize the application, we create a compelling story board of exactly what main functionality needs to be implemented. The more complete the virtual story board, the better. You are right when you say the do-over is much higher with outsourced teams. We see 5 - 10X failure from delivered code over the inhouse team. The costs are 70% lower, but the quality is atrocious.” -Richard

This will conclude Requirements.net publishing until the New Year, where we be kicking off 2009 with a new series.    We wish everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year.