Good business process before software solutions

This post is about a pretty basic concept. However, based on my experience over the last couple of years, I've decided to blog about it anyway. 

Unfortunately I have seen several examples of companies that choose software solutions BEFORE reviewing their business processes. Remember that a bad process is still a bad process when it’s automated. When I step into an organisation and start asking questions about their business processes, it’s amazing how often answers to these questions are difficult to come by. Why? Well, the basic answer is that each individual/department has different processes to achieve the same outcome. Lively discussions then ensue to determine which of these processes to use going forward. At this point the software analysis should stop and business analysis should take over. However, all too often this does not happen.

This is a difficult situation, as there is no immediate benefit to reviewing the business processes within a company. Consider this: Management in a particular division have a problem they want fixed, that’s why IT is involved. Management has decided that if the problem is fixed, the division will become more efficient. So just blaze away and install or develop something that will automate process XYZ (or whatever their problem is). But what if this process is common across different areas of the business? Is it IT's job to identify this? Or upper management within the company? I think it's BOTH.

I have worked in large companies where the IT management has been astute enough to identify these common areas and articulate the benefits of business processes reviews to the board or CEO (CIO if one exists). But it’s something that we need to keep in mind as IT professionals.

As an IT consultant, keeping the following principles in mind will help this problem:

1. Understand the business and what will make life EASIER for the end-users.
2. Review the Business Processes and recommend improvements if required.
3. Understand what can be gained from an IT solution (try to get some idea of ROI) before proposing any IT solutions.

Remember, step one should ALWAYS be to get the business processes correct BEFORE talking about IT solutions. Don’t simply throw technology at a problem because there is some perception that it will magically fix it. Fit the technology to the business needs, not vice versa.