Why? Identifying the purpose of business systems

Those familiar with the Zachman framework will recognise the need for identifying the ‘Why?’, and certainly I’ve come across many projects where without a clear indicator of the business reasoning behind development of new systems, those systems have, not surprisingly, failed to fully meet the business needs.

Identifying the business motivation behind a project is perhaps even more vital at this time of economic restraint than previously was the case. For decades we’ve striven to raise the bar when it comes to matching the system to the business needs, and when funds are tight we need to work harder to ensure that what we deliver in software will enable our client or employer to pay our wages at the end of the month.

‘Why?’ is perhaps a question which has been insufficiently asked. An interesting thread on the International Institute of Business Analysts blog, provides viewpoints from a range of contributors, and some great graphics highlighting the importance of that question which seems to come so regularly from the lips of toddlers, but which so often we fail to ask once we think we’ve learnt everything and reached the heady wisdom of adulthood.

Claudio Bartolini points out the importance of being able to clearly identify the link between IT systems and the strategic impact they may have. We can model the What and How and When and Where and Who for all we like in our business process or UML models, but without understanding the Why of the major aspects of those systems, and, one might argue, even the detail of those systems, we run the risk of developing systems for the sake of developing systems alone. And surely we won’t be allowed to do that more than once, or maybe twice…