PMP® Concepts series: Need Assessment

Introduction

Why do we start projects? It is the fundamental question asked to justify the collective endeavours undertaken to develop a solution. The simple answer to this question is because there is a need. The word need here indicate a potential opportunity for improvement, a solution for a problem within the organisation or imposed change from internal or external bodies such as compliance with new regulation.

Need assessment outlines the processes of work required to define the need, the approach to fulfil that need and making decision of whether the organisation should invest in the project to implement the justified change.

This assessment is clearly performed before the project initiation, and usually before the project manager is assigned and led by the business analyst. Besides that, need assessment must align with organisation strategy and governance bounders and contexts.

According to the PMI Guide to Business Analysis, the main reference to PMI-PBA certification, there are 7 processes to develop a comprehensive need assessment:

1- Identify problem or opportunity

The first process is to understand your problem in the organisation or the situation that to be resolved, considering the organisation vision and strategy. To do that, the business analyst should identify the stakeholder and investigate their problem, because the stakeholders are usually driving the change.

This process with give us two outputs: the business need and situation statement. This business need is a document explains the reason of the proposed change, answering the question of why we need a project or a programme. Situation statement represent the: need (the problem), the effect (of no action) and the impact (of a solution).

2- Assess Current State

Also known as AS-IS, which is about understanding the current company environment that led to the problem, including the internal and external factors. From the current state, the business analyst can determine which element to change.

3- Determine Future State

After understanding the organisation’s current state and the working environment, we will work on determining the gaps in the organisation’s existing capabilities. By addressing the gaps, the organisation will be able to transform into the desired future situation, with the problem resolved or the opportunity attained. The critical output of this process is the articulation of the SMART goals and objectives for the desired future state.

4- Determine Viable Options and Provide Recommendation

In this step, the business analysis team will collaborate with the stakeholders, to apply different analysis techniques to examine probable solutions to achieve the future state goals. This process will validate the feasibility of the proposed solution and recommend the best course of action for decision-makers. The feasibility analysis will consider operational, technological, time, and cost-effective feasibility. This will provide the feasibility study results and recommend a solution.

5-Facilitate product Roadmap development

In business analysis, product roadmaps provide important information about a product, providing insight about the product vision and how the product will support organizational strategy, business goals, and objectives over time. Discussions begin at a high level, focusing on the product vision, and continue through the lower levels of details, ultimately defining product releases and which features will be provided in each release.

6-Assemble Business Case

This is a decision-making point, which will help in selecting a project to develop. Business cases is a documented economic feasibility study used to establish the validity of the benefits to be delivered by a portfolio component, programme, or project. It is assembled as one of the final process steps in Needs Assessment. Business case include:

1. Problem/opportunity from the situation statement.
2. Analysis of the situation.
3. Recommendation from the feasibility study.
4. Evaluation: a plan of measuring the benefits of realization.

Take Away:

After assembling the business case, the next step is to support the development of the project charter. The business analyst will collaborate with the sponsor, stakeholders, and information acquired during the need assessment processes (business case and product scope) to develop the project charter. A charter establishes the scope boundaries and creates a documented record of the initiation of the portfolio component, program, or project. It is used to establish a partnership between the business and the product development team by establishing internal agreements within the organization to ensure adequate deliverables.