Methodology Enablement for the Requirements Life Cycle
Summary:
DEA partnered with its client to redesign and deploy a best-practice methodology for requirements and solution implementation.
Client Profile:
One of the nation’s leading providers of health care, disability, life and accident insurance benefits. A group insurance subsidiary offers Disability, Life and Accident products to employees and association members through their employers, associations and other affinity groups. A healthcare subsidiary provides managed medical and dental care services. An international group provides employee benefits, insurance and financial services, including health care, pensions and life, for groups and individuals in selected markets around the world.
The Challenge:
As a distributed organization, projects across the company were being handled in different ways by different groups. As more and more systems were put in place to provide cross-functional support, the lack of a unified approach became a larger issue. The company determined that it needed to develop a strong, clear and consistent project lifecycle coupled with project management processes in order to provide a disciplined approach for planning, executing and managing projects.
The Solution:
DEA provided expertise in the requirements phase of the project life cycle, specifically in the area of business process needs, organization changes, data requirements, application requirements and non-functional requirements (security, usability, etc.). Models incorporated into the methodology included process flow maps, organization charts, conceptual and logical data models, and use cases.
Once the basic approach was determined, the next challenge was to ‘socialize’ the methodology across the organization. A phased training plan was developed and DEA was responsible for developing course materials on the requirements phase. The two-day course introduced the methodology, with an emphasis on the requirements activities. Work sessions were built around a case study simple enough to be quickly understood but with enough complexity to bring up issues that would be encountered on a real project. A series of classroom courses was offered to groups across the eastern part of the United States, with approximately 15 students in each class. DEA was also available to project teams as coaches and mentors to help reinforce how to work within the new project structure and to create the required deliverables.
