Solution Planning

Solution Planning Series

Far too often, I have heard founders of ventures and business leaders discuss the need for organizational improvement from the perspective of a process that is broken and needs some automation to fix. By doing this, they place a lot of focus on the software or application that will support the business process(es) in question without taking a solution view to business improvement.

While applications are critical to how businesses function, applications are just one part of what is required to solve business problems: a solution. A solution approach to solving business problems ensures that consideration is given to all the pieces that the solution will be composed of. In order to properly deliver a business solution therefore, solution planning is required.

Solution planning is a collaborative process that entails engaging with relevant business and technology stakeholders in order to determine the solution, and the delivery approach that is best suited for solution implementation. Solution planning is foundational to successful solution implementation and should happen at the very beginning of the process, before implementation commences.

Some of the benefits of embarking on a detailed solution planning exercise before commencing implementation include:

• A holistic view of all solution inputs

• Clear understanding of in-scope and out-of-scope items

• Business-driven prioritization of in-scope items

• A thorough understanding of current and future business processes

• An understanding of dependencies, current capabilities and constraints

• Clear definition of a blueprint of the solution, including business process, applications, infrastructure and change management

• Agreement on an approach or strategy for solution implementation

We recommend a 4-step process for carrying out a solution planning exercise:

• Confirmation of scope

• Assessment of capabilities and constraints

• Definition of solution blueprint

• Definition of a solution delivery strategy

This is the first post in our new blog series on Solution Planning. Join us next week for the next post in the series where we continue the discussion on solution planning.

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