Grandpa Ham – Grandpa Can do IT!

I originally thought I was in for 3 to 6 months. It has now been one year and I have been approved for a one year extension. Here is a secret for all you consultants out there. Empower your customers! Emphasize the value that they bring to their own projects. Teach them how to do without you. My experience tells me that you may find that the environment you help create gives you more opportunity in the long run. Not less. My point — you do not have to be come indispensable (“all contractors are dispensable”). You just have to add more value than you cost. Multiplying the value of others is a good way to do that.

The third time is the charm. Ten years ago, I wrote a paper on systems analysis and requirements definition for the Army Systems Engineering folks in Monmouth, New Jersey titled “Just in time Analysis.” It used mission decomposition in IDEF0 to identify needed use cases as an inventory of work to be done. Five years ago, I developed an internal process document based on the Iconix Process for Battelle to use in development of Disaster Management Interoperability Services software for the Department of Homeland Security.

I am back at it. For more than a year, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has been following a customized version of the Iconix Process for its BPR and Requirements development needs. The process grew out of the need for DMV to control its own destiny in its new software redesign effort. It had to start simply enough for business analysts to use it to drive business requirements. A prime goal was to ensure that it was business-driven; not IT driven. As it grew, however, the process required the power to handle complex issues, particularly the refactoring of multitudes of silo-style business processes into a set of requirements geared to a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).

We are getting there. It is amazing how the process has evolved over the course of a year. We have documented our processes, and their evolution, using the same tools we use to document the actual DMV requirements. I am now in the process of gathering and publishing that information in a single coherent written manual. As I write this manual, it is more and more amazing what the folks at the Virginia DMV here have been able to accomplish in the last year. There is a lot, and it is good. I pray that the document I am writing will do them justice.

Looks like I will stay with the DMV through October at least.  I am currently writing the formal process documentation as well as helping the DMV folks prepare for collaborative design activity with their chosen development vendor (still TBD).  This is truly a big project.  We have identified over 1000 business use cases so far.  The software use cases to be built over the next few years my reach 10000 although half of them will probably be out of scope initially.  Comprehensive to say the least.   Wow!

I continue to work with the Virginia DMV in support of their Systems Redesign project. It is their process, but I have the great pleasure of helping them decide how they want to approach the many issues that come up every day. The whole thing is based on choosing the best approach to preparing for actual implementation using the Iconix Software Engineering process, but doing so in a way that supports the specific needs of the Virginia DMV. The project is large, and so is the BPR team, so the need for specific requirements traceability is is perhaps more pronounced than it is for typical Iconix implementations, where teams are generally smaller and less diverse in technical and functional background. The DMV has defined an approach. I think that they are on the right track. I look forward to a very busy Spring and Summer helping them make it work.

I am now committed to the Virginia DMV through June. Good folks. Good work. More importantly, a real saving of taxpayer money. It is amazing what can be achieved when a group of dedicated people actually follow a defined, clear process for planning the future.