Recently, I’ve been told, repeatedly, that few organizations have a clear and consistent idea of what they want from an IT project, and that businesses have scant understanding of the business domain, in other words the processes and data, for which a technical solution is being developed. From my own experience with countless IT projects, I’d say that this is an illusion. There is always someone, in any organization, who understands the practical details that underpin the business operations; but they are usually harder to find than you might imagine, and they tend to hide from anyone in IT. You have to work hard to get the information.

In my experience, the people assigned to represent the business for any IT project overflow with enthusiasm, overall vision, and charm but are always singularly deficient in their basic understanding of the details, the practicalities of the business processes that IT are supposed to support.

I don’t know why this is. Perhaps the group processes that select the stakeholders and project sponsors are an organization’s involuntary response to being unsettled. This would be a parallel to the defense mechanism that leads a living organism to surround invading bacteria with puss, but I’m speculating here. It could be more calculating. One organization I know used the excuse of a business re-engineering project to gather into one team all their problem employees, the drones. Subsequently, they were all quietly sacked. Whatever the reason, we in IT get to speak to the visionaries, not the commissars; unless we insist otherwise.

In planning an IT project of any size, the trick is identifying, and communicating with, the people who know and understand the business processes, without upsetting the management structure that is notionally in charge of the project. I remember one occasion where the key employee who had all the vital information for a project was housed in a hut next to the car park, due to his grumpiness and sour demeanor. I used to have to meet him in secret on the pretext of going out for a sandwich.

It might seem an odd idea that a business could drift along with no clear idea of its business processes. I have experience of it, though. The offices were full of people sending each other emails, and parts of the business were making money through sheer momentum of long-retired effort. The last source of all business knowledge in the organization had just retired, unloved and embittered, to lead a ‘new life’ in Australia and couldn’t be contacted. The company survived cheerfully and confidently for a while, like a headless chicken, before its sudden demise.

If you are developing an IT project for a business, and nobody seems to have a firm grip on the details of the business domain, it is best to adopt the attitude that the information is probably there but you’re going to have to work hard to find the source of the information you need.