Project: I Want An App Part 3 – Needs Assessment

Welcome back to Project: I Want an App Part 3 – Needs Assessment!  In the last post we discussed leverage and the importance of its establishment.  After a business owner knows what their leverage is they can begin to understand the needs they can meet through a needs assessment.

The Project Management Institute (PMI) has encouraged a major boost of knowledge in business analysis and its contribution to project management.  Business analysis plays a huge role in each stage of the project life cycle.  The Project Management Institute published a wonderful book called “Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide” (2015).  I discovered this book while working on this project and it really helped me to put a better framework around the tasks at hand.

You can purchase the book here.  The remainder of this blog is based on material in Chapter 2 (PMI, 2015) and proves to be helpful to business owners as well as project managers as business analysis and project management have collaboration points throughout the project life cycle.

What is a needs assessment?

In Chapter 2, PMI (2015) states:

“A needs assessment consist of the business analysis work that is conducted in order to analyze a current business problem or opportunity. It is used to assess the current internal and external environments and current capabilities of the organization in order to determine the viable solution options that, when pursued, would help the organization meet the desired future state.” P.10

Processing business concerns and possibilities with all stakeholders is key in any project or program.  While discussing the needs of this project, I identified key stakeholders: business owner, functional manager, staff, and customers.

Why Perform Needs Assessments?

Here are some basic points made about why performing a needs assessment is so important:

• Business analysts undergo assessment in order to scrutinize various concerns and possibilities that occur due to a mandate, request, or recommendation.
• Needs assessment occurs before work begins, however, it may need to be reassessed if there are changes in external changes (mergers or change of corporate stability) to make sure the decisions made still stand firm.
• Gap analysis is a key technique used in needs assessment. This aids in the composition of a business case; which leads to layout of the project objectives and later the project charter.
• Lack of assessment leads to misunderstanding the business needs and can lead to solving the wrong problem, failing to address the real problem, or an unnecessary solution or features.

Back to the app…

So now I will switch gears back to the app that was desired by a business owner.  The business owner has a shared app which also points customers to other stores that provide similar products.  After doing some research I also found that some of the competition also offered better prices.  The make-or-buy decision to acquire an app could increase customer retention and sales.  The owner told me that the price per month for this shared app is $700 per month.  A basic app could cost $8,000 and up.  A custom app with all the whistles and bells could cost up to $55,000.00!  I reminded myself of all the API (application program interface) that the owner wanted in the app.  I also referred back to the Scope Statement and realized that the company may have to leverage more than what they bargained.

My biggest mistake was not asking how much money they wanted to use for leveraging this project, but it was implied that $10,000 was the ball park.  My best suggestion for owners in this type of situation is to go back to your needs assessment and learn where you can scale down if a project is out of your budget, and find opportunities in other areas of the business to bridge the gaps of the application features, or wait to see your return on the investment of creation of an app and add the whistles and bells in another iteration of the project (upgrade).

Think about the last time you real sat down and thought about your business needs.  Have you ever conducted a needs assessment to see if there was a project opportunity to increase your business value? Leave a comment and let me know what you learned! Contact me if you need help with your needs assessment by sending an email to services@goalgetterpm.com.

Thanks for reading!  Stay tuned next time for how to bridge the gap in gap analysis.

Image sources: Empower School of Health

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