Define and understand user requirements and needs
ICT projects or programmes must be designed around the needs of the people using them. This requires clearly defined, recorded and understood business and user requirements – keeping in mind that we prioritise citizen and user needs above professional, organisational and technological silos.To adhere to Section 1 of the TCOP the project must have clearly recorded requirements and be in a position to show that it understands the users of the system and their requirements and needs. The project or programme will be expected through business analysis and user research to develop knowledge of the users of the system/s and what that means for the technology that will be developed or procured.
User buy-in – why it's important
- better adoption, less resistance
- increased engagement and explanation
- active involvement rather than forced upon change
How understanding users will help your project
- avoid over reliance on internally generated requirements (what is believed users want) as opposed to data and evidence from end users' needs
- ensure services meet users' needs – they can do what they want at the first attempt without understanding internal government structures
- supports internal understanding of the purpose of the technology and what you want to achieve
- identify risks to changing or introducing technology from a business and user perspective – mitigate the risk of the project failing
- determine what skills are needed for delivery, use, management and support of technology – identify what is needed by service support teams to support end users
- identify business dependencies on other data, services or systems either hosted within that entity or the wider IOMG
When to capture requirements
The project will investigate and record the business and user requirements and needs at the beginning in the project lifecycle. User research should occur throughout the project lifecycle at every stage of delivery – starting in discovery and continuing throughout live. This will make it easier for the project or programme to:
- ensure the requirements are agreed by the business
- reduce risk by learning quickly whether the things we are building work well for users
- map requirements effectively against technology deliverables