Insurance chief information officers are constantly being challenged by their organizations to improve operational efficiencies, reduce time to market and even grow sales through the use of technology.
Yet while having to live up to the promise of the future, CIOs continue to grapple with historic problems such as legacy systems and the efficiency and effectiveness of their IT organizations.
Before embarking on a new information technology project, consider that only approximately one-third of IT projects are successful. Why is this so? Projects are failing because we are still approaching software development the old way.
Traditionally, IT departments have been a support service unit to the finance, operations and sales and marketing units within the enterprise. Consequently, the purpose and processes of IT departments have been shaped by the service contracts of those business units.
Following the dot-com bust, CIOs placed increased emphasis on reducing costs and improving efficiency of their IT departments. The advent of outsourcing has helped organizations to meet those goals.
Outsourcing has led to a focus on process maturity, elimination of “cowboy” coding practices (developing software without an actual defined method) and improvements in overall quality and predictability of new software applications.
Outsourcing also further attenuated the specifications-based approach to building application software. While this approach has helped companies gain greater control over the software development process, it has not addressed the core issue of developing technology that will help achieve an organization’s business goals.
The specification-based approach frequently fails to recognize that “specifications” are for routines or tasks, which are part of a larger solution that serves the bigger objective in the customer’s business. This is where the problem lies.
The new wave of software development is all about designing solutions with the greater business objective in mind. Using this business-centric approach, software must be engineered to meet business needs. Achieving the client’s business goals is the priority.
Following are a few essentials that must be kept in mind throughout a software development project.
• Look beyond the current problem.
When the approach to an IT project is specification-based, point solutions are deployed to solve a particular problem, without taking into account how it will affect the rest of the system.
It is common that technology implemented or modified to solve one business problem affects several IT systems. A change in any of these systems could create a ripple effect and impact the project.