1.
Assign
the project manager (more like
‘project tzar’ which is rather self-explanatory). Obviously, he or she must
have full authority in the project as well as full support and cooperation from
company owners, Board of Directors and top managers. If CBA is conducted by an external
consultant (which is usually the case), this function goes to one of the most senior
and experienced consultants. If the company does the CBA all by itself (which is
usually not a very good idea because of almost unavoidable conflict of interest)
this function goes to one of the corporate top managers.
2.
Assign the
project coordinator (if CBA project is performed by an outside consultant).
A project coordinator is one of the top managers of the company who has the
full authority from the owner, Board of Directors and the CEO to ensure (and enforce, if necessary) full cooperation
of your managers and specialists with the CBA project team
3.
Assemble the
project team which is typically comprised of external consultants and internal
business analysts (who will be subsequently involved in performing the SCR as
well as in developing and operating your corporate kaizen system)
4.
Assign
the project knowledge manager. CBA project is very knowledge intensive (it is a comprehensive business analysis, after all). Therefore, it is
critically dependent on the quality (content, structure and interface) of the
CBA project knowledge base. Which, in
turn, require services of a competent knowledge [base] manager. Who will be responsible
for storing and structuring knowledge gathered by business analysts and making
it available on a ‘need-to-know’ basis.
5.
Develop
the structure and interface for the project knowledge base which will
require selection and utilization of an appropriate software package. I have
developed two such products – CBA Toolkit and Comprehensive Business Analysis
Workbench (CBAW). I will cover both in Part VII.
6.
Assign
knowledge access rights to project team members and other corporate employees.
On a ‘need-to-know’ basis, of course.
7.
Develop
optimal procedures for (a) obtaining corporate ‘documented’ knowledge
contained in documents and generated via queries; (b) conducting interviews
with insiders – managers and
specialists; (c) conducting interviews with outsiders
– external corporate stakeholders; and (d) conducting brainstorms. The latter
is the primary instrument in describing the ‘TO BE’ situation and in conducting
a strategic corporate reengineering (SCR) but are also useful in some aspects
of a CBA project
8.
Develop and
execute detailed operational plan for your CBA project. Obviously, you will
need to use some project management software for this – such as Microsoft Project.
