I use this process to help a group understand a business. I have always used it when beginning an IS/IT project or in pre-sales for a systems implementation or both.
At the beginning of a project I often used it to help the project members (who had often not met each other and worked in different parts and even geographies of the business) understand the context of the project. Typically many members of the project team were seeing this view of the business for the first time, as they had been focused inside their own “silo.”
I have also used this technique to help prioritize budget spending for companies and individual divisions, which will be the subject of a future posting.
At one time one of the Big 4 Consulting Organizations used this technique (and several others) in a workshop that I designed to help map the organization structure of the company onto the organization structure of the SAP software they had purchased.
The Process
TEMPLATE
EXAMPLE
Example
This is an example from a meeting I led- the discussion was documented on a White Board before transcription into Powerpoint and Word.
Associated Techniques
I usually follow this exercise with an analysis of the Supply Chain (BUY-MAKE-SELL), a CONTEXT DIAGRAM, and a TIMELINE. I will describe these techniques in separate posts, and bring them together as a methodology.