A Consulting Assessment: Examination, Evaluation and Recommendation

A Consulting Assessment:
Examination, Evaluation and
Recommendation time determining business and technical requirements. Project specificIntroduction requirements and constraints will dictate the business and technicalWhether implementing new technologies, upgrading existing requirements that should be gathered and analyzed. infrastructures or evaluating current needs, the use ofconsultants for a Technology Assessment offers an objective In the optimal Assessment project, project requirements are known,evaluation of what your business needs to effectively the business stakeholders can articulate their needs, all technicalexecute your business strategy. A Consultant Assessment is requirements are documented, the future state is understood, teamthe first step to assuring a successful implementation and members are available and there is adequate time to complete thethis paper will help explain what to expect. project. In reality, often times the infrastructure may not bedocumented, the way the project's requirements are provided mayWhat is an Assessment? constrain business requirements gathering, the future or comparisonAn Assessment is a comparison between a current state and some state may not be fully defined, and there are typically time andother or future state. This other state could be a new high level resource restrictions. In this case, the Assessment Sponsor shouldinfrastructure design that takes into consideration business and seek assistance and guidance from the Assessment Consultant totechnical requirements unique to your business and requirements. determine the boundaries of the project. The Assessment ConsultantOr, it could be an Assessment against best practices for a particular can help the Assessment Sponsor to document the needs, maketechnical area, like network infrastructure or security. This effort would suggestions that may help resolve ambiguities and propose steps tobe analogous to benchmarking. Sometimes Assessments are used to meet the project's goals. AT&T Consulting uses an Engagementcompare a company's current state to an "industry leading" competitor. Definition Agreement (EDA) to document this information. The EDA isThere may be a need to know how your company compares to others an agreement between the Assessment Sponsor and the AT&Twith respect to networking infrastructures or security policies, for Consultant for details that were not addressed in the Statement ofexample, or against others in the same vertical market, say retail or Work (SOW). The consultant you have chosen should provide this typeutilities. A critical element within the Assessment process is to assure of document to the sponsor and request formal concurrence. Thisthat you have identified an Assessment Sponsor who has 1.) financial may be repeated if during the engagement new requirements orand/or functional responsibility, 2.) can act as the key point of business challenges are discovered. accountability during the Assessment and 3.) will be able to assurethat the output from the Assessment will be acted-on by the Business requirements generally take on three forms: revenue generating,organization. An Assessment is generally composed of three actions: business supporting and infrastructure supporting. Revenue generatingexamination, evaluation and recommendation. requirements could include secure business-to-business communicationsor wireless hot spot implementation. Business supporting requirementsExamination could include new building wireless network design, applicationThe Assessment Sponsor identifies the project specific requirements acceleration and secure remote access. Infrastructure supportingand the initial business and technical requirements. It is important to requirements may include a new out-of-band management network understand the project's requirements prior to spending too much or rogue wireless access point detection. AT&T Consulting Assessment ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 2
Technical requirements take on four basic forms: match the currentinstallation, meet a new standard, address a stakeholder's desire or AT&T Consulting's delivery methodology consists of amay be a direct outcome of a previously stated business requirement. hierarchical framework that defines the Sponsors' desiredIn general, technical requirements are easier to determine and tasks or steps. ... [download for more]