Thank you. IMAO instead of world beating there needs be just a short set of requirements;
*What's the job; as defined by the people actually getting it done, and not some bloody executive sitting in an office, or Heaven Forfend an outside consultant who has even less of a clue
*What can IT do to make sure the job gets done efficiently (as opposed,arguably, to writing everything on a few sheets of A4)
*What expansion or change might we need to allow for over the next 10 years of so
*What are the maintenance and development costs over those 10 years
I know the last one will always be an underestimate - but even that's better than no estimate ( read, budget) at all, which seems to be the usual way of doing stuff, in any project not just IT. I call this the "School Blinds Issue". For a reason. In the mid 80s I used to do some work in a school designed (50s I think) with South facing windows and some clever external blinds that made the rooms usable when the sun shone. I've since come across a few of these from that period btw. These needed to be maintained, they had thick strings ( like a fine rope)and pulleys. By the time I visited these blinds hadn't functioned within anyone's memory. They'd never,as far as anyone could tell had the ropes replaced (many of them had long since become brittle and snapped) let alone the pulley wheels - most of which were totally frozen. As far as anyone could ascertain there'd never been a budget allocated for this maintenance by the LEA, not even a schedule or a plan. They'd just built the damn thing and forgot about it..
Biting the hand that feeds IT
