How do you write a RFP?

April 26, 2012

Dawn

It’s time for another adventure into the world of Business Analysis (I know you’re excited).  In this blog I’m going to be discussing the process for developing a RFP, which you probably know stands for “Request for Proposal.”  I often interact with RFPs both in terms of creating them and responding to them.  RFPs are utilized to solicit potential vendors for the purchase of a good or service.  For instance, if your organization needed a new computer system for payroll, you would write an RFP to solicit vendors capable of completing the task.

One reason it can be so difficult to write a RFP is that the information in the RFP does not explain how the system will function, but rather what the system needs to do. (See What Does Your System Require? for defining how a system will function.)  Now I know how your curious minds work Dear Readers, you are wondering:

  • Who? needs to be involved in helping you write the RFP
  • How? you should approach writing the RFP

The Who?
If you have been charged in writing a RFP, one of the first questions you ask yourself is who else needs to be involved?   Well the first people you need are the stakeholders, and not just management, but those people who will be using the new system. As a Business Analyst it has been my experience that when members of an organization are tasked with writing a RFP, they can find it difficult.  The reason is that deriving this information can become complicated if there are many stakeholders involved.  In those instances, everyone wants to make sure their needs are voiced and met.  So who else might need to be involved?  The answer is an objective third party.  Bringing in an objective third party can be of great assistance in this process since they are neutral and have no reason to put one stakeholder’s needs over another’s.

The How?
How do you start to write a RFP? Meet with all the stakeholders, both separate and en mass.  Sitting down and allowing everyone to express their needs and desires (and documenting them), provides a basis for writing the RFP.  As more and more details are voiced and explained, a clearer picture of the needs of the system begins to emerge.  The next step involves sifting through all the information to define what the system will need to do at launch, what aspects are “must haves” and what other aspects are “nice to haves.”   For example if you were writing a RFP to purchase a new coffee maker, you would not want to include that it should fry eggs. But you might want to include that it have an automatic timer.  Can you still make coffee without the timer, yes, but it would be “nice to have” a timer.    Both must haves and nice to haves can be included in the RFP, but making a clear delineation helps create a concise, well thought out design (scope of the project) and can help to contain the cost.

So now you are ready for your own RFP adventure, but if you need a guide, please give me a call.

Image credit: Stuart Miles

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Posted by Dawn Bott

It’s all in the planning, strategic that is.

February 2, 2012

Dawn

CAIT has many skills and talents and I have highlighted some of them in my past blogs (What Do You Require?  and Three Scary Words (Standard Operating Procedures)).  But for this blog I thought I would talk about something we do that many organizations overlook, Strategic Planning.

What is Strategic Planning?

The first definition of Strategic Planning is:  “The systematic process of envisioning a desired future, and translating this vision into broadly defined goals or objectives and a sequence of steps to achieve them.[i]”  Yeah, and what does that mean?

I prefer this definition by Rena Tom: “Think of a strategic plan as a roadmap to help guide you when there are too many distractions, opportunities, and unexpected problems keeping you from moving forward. Or, consider it preventative medicine that will help you avoid costly and time-consuming crisis management later on down the line.”

But isn’t all planning strategic?  Not exactly, strategic planning starts with the desired end results and works backwards.  So how do you even start one?

One strategic planning tool we employ at CAIT is a SWOT Analysis.  A SWOT Analysis looks at organizations Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats.  By performing a SWOT during your strategic planning, you can begin to see where your organization is the strongest and how to change threats into opportunities.  Performing a SWOT analysis does not equate to completing a Strategic Plan, but it has gathered information that now can be used to develop the strategic plan.

Image credit: scottchan

But before you go running off and creating your own SWOT (they are really a lot of fun), we need to talk about how to create the strategic plan process. As with all processes there is no one way to create the plan.  However, there is one thing that is common “inclusion” of the organization at all levels.   As I am not an expert in Strategic Planning but always strive to provide the best information, I consulted one, Project Manager Larry Martin.    Larry’s knowledge and experience far outweigh mine, well in this area, so look to some future blogs by Larry that will help you begin your Strategic Planning!

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Posted by Dawn Bott

DECO is “Going MO-BILE”

December 7, 2011

Dawn

At the risk of offending some of you our dear readers, I will confess I am not a big WHO fan.  However I do think they may have been a bit clairvoyant, because back in 1971 they sung about “Going Mobile”.   With smartphones and tablets in everyone’s hands (even my  64 year old mom has one) and Wi-Fi practically everywhere, mobile is the way we are all going.  DECO recently formed Mobile Task Force.  This cross-division group has been tasked with determining how to move DECO into the mobile arena, best practices for mobile and what tools and skills will help us make progress!

As we started down this mobile path the first thing we needed to do was to determine what mobile means.  There are mobile friendly website and mobile applications.  Both are for use on mobile devices (phone, tablet, etc.), but the similarities end there.

A mobile App runs on smartphones and other mobile devices. Mobile Apps help users by connecting them to Internet services more commonly accessed on desktop or notebook computers, or help them by making it easier to use the internet on their portable devices. However, it should be noted that the internet is not always required for an App to work. A mobile App may be a mobile Web site bookmarking utility, a mobile-based instant messaging client, Gmail for mobile, GIS or navigation applications and many others.

A mobile friendly website is a website that is easily accessible and viewable from a smart mobile phone or tablet via the mobile web.   It is easier to drive advertising traffic to a mobile landing page than it is to drive traffic to an App store to complete a download before visitors are able to interact with your content.  Additionally, mobile friendly websites are better for delivering maps or GIS capability as they do not require local device storage of data which would need to be updated frequently.

Mobile Apps and mobile friendly websites focus more on user experience rather than bells and whistles.  Apps are designed to fulfill a need and provide a valuable easy to

navigate function, while mobile friendly websites provide information in a quick, clean and organized fashion.  The design of both of these is of the utmost importance, while the technology exists and needs to be utilized correctly.

Image credit: Ambro

Both mobile Apps and mobile friendly websites are important and both have their niche.  For instance Apps are better for utilities and games, while mobile friendly websites are a better choice for delivering content, catalogs and shopping functions and mapping applications since that content is accessible by search engines.

This mobile endeavor is exciting and challenging for our entire team.   With a few mobile projects in the works (look for our DECO mobile site soon), DECO is gaining the knowledge and experience needed to help our old and new clients establish their own mobile presence.  As we bring more mobile projects to life, we will be sure to let know how well DECO is doing “Going Mobile”.

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Posted by Dawn Bott

Adventures in Surveying

October 20, 2011

Dawn

Adventurous is not a word people would use to describe me.  Solid, dependable, typical, predictable… they would work.  I usually like to do things the same way. If I know how to do something, why try something different.  Not a good mantra when you work in a tech industry. So when a client approached us this summer about trying to get a lot of information, from a lot of different people, who are not close by, in a short amount of time, the Center for Applied IT (CAIT) decided that our standard interview method may not be the best approach.  Here was an opportunity to try something different, and we decided to take a leap of faith using a survey tool.

For this project, CAIT needed to quickly identify IT resources overseen by one of the counties. Time was of the essence so we thought how could we get the information, eliminate or greatly reduce data entry and be able to manipulate the data easily. After looking at some of the commercially available tools, we found that a simple survey tool would do the trick. Aaron Guy at the Center for Professional Studies (CPS), another Division of Economic and Community Outreach (DECO) unit, came to our rescue since they were currently using a survey tool that would easily meet our needs.

After obtaining the client’s approval, Lisa Walker, Bill Hansman and I set to work. The tool allowed us to ask questions that could be answered using text boxes, radio buttons (for a single entry) or check boxes (for multiple entries). We developed questions, organized our survey and launched it in only a few weeks.

Launching the survey was simple too. We provided our client with the URL and some basic instructions.   Our immediate feedback was minimal. A few questions, but for the most part the users found it easy to use and the questions to be straightforward. Next, we downloaded the information into an Excel spread sheet and now we are working to discover all the information our survey results hold.

No new adventure is complete without discovering some pitfalls. Here is what we have learned so far:

  1. Fewer more targeted questions would have been better, making the survey more concise
  2. Make every question mandatory would have been helpful
  3. Limit free form text box use, because some participants became a bit wordy, making it hard to discern facts.

Overall, we really enjoyed developing the survey. It was fun to create the questions and to then reap the rewards of our efforts through the data we retrieved, data that we did not have to manually enter!

Since our first survey experience, we have upgraded the tool we are using and are looking for more opportunities to leverage this new skill.   I can’t wait to share this tool with another client and to survey again!

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Posted by Dawn Bott

Books and the Best of Both Worlds

August 1, 2011

Dawn

A few weeks ago I had a strange experience; I realized that I could buy a book.   Don’t get me wrong I am an avid reader and probably finish off a few books a month and know I am terrible about going to the library.  Last October my wonderful husband bought me a Kindle and my parents bought one for my older son for Christmas.   My youngest has book shelves of stuff to read from his older brother, so I haven’t had the need to buy actual books in a while.

Switching to the e-book system was not something I did lightly.  I love reading and love walking through book stores.  I would borrow my Mom’s Kindle from time to time, but would run right out and buy a book I was waiting for at a book store the day it was first available. It wasn’t until my husband decided to move me technologically forward yet again (see iPhone, Computer & Disney App blogs), that I fully embraced the e-reader age.

The Kindle elevated several issues for me.

  1. I could get the book I wanted the day it came out, from the comfort of home and if I was lucky while in my pjs.
  2. Now that my son has a Kindle and we share an account, we can both happily read the same book at the same time and not have to worry about misplacing each other’s book mark (or me once again losing my chance at “Mom of the Year” because I sent someone to bed early so I could read the book).
  3. I love having books with me (i.e., doctor’s appointment) but would forget to take one, since I have a Kindle account I can now log into my books via my iPhone, even if I forget my Kindle.
  4. I live in a little tiny house and the Kindle took care of my book storage problem, no books, no storage required.
  5. I would lend or give away my books to help with Number 4 and then if I wanted to read them again or refer back to them, I wouldn’t know where they were or who had them.
  6. The Kindle also helped with my personal “green” initiatives.

But after my latest book store trip, and subsequent purchase of a real book, I realized how nice a book actually is to have and to hold.   There is a book series called The 39 Clues and we have all of the original series in hardback.  The newest book (first one in the second series) just came out and my son insisted we get the hardback book version and not just download it.  He wanted to have the entire series in book form, so he could pass it on to his very futuristic children.  Hmm hadn’t thought about it that way, paper books are a little more permanent than an e-book and there are some drawbacks to the e-book system:

  1. I am afraid of taking my Kindle somewhere and having it lost, stolen or destroyed (i.e., the beach).
  2. If I’m not near a power source when the battery dies I have to stop reading.
  3. I cannot lend people my books, my mother-in-law is not too happy with her son for cutting off her book supply (yes I know this is contradictory to Number 5 above, but there are two sides to every story).

E-books make up 9% of all book sales according to the article Top Trends of 2010: Growth of eBooks & e-Readers. The LA Times stated that by the end of 2011 e-books will hit the $1billion mark.  All indicators point to the era of the e-book being here to stay.  The year 1440 marked the beginning of books the way we know them today, so paper books in my opinion do seem to have a little more staying power.  However, if you are considering the jump to e-books I would say go ahead and take it.  It has taken me a little while to figure out that just because I have Kindle it doesn’t mean I can NEVER buy a book again.  I may be a little more discriminating in my paper book purchases, but there is room for both.

Photo credit: Jhorna Smidt

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Posted by Dawn Bott

iPhone App + Disney World Vacation = Winning Combination

June 23, 2011

Dawn

No, I do not play Call of Duty or HALO; I don’t even watch the History Channel that much, and I have no interest in military strategy or precision. However, I do channel my inner military woman when planning a vacation.  Specifically when planning a vacation to one of my favorite destinations, Disney World.   Over the past 10 years I have been to Disney World four times and am writing this blog on my first day back from my latest trip.   When it comes to Disney, my leadership and strategy skills prevail.  I research rides, and what will be going on at the parks during our visit, create spreadsheets outlining all of our dining arrangements (color coded), and determine which parks have extended “Magic Hours.”  We know where we are going and what we are doing well in advance.  But even with all my pre-travel planning, I wanted to maximize our money and time even more, so this trip I turned to my newest passion: an iPhone App.

After much internet research, I decided on the WDW Lines App for my iPhone.  The features I wanted included:

  • Crowd level
  • Line wait times for rides
  • Fast Pass availability (Fast Pass is an option Disney provides to get a ticket for a specific ride at a specific time so you can bypass the Stand-by line)
  • Parade and other event time and locations

Not only did I download WDW App for my iPhone, but I also had wanted my son to download it for his Droid.  In my world, two Apps are better than one, and this would give me a chance to do a little comparing and contrasting on an iPhone vs. Droid App to share with you. I was sorely disappointed, however, when I found out that the same App (WDW Lines) would not work the same way on the Droid as it did on the iPhone (there went my original blog idea). But have no fear, I was able to switch gears with this blog and at least give you a review on this App, which became a big part of our vacation.

Now I was perfectly happy using the “free” version as I am cheap, but my husband insisted that the $10.99 version would give us more information.  Okay I am putting this in print and am saying it only once; he was right. The paid version provided much more information. As we were navigating through Star Wars Weekends at Hollywood Studios, knowing the wait time and Fast Pass time for Star Tours 3-D became imperative to our Disney Adventure being a success (my husband and sons rode it 10 times . . . don’t ask).  Also we knew well before we entered any park whether we should even try for a Fast Pass at the more popular rides, skip it and get a Fast Pass for a second choice, or just wait it out altogether. But too much knowledge can be a bad thing as my husband felt an incessant NEED to provide an update on the wait time for Toy Story Mid-Way Mania, one of the most popular rides, every 10 minutes. This wait time was not available with the “free” version, just saying.

For the most part the App was right on.  The crowd level predictions were accurate and their wait times were more precise than Disney’s.  We consulted the App multiple times per day, and I think it really did help us maximize our Disney time.  It also offered us some alternative ideas when our first choices were just way too crowded, and we were able to plan when to start moving toward a location for a parade or other event.  In other words there was a lot less time spent looking at each other and saying: “Well, what should we do now?”

There are few things I would have liked this App to do.

  1. First an interactive map would have been helpful.
  2. Secondly, knowing the wait times and menus at restaurants would have been good too.

Other Apps I looked at had those features but were lacking in the line department.  Since we spent a great deal of time in lines, I feel the WDW Lines App was the best choice.  Now I only need to figure out what I am doing next year for vacation so I can get another App to help me!

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Posted by Dawn Bott

iPhone 4 or iPhone 5 . . . hmmmm?

May 31, 2011

Dawn

I was driving in the car with my husband in the passenger seat about a month ago and my cell phone rang.  Not wanting to break the law because I didn’t have my Bluetooth in, I gave it to him to answer.  This was probably the most expensive call my cell phone has ever received.  You see, when he went to answer the call he realized my out-dated, simple, hinged cell phone was barely hanging on (see Two Things I Couldn’t Live Without).   He hung up from the call and immediately announced we were going to the Verizon store to buy me a new phone.  Since he knew I would look for any excuse not to spend the money, he drove us to the store that very day and purchased the iPhone 4, a phone I had wanted since getting my first Apple product, an iPod, this past Christmas.

Now you may be wondering why this close to the release of the iPhone 5 I didn’t just wait the few more months for Apple’s latest version. I mean I have been living with a nearly falling a part phone for about a year and half; it’s not like waiting the extra time would have actually been hard.  I had been doing some research about the differences and decided for someone like me the iPhone 5 was not a necessity.  Hey any phone would be a major upgrade from the one I had!

4 vs 5
According to Computer World, here are some of the features the new iPhone 5 will offer:

  • Near Field Communications – devise can be used like a mobile payment card
  • Support of video chat
  • Dual radio chips and dual processor

None of this mattered to me. I know many people out there like to have the latest and greatest (i.e., my husband) and if that is your modus operandi then waiting for the iPhone 5 is probably better for you.  Computer World seconds my opinion.  Choosing an iPhone 4 or 5 really comes down to personal preference, whether you need or want the 5 and if you have the patience to wait for it.  There is also the potential for issues with the new release.  Your cell provider can also be a consideration factor; with Verizon currently receiving better reviews than AT&T.

A month after getting it, I know the iPhone4  was my best option and now that I have it I can honestly say I can’t believe I waited so long.  Yes I did download Angry Birds and am now engaged in several “Words with Friends” games (thanks to my sister) and being able to look up the directions to Ford’s Theater a few weeks ago, because I forgot to grab the Garmin was priceless.  Not too long after buying the phone, I got sick.  As I layed in bed (moaning in agony – okay watching a movie), I was able to keep up with email (both personal and professional).  One thing I hate is coming back into the office and having a pile of email, thanks to my iPhone I didn’t have to dread that.  I know there are many other smartphones out there that can do this, but I was just happy that the iPhone 4 was simple enough for me to set it up all by myself (we’ve talked about my technical abilities in earlier blogs).  I’m sure this fascination will wear off, but right now I am enjoying it (even if it isn’t the latest and greatest).   Oh yea and now my husband wants one too, but he’s waiting for the iPhone 5!

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Posted by Dawn Bott

VIDEO: Meet Our Team – Fred Schroeder

May 24, 2011

Dawn

Fred Schroeder has to be the calmest person I know.  No matter what is happening in the Business Analysis & Project Management unit of DECO’s Information Systems Solutions, Fred remains calm.  That is no easy feat since he is not only the Associate Director for the unit, but also performs work as both a business analyst and a project manager, not to mention he is responsible for writing all of ISS’s responses to RFPs.  I can say that Fred is a great boss and I really enjoy working with him, as well as for him.  Hopefully this interview will provide you with a peak at just how calm, cool and collected my boss is . . .everyday!

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Posted by Dawn Bott

Being Social, too much of a good thing?

May 2, 2011

Dawn

At a recent presentation I attended on Social Media, one of the speakers noted that just as “we” did a few years ago with adding “e” in front of everything (e-commerce, e-business etc.), “we” are now doing it with “Social.”  Of course the skeptic in me thought, no we aren’t.  I mean there is Social Media, Social Worker, Social Studies, Social Class but what else is there?  After a 5 minute search on the web, I now realize we are a lot more social than I originally thought. Here are just are a few of the terms I found:

Some Social Terms

Social Networking Social Policy
Social Psychology Social Contract Theory
Social Responsibility Social Constructivism
Social Law Social Development Theory
Social Investment Social Media Monitoring
Social Media Ambassador Social Learning
Social Recruiting Social Etiquette
Social Technologies Social Gadget Developing Tool
Social Capital


Really what do some of these things mean?
and Does adding the word “social” in front make them that much different if we didn’t add social? According to the American Heritage Concise Dictionary, Social means: living together in communities or groups. As I perused the web trying to find a clear cut meaning of the use of social when added to something else, all I could find was the same thing, the use of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.   So I guess because I check my sons’ Facebook pages, I’m social parenting and when a friend asked peoples’ opinions on Facebook about an iPad versus a Xoom he was social researching?

We seem compelled to over use a term, just because it has popular connotations. There is probably a time and place to use the word Social to increase the impact or to provide a clearer meaning.  Recruiting used to be about finding and placing eligible employees now Social Recruiting is  when companies and recruiters use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media sites to source and recruit candidates for employment[i]. Networking and Social Networking are two related, but slightly different things, but networking is networking.  How it is done doesn’t change the fundamental meaning of it.  Social Etiquette was another social term that gave me pause, shouldn’t etiquette be etiquette?  I’m not sure how adding social here makes or changes its original meaning.

For someone like me who gets confused and overwhelmed easily, I think we should use some discretion when adding to our already complicated lives or maybe I’m just a person who just isn’t very social.

[i] Definition from About.com

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Posted by Dawn Bott

Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Web Hosting—lessons learned using Websphere

April 11, 2011

Dawn

Quick, if I say “Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH),” what is the first thing that pops into your mind?  I know not much came to me the first time it was said during a staff meeting.   I had heard of DHMH, but since it wasn’t a state agency I regularly interacted with (i.e., State Department of Assessments and Taxation or Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration), I wasn’t too familiar with their mission. But that was then and this is now.

Beginning in September of 2010, Information Systems Solutions (ISS) and the DECO Data Center (DDC) began work to host the DHMH eMedicaid website, which provides secure on-line services for medical providers (e.g., hospitals, doctors, clinics).  ISS’ new work with DHMH included two secure hosting environments with;

  • two clustered database servers,
  • two load balanced web servers, and
  • staging, consisting of one web and one database server.

First ISS and DDC had to establish the environments, then work with DHMH to migrate their database to its’ new home at Towson University.

So, this sounds like a typical hosting contract, nothing new right? Ah hah, but there is something different and ISS and DDC had the fantastic opportunity to learn all about it.   DHMH uses IBM Websphere Application Server (WAS) to manage their applications and respective databases, which reside on a DB2 platform; also new.  Surprisingly, ISS had never had the opportunity to learn it, use it or love it.  WAS supports the broadest range of platforms in the industry and eliminates the one size fits all approach to application management. For DHMH, WAS provided the capability to build, manage and deploy a number of different applications, while at the same time, reducing applications infrastructure costs. For ISS and DDC, hosting a website this complex required a true team approach!

Websphere aside, this project also involved establishing and maintaining a secure hosting environment, not unlike some of our previous experience.  However, with DHMH, besides State Confidentiality Laws and DoIT Information Security Policies, they must also comply with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability ACT (HIPPA) and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH).  ISS and DDC will be working closely with DHMH to ensure the hosting environment remains in compliance with both HIPPA and HITECH.

In addition to having the opportunity to learn a few things, we were also able to share some key-technologies we believe in with DHMH. The DDC was able to educate DHMH about server virtualization.  Not only did this reduce the time needed to build the servers, it also provided DHMH with a much more secure and failsafe environment.  Yeah, I’d call this a win/win situation!

Photo credit: Flickr User Tabitha Hawk

 

2 Comments | Community Outreach, IT, Projects, TU Faculty & Staff, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Dawn Bott

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