whirlpool-method

“Whirlpool” method is used to evaluate, recommend and acquire software package solutions related to specific business purpose.

Software package solution is:

- supplied by a vendor

- sold, leased, or licensed to an acquirer

- used without modification of its code.

“Whirlpool” methodology is comprised from different phases and they are executed in following order:

1. Vision

2. Initiation

3. Scope

4. Planning

5. Requirements

6. Industry / best practice scan

7. Environmental scan

8. Product Grouping / Sorting

9. Selection process

I. Selecting Supporting products

II. Selecting Contenders

III. Selecting Leaders

IV. Refine requirements and adjust the selection process

V. Vendor Demos (from step III)

VI. Pilot(s)

VII. The Best Fit product (final decision)

“Whirlpool” methodology decision making process is influenced by four different domains:

1. Stakeholders commitments

2. Business needs

3.

Architectural decision

4. Knowledge harvesting / Asset reuse

Vision

A vision statement is sometimes called a picture of your company in the future but it’s so much more than that. Your vision statement is your inspiration, the framework for all your strategic planning.

Initiation

Begins when a sponsor identifies a need or an opportunity. Concept Proposal is created, which is a document identifying the problem and why the new system needs to be pursued.

Scope

Define the boundary of the concepts and it represents a common understanding as to what is included in, or excluded from, a project.

Project planning:

Provides the basis for acquiring the resources need to achieve a solution.

It generates a high-level view of the intended project and determine the goals of the project. Planning also includes the feasibility study, and that is sometimes used to present the project to upper management in an attempt to gain funding. Projects are typically evaluated in three areas of feasibility: economical, operational, and technical.

Requirements

constitute a specification of what the business wants, the purpose of initializing a specific project (Project Initialization Document), what the needed achievements will be, and the quality measures. This is usually expressed in terms of broad outcomes the business requires, rather than specific functions the system may perform. Specific design elements are usually outside the scope of this document, although design standards may be referenced.

Industry best practice scan

Is used to gather information about improved process solution, technology and tools, based on industry best practices. It is starting point in creating list of potential vendors and its products, that potentially can provide solution for specific business problem. If you can, find out what other organizations are doing to resolve same business request and then benchmark your situation against their experiences.

Environmental scan

Is used to gather information about improved process solution, technology and tools that already exist in the organization. This step is particularly important in large organizations (enterprises). This process will help us to eliminate duplication of effort and it will help us in decision making process.

Grouping and Sorting

Once we gather all necessary information and created list of potential candidates for our final selection we will then create different groups (based on particular strength) and then sort them within the group based on their suitability for our requirements.

Selection

Selection process is continuation of grouping and sorting and it will help us to distinguish between contenders and rest of the products. And at the end of the selection process we should have best fit product for specific purpose.

Architectural Decisions

 

Stakeholders Commitments

Stakeholders have to be defined and generally, they are groups or individuals who have a stake in the success or failure of the project as a whole.

There are five key roles that a stakeholder can play:

• Partners who support the project like contributing finance, staff, direction, etc.;
• Sponsors, like major founders;
• Advocates, who may not have any legitimate power to influence the project but have a stake in the outcome and can help maintain sponsor’s commitment;
• Change Agents who are involved in the operations like major suppliers and the project team; and
• Targets—the individuals or the groups affected by the project and are the focus of [change] efforts.

We should  know who among the stakeholders could create real and lasting impact. They are the ones who have all three critical attributes, namely, power, legitimacy, and urgency. And we call them Definitive Stakeholder i.e.:

Keeping stakeholders committed also has its challenges as each stakeholder can experience difficulties at different stages of commitment.

The Commitment Curve simply tells us that it would be best to in still awareness, build understanding, and create buy-in before commitment can be secured from stakeholders.

Knowledge Harvesting / Asset Reuse

Most of an organization’s corporate knowledge is contained in documents or in the minds of its human resources. To make effective use of this corporate knowledge, organizations must be able to access, harvest, organize and redistribute it.

“Whirlpool” method by Darko Petrusic is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.whirlpool-method.com.