How should you describe your business in the software brief?

Firstly, it’s important to know about your business, who you are and what the ambitions are.

You likely have this information already – just copy and paste this from your website!

Consider adding to this with information on the business ambitions and objectives:

What made you want to start this project?

What are your business objectives over the next 12 months and 5 years?

Where have you been as a business? Are you growing rapidly? Have you recently had any major changes?

How many people do you employ right now? How has this changed over the last 12 months and how will this change going forward?

List 3 to 5 high level pain points which are important to solve

What are the most important pain points, in order, which you are looking to solve during this project?

How do these translate to key objectives?

E.g. We have to manually move lots of data which is time consuming and error prone

E.g. We use Excel, and constantly muddle up and overwrite each other’s work

E.g. We are not able to make reports which make sense, and can’t make data driven decisions

Consider how solving these problems will generate an ROI for your business.  Please see our article 21 Indicators that lack of tech is slowing scaleup growth, for inspiration on these.

Why are these problems worth solving? What does that mean to you and the business?

How do we ensure that we aren’t solving problems for the sake of it?

How do we ensure that solving a problem has a positive impact for the business?

Ensuring that solving a pain point generates a return on investment, or empowers the achievement of strategic objectives make a problem worth solving.  Do the problems you want to solve generate enough value to make it worth the investment of time and money?

Summarising why these problems are worth solving helps gauge the value of completing the project, and allows us to set measures of success – how do we know it was done correctly?

Consider answering the following questions

What growth opportunities are unlocked by solving the pain points above?

How will it either save you money, or allow you to generate more revenue?

How will this project better allow you to achieve business objectives?

How will you measure the success of this project?

Why is solving these problems, and this project valuable to the business?

You may have already tried to solve some of the pain points in this software brief. If so, what have you tried? What worked well and what failed?

Understanding this allows us as solution providers to learn from your previous work, and rule in/out solutions going forward.

For example, have you tried any off the shelf software to solve the problem? If so, why didn’t this work? Did aspects of it work? How would you implement a better solution?

If you have documentation for the processes at hand, also consider including those here.

What other software are you using right now which relates to this problem?

Understanding what else is in play ensures we don’t get tunnel vision, and that we consider the wider landscape.  Consider listing the following:

Current software you use which you believe should be replaced

Current software you think might be impacted by this project

Current software you want to keep, and integrate into this solution (e.g. we use accountancy software X, and want invoices to be created automatically)

Software you’ve seen and think would be beneficial for your business

What do I need to add to understand the solution?

What key features do you see being present in the solution?

You may have already ideated a solution, if so, feel free to bullet point how you see this working, or attach any documentation, mind maps etc you’ve put together.  E.g.

We want this to integrate with our accounting software, so that we don’t need to manually create invoices

We need our clients to log into a portal and see information about their account without having to contact us

We need to have a reporting suite to we are able to see real time information on the use of the system and the revenue generated through it at any one time

Budget: What are you willing to invest to solve this problem?

This can be tricky, most people don’t know how much software costs!  Why would you? It’s like someone knowing how much a cake factory costs.

It’s important to assess a budget against the Return on Investment the project will generate for the business, so it’s an investment and not a blind cost.  

For example, “It will cost £50k” might look scary with no context, however, “The project will create £150k in cost savings for a £50k investment” is a much clearer decision!

In any case, consider a budget, even if it’s just how many 0’s the investment level has.  A good solution provider will bring up budget before proposal, and an open and honest conversation should ensue.

Timescales must align between your business, and those put forth by a solutions provider.

For example, a solutions provider will likely already have a pipeline of work and will not likely be able to start the project immediately – it has to be scheduled in.  Knowing that in advance allows for an alignment of expectations before a proposal is put forward, and saves everyone time.

If you have key dates which must be met, add these here.  Consider the following:

Key stakeholders, e.g. if you must onboard your clients, are the clients themselves on a cycle which could line up with a launch of software

Consider who is important to engage with for the solution.  We advocate that the following people are involved in the process:

Who ever is making the final decision, this is generally the managing director, or someone from the leadership team if that decision is designated.  Involving them too late is likely to lead to a situation where they do not have the information they need to make a decision

Who will be managing the project day to day from your perspective? Ensure they are involved from the get go

Who are the key users of the software to be implemented? Ensure they are a part of the process when defining the problem and the solution – having these people invested and bought into the process makes it easier to implement the software into your business later

It’s important to decide what you’re looking for from a proposal, and how you will choose the best proposal for your business.  This makes it clear internally from the outset what you’re looking for, and makes it easier for you to communicate that with suppliers throughout the buying process.

For example, you may feel that one of price, ROI, experience, timescales or quality of the solution are important.

If a supplier puts forward a proposal focussing on the shortest timescale, but you actually care about the highest ROI, the process with that supplier may not have been the best use of time.

Having these also makes it easier for you to score proposals objectively, meaning you are able to pick the proposal best for your business.

It’s common for us to see a one page software development brief summarising how a solution might look, with a request for a quote on that solution.

It’s great that effort has been made to document the project, but in this form it’s generally not informational enough to go straight to a proposal.

You will likely receive a proposal with lots of assumption, and detailing a solution which will not fit your needs as a business.  You may also receive proposals which are solving different problems (as they are assumed), so it’s hard to compare them like for like.

Designing a solution, without detailing/understanding pain points, objectives or ROI

When bypassing these steps and looking straight at a solution, how are we sure that the solution actually solves your problems? 

How do we sense check it to make sure it hits business objectives? 

How do we assess the investment required for the solution and check that there is a positive Return on Investment?

How will we mutually be confident the project is worth doing?

Without answering these questions, you may not feel confident making a decision once you have proposals, simply because it’s ambiguous whether the project is even worth doing.

Answering these questions first, ensures the project is viable before jumping into designing a solution.

Providing a software brief which is the solution

We always think it’s great when this has been thought through, but we will still advocate that we go through our process to understand the problems and ROI.

How do we ensure we understand the problems and value? How do we ensure that the solution you’ve design fixes these?

How do we ensure that the solution is the best solution possible?

It’s also worth considering why you are engaging a solution provider in the first place.  Is it because they are technically competent and experienced? If so, are they the best people to design the solution alongside you, based on problems you’ve put forth?

Pushing for a proposal/cost before understanding ROI and value

The problems this causes have a lot of cross over with the above.  This generally involves short cutting the process and putting forward a proposal without answering key questions about the project.

When we’re put in this position, we will always bow out rather than put forth a proposal, as it’s morally better for us to shake hands and call it a day, rather than putting forward a solution which we simply cannot justify.

We must follow our process to ensure we have a mutual agreement with you that the project has value.

If a project is started under these circumstances, it makes it hard at the end of a project to understand whether it was a success or not.  The software may have been delivered successfully, but has it actually had a positive impact on the business?

Equally, it may be discovered that a project is actually not worth doing or the ROI doesn’t stack up, and this is also fine! 

A good solution provider will discover this early in the process, and will not want to spend your money on a project which does not generate ROI.

Assuming a project is able to start immediately after contract award

Solutions providers like us generally have carefully managed project plans with multiple ongoing projects, it’s rare that we’re able to start immediately.

For example, we’re generally able to start planning, discussing and designing the solution fairly quickly, but we typically have a lead time of weeks, at any given time, before core development on a project can start.

It’s worth assuming that a lead time of 8 weeks may be typical, but this will vary amongst solution providers.

When scoping a software project, communication is extremely important.

From our perspective, scoping out a project consists of developing an in depth understanding of your situation and pain points, and then working with you to identify how to generate the maximum return on investment by solving those pain points.

However, at the start of every conversation, there is naturally a knowledge gap. Naturally we understand tech and you understand your business and pain points, we must bridge that gap!

Based on over a decade of experience, we’ve put together a template detailing how to prime a development agency like us, with the information we need to understand your project.

Simply, it lets you and your team evaluate the problem at hand, and give that to solutions providers like us in a consistent and detailed way.

If done in the right way (see our template!), it ensures proposals are geared to solve your problem and generating ROI

If the conversation is only orientated towards a solution, how are you able to guarantee that a proposal:

Has a measurable/positive impact on the business

Detailing the objectives, measures and values up front in a software development brief, allows you to assess proposals against these and answer the above questions

It makes it more likely quotes you receive are comparable

Consider engaging with multiple solution providers without this, will all of them have the same information? If all solutions providers have different information, will they all be providing proposals for the same problems?

It should provide wider context of your business and objectives, but also laser focus on the problems at hand

It’s important that a project has clear objectives which are measurable, and that the value of the project is understood.

At the same time, sight of the wider context allows a solution provider like us to recommend strategic decisions which provide more value now, or make decisions for the solution which deliver more value in the long run.

It may sting if a solution implemented now has to be changed in consideration of your wider objectives – knowing these earlier allows us to make informed decisions.

What is a software development brief? See how to write a ROI focussed software brief, which aligns with your business objectives

Ensure ROI is a priority for your software project, by using this software development brief

Close to one-third of IT decision-makers (32%) say that digital business has already helped their organization achieve revenue growth (with an average of a 23% increase) – according to IDG.  Are businesses which are not taking care of this missing out on a substantial increase in revenue? 

LinkedIn Sales Navigator suggests that there are ~360k MDs/CEOs in the UK, but only 32k Technical Directors/CTOs/CIOs.  Based on this, back of the napkin maths creates an assumption that up to 91% of businesses have no one in the leadership team with a technical background.  The same search for businesses with a headcount of 11-500 people suggests that 87% of scaleups/SME businesses suffer the same problem.

How does this impact a business? Well, technology can be a complex subject.  As businesses, we outsource legal and accountancy services for the same reason.

Businesses likely use accountancy software like Xero or FreeAgent, and on occasion use online software to generate lower risk legal documents (like a website privacy policy), but when it matters (like filing yearly accounts, or reviewing contracts), we use experts.

It’s common for scaleup founders to understand their business, and the business strategy they have to drive it forward.  However, who is looking after the tech? Who is driving forward a digital strategy to empower your business strategy? Is this creating opportunity cost for the business?

Is it important to have a technical strategy to align with business strategy?

According to Adobe, digital-first companies are 64% more likely to achieve their business goals than their peers. 

That’s a hard figure to ignore.  Would accelerated digital transformation better able you to hit your objectives? If you already are, would higher adoption allow you to set more ambitious objectives?

How is a competitor likely to compare who is doing this successfully? How will that impact your business?

Warning signs that not doing this is negatively impacting business right now:

In terms of day to day problems you may notice, we’ve compiled a handy list of 21 Indicators that lack of tech is slowing scaleup growth, some of these are:

Slow, manual and error prone processes rely heavily on paper or spreadsheet software

Reports are not accurate, not trusted and are slow/manual to create

Data is not used to make evidence-based decisions, key decisions are made on assumption and not evidence

Adding more people just makes things slower

Manual admin work leads to repeated mistakes

Zooming out, we generally see these problems:

There is no technical expert within the business, meaning tech is not an informed consideration when the leadership team make decisions

There is little to no coordination amongst active projects (different people running projects with no coordination). There may be competing solutions/software in the business (e.g. 2 reporting tools), or solutions which can’t talk to each other, making automation harder

Technology is put into place to fix current issues, without thinking longer term. Thus, this technology reaches a natural limitation and must be replaced later, after it’s already embedded into the business – this is painful

The ROI generated, nor the problems solved by technology implemented, are not understood, meaning it’s not clear if it was worth doing or not

Problems reoccur and build up over time, meaning more and more time is spent firefighting

Competitors are more competitive and innovative, and are accelerating this gap

What should a technical/digital strategy achieve?

It is important that a technical strategy empowers the business, to ensure that the execution of this strategy leads to paddle strokes which match the drum beat of the business. 

Lack of coordination increases chance of failure.

Remember that digital & software are a conduit, not the objective. A technical strategy must demonstrate how it will enable business objectives

What are the key objectives in the business strategy? How will technology either empower or achieve these?
undefined

An understanding of where the business is now, what will need to change to allow this transformation?

What does success look like? How do we measure whether the execution of the strategy is working or not?

A digital strategy must not act as an enabler of the blind adoption of technology because it seems like the right thing to do.  It must empower business objectives.

We recommend in our DIY Digital Transformation document an approach which considers at least the following:

Adoption of technology & automation of processes

We have detailed in our DIY Digital Transformation document an approach to achieve this.

Below we’ve listed some excerpts as questions:

What are your business objectives, and how should tech be used to drive those forward?

What does success look like? How will you measure that?

What are the current pain points in your business?

What will your business look like if you eliminated these pain points?

Do you have your current processes mapped & documented? Is this documentation used? Would automating these generate a ROI?

Are your processes enforced via software? Is it easy to make a mistake in any of your processes, or bypass key gate checks?

Less than 30% of a company’s technology vendors are actively involved in their digital transformations.

A business implementing technology without an overall strategy, and lack of coordination between staff/suppliers, is like a rowing boat where everyone paddles in different directions.  It is common in this situation to see the following pitfalls:

Technology implemented for the ‘now’, not the long term, leading to problems later. e.g. duplication of effort and wasted time/resource

A lack of communication, resulting in staff/suppliers making decisions which negatively impact other solutions managed by other staff/suppliers

No single person has a top down strategic view of the whole tech landscape in the business, reducing coordination and increasing the chance of failure and surprises

To reduce that risk, it’s important the following people are involved:

Someone from the leadership team to steer at a high level & provide strategic input (e.g. a Technical Director/CTO/Operations Director/COO)

Someone reporting to that person to manage the day to day execution of the plan

Key technology suppliers who manage key software/infrastructure

From here, if there is someone overseeing all projects, and if everyone is aware of the plan, it reduces the changes of failure.

It’s also worth considering who is able to champion this as a day to day activity from within the business?  Does anyone have the skillset, or is coachable?

Empowering a person to drive this forward day to day, ensures that it's not just thought and strategy, but that there is action driving the plan forward.

We have no one with the technical experience to execute this, what next?

It’s important that there is someone present who understands technology from a strategic perspective, and who is able to bridge that gap between business strategy and technical strategy.

Relatively few SMEs have a CTO/technical director in the business, that person would normally fit the bill.

If that is the case, the following are options:

“The median salary in 2019 for the job title CTO was 80,000. A chief technology officer in the bottom 10% of the salary range made 49,000” – CTO Academy

There will be a natural point at which employing a CTO makes sense.  If you’re a technology business by nature, that is likely to be relatively earlier in the journey, especially if you’re looking to raise investment.

This may be a good bridge with a lower cost than a full CTO, but you’re paying consultancy rates, so expect to pay around £1-2k per month.

Providers like Wubbleyou strive to be more than just a software/solution provider.  We often input (or lead) on wider technical strategy, simply because we’re the most technically capable entity involved with the client. 

We’re able to provide further value, as understanding and shaping long term technical strategy ensures we consider that when executing shorter term projects.

When taking this approach, it’s important that you build a strong relationship with your solutions provider (like us) to ensure everyone is aligned.  It’s important to:

Ensure everyone is honest & transparent. The strategy naturally involves solution provider (as they are probably delivering key elements)

IDG lists the biggest obstacles in achieving success with digital business as:

lack of staff and/or correct skill sets (36%)

We also don’t know what we don’t know.  Without the technical expertise in the first place, how do business owners know what is possible?

Let’s face it, it’s hard – but it has high reward when done correctly.  We recommend following a crawl, walk, run approach.  At a high level, this looks like:

Understanding high level objectives (business strategy objectives), and create understanding of how tech would support this, create objectives for a multiyear technical strategy which align with business strategy

Understanding easy wins, what are the painful/costly processes in the business which if resolved would see an immediate Return on Investment

Use this momentum to learn and create confidence/buy in throughout the team, and free up budget for further reinvestment. This starts to become cultural

Incrementally undertake more ambitious projects to increment closer to strategic objectives, by creating 90 day and 12-month objectives

Technical/digital strategy is hard, but rewarding when executed correctly.  Technology is a way to leverage your business strategy, and must be used to empower and accelerate the business towards the achievement of your business objectives.

Digital-first companies are 64% more likely to achieve their business goals than their peers

Scaleups with no technical expert in their leadership team, are not likely equipped to create and execute a technical strategy

Why scaleup businesses are hurt by a lack of technical/digital strategy

On the 16th March 2020, many of us were sitting at home awaiting statements from central government.  This was followed by a series of televised statements, where Boris Johnson, and his team, resolutely asked us to stay at home to save lives.

After 5 months, there is now a wealth of data which indicates business readiness and response for remote working.

We have detailed below what this data shows, and what this may indicate for the future.  I’ve tried to separate the impact of Working from Home (WFH) from COVID, but it is tricky!

An ONS report shows a breakdown of occupations and what percentage of those people are working from home:

It states “Occupations requiring higher qualifications and experience were more likely to do some work at home”

This could indicate that roles 5-8 involve tasks which are far harder to complete remotely (e.g. working machinery), or sectors with these roles are less ready for remote working.

However, it does seem that some portion of these roles allow working from home, or entire roles in these occupations. 

So the question is: Do the roles/tasks which are theoretically completable remotely, have other barriers which prevent someone doing this remotely?

E.g., Does a reporting element require the use of onsite paper or computers?  Would eliminating that requirement through automation generate a cost saving for your business?

ONS data from 2019 suggests that many industries are capable of working remotely:

Given that many industries and roles have people which work from home, does that suggest an office is not essential to the way we work?

Could there be other barriers which create operational challenges aside from not using an office?

We believe so.  In our post 21 Indicators that lack of tech is slowing scaleup growth, we detail that a number of prevalent operational challenges our clients have, are solvable by improving the following areas:

Using onsite software, like Sage50 (consider migrating to cloud software like Xero)

“Adding more people makes it slower”, is likely inadequate process documentation, and this may be made worse when the team is remote

Physical interaction is required, but could be avoided – like collecting wet signatures

If this is done correctly (whilst also considering cyber security), we believe working from home vs in the office becomes a cultural choice, not an operational restriction.

By properly digitising the business and its processes, remote working as a possibility becomes a natural side effect.

A common reaction to remote working is ‘how do I know people are working?’.  It’s a valid question, and the truthful answer is, that at any given moment, you don’t.  But, is that different when you’re in the office?

Would a better question be, “how do I track people’s output?”

Would there be more mutual trust if it is mutually understood whether or not someone is hitting objectives?

It’s important to collect data on output & performance, to allow for this assurance, and understand business performance as a whole.

A recent report shows that 32% of office workers expect to at least partially work from home after lockdown, with 44% of Londeners wanting to make that shift.

This is up from just 10% the year before. 

Blog

Ensure ROI is a priority for your software project, by using this software development brief

Why scaleup businesses are hurt by a lack of technical/digital strategy

The future for scaleup businesses is ‘remote first’, here’s why office space is now optional

21 Indicators that lack of tech is slowing scaleup growth

Why it costs you more to use WordPress for complex web platforms

10 things a scaleup business could do right now to improve business security

How to use the MVP approach to develop your product or software

How to systemise your business

10 Essential Paperless Tools That Will Save Your Business Time and Money