Blog: Requirements
AI can write your requirements. Who checked they were the right ones?
Published by Forever Foundry
On 24 September, SAP published an implementation partner’s perspective on enterprise requests for proposal, the documents businesses use to invite suppliers to propose a solution.
It highlights a growing problem: AI can write lengthy requirements, suppliers can use AI to answer them, and AI can summarise the responses. The volume of documentation increases while the quality of the decision may barely improve.
The authors recommend questions specific to the business, supported by clear metrics, service expectations and an understanding of budget. Read SAP’s article.
The FOFO™ view
AI makes it easier to describe a solution before an organisation has properly understood its problem.
A polished requirement can make an assumption look settled. Once it reaches suppliers, that assumption becomes something to price, configure and deliver.
The opportunity is to improve the evidence behind the requirement before accelerating the paperwork.
Imagine a service business preparing to buy a new customer portal.
The brief asks for account information, document uploads and automated status updates. Those features sound reasonable. But why are customers contacting the business so often?
Customer service may hear that updates are unclear. Operations may know that cases wait days for an internal decision. Finance may see repeated billing disputes. Customers may simply want someone to take ownership.
A portal could help. It could also give customers a clearer view of the same unresolved delays.
Discover the requirement across the organisation
Before asking suppliers for proposals, establish which problems are frequent, costly and important enough to address.
Listen to the teams who experience them, the people responsible for resolving them and, where relevant, the customers affected. Keep differences between their accounts visible: they may reveal a missing part of the requirement.
Then agree the outcome worth funding.
For the service business, that might mean reducing repeat contacts about the same case or shortening the time to resolution. Record the current position and identify what is causing the delay before deciding which capabilities are necessary.
Suppliers can then explain how their proposed approach would improve those measures, what it depends on and what it will cost to operate.
For a practical test of whether a problem is ready to act on, read how to tell if a problem is worth solving before you act on it.
Give suppliers a problem they can help solve
The FOFO Process™ helps leadership teams build that foundation. AI Compass™ listens across functions, roles and levels to create organisational evidence. Slid3rs™ helps your people prioritise the resulting opportunities. FlowRoom® brings leadership together to agree the roadmap.
A Tactical Target Card™ carries the problem, supporting evidence, intended outcome, owner and success measures into the next discussion.
That gives customers a clearer basis for investment and delivery partners a stronger starting point for scoping the work.
Before using AI to expand your next brief, ask whether the people affected would recognise the problem it describes.
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