If you’ve read any posts in this blog, you’ve probably already picked up that visual models provide many benefits to any requirements elicitation and documentation project.  I want to mention one you may have not thought about:  visual models make delegation much easier.

Delegation of work to junior business analysts can be really helpful, and save money on less complex tasks.  Any time you spend on assignments that a junior resource could do is time that could be better spent on higher-level activities which provide more value to the business.

The problem is that most of us hit a wall when we try to delegate. We can peel away a few small tasks, but there seems to be no way to separate any parts of the majority of the project, because they all seem to be integrated and mixed up together.  Handing  these off to someone else would seemingly require educating a resource on every aspect of the project, which would take more time than simply doing the work yourself.

This is where visual models can help.  One reason visual models are useful is that they break a larger system into much smaller parts. Once you have you create your requirements architecture, you can then begin offloading work to others model-by-model.  Each new added person does not need to understand the project as a whole, they only need to understand the parts that relate to the model they’re working on.  You can even fine-tune your resource allocation more by giving specific staff specific parts of the model that they can focus on.

The other benefit of using visual models is that it is easier to bring everyone up to speed quickly. The models will explain what is going on in the project at a very high and very low level.  Models will show the context of the piece of the project that is being delegated, so it is easy to see how that part contributes to the whole. Your models should be the key tutorial tool you use when explaining the project to new resources.

Use your models to their fullest!  If you already have them, benefits like this are already available to you, you just need to use your models this way.  If you don’t have them, this provides yet another reason to start creating them for your project right now!

Need help getting started on visual models for your project? Visit the ArgonDigital website to download a variety of easy-to-use templates for a variety of visual models for software requirements.