What's software got to do with a BIG MAC?

In working with a client recently, I heard a comment that I hadn't expected. He was asked "how are things going?". He mentioned that he now understood what all the layers of a BIG MAC were for and the role that each played.

This was his way of describing what had happenned for him during our project.

I was brought in to help implement software for the business. They had purchased the software, but hadn't successfully implemented all of the functions. As I usually do, I started with a definition of the business goal, followed by a review of the business process changes required to meet that goal. Then we looked at how the software could help to improve the process to meet the goal.

In doing this, we found that each individual who was involved in the process, understood their own role, but not the role of others, nor how what they did affected how the others did their jobs. By documenting the end-to-end process and who was responsible for what, he had learned all of the steps in the process (the layers of the BIG MAC). By having everybody in the company understand the layers of the BIG MAC, their business process was improved, the software started to deliver on its original purpose.

So in order to achieve your goals in the purchase and implementation of new software, make sure that everybody understands all of the layers in your BIG MAC.