From the business (ie non-technical) perspective the introduction of new technology should be a symmetrical process.

The process should include all of the following stages:

1. Vision – what the business will achieve through the technology.
2. Business Requirements – what the business actually wants to do with the technology.
3. Functional Specification – a translation of step 2 into terms describing what the technology needs to do in order to enable the business to do what it needs to do.
4. Technical Specification – a translation of step 3 into what specific technology will be used for each element.
5. Building – assembling all the software and hardware described in step 4 into a system.
6. System Testing – testing that all the software and hardware does what was described in step 3, individually and all together and fixing as necessary.
7. User Acceptance Testing – testing that the business can do what was defined in step 2 and fixing as necessary.
8. Implementation & Review- implementing then assessing whether the business is achieving what was defined in step 1.

Project cost and time over-runs, failure to acheive expected benefits and general dissatisfaction with new technology are often a result of a failure to fully complete one of these steps.