When organisations embark on planning transformations, their instinct is often to document existing spreadsheets and systems. While familiar, this approach can entrench inefficiencies: manual processes, version control issues, unclear ownership, and unscalable planning.
Effective requirements gathering is not about replicating the current process in a new tool. It is about understanding how decisions are made today, how they need to improve, and what will enable better outcomes in the future. At Zooss, we start with the decisions themselves and ask the question, “What are we trying to optimise, and can we look at options for change?”
Start with the decisions
Every planning process exists to support specific decisions: setting targets, forecasting demand, allocating resources, prioritising investment, managing risks, and thinking about options for improvement. When we work with teams, we ask simple but powerful questions:
- What decisions do you need to make, and when?
- Who owns them?
- What information is required to make them effectively?
- If we can make a difference, what changes would one need to consider?
“These conversations go beyond spreadsheets, and existing processes,” explains Upali Wickramasinghe, Principal Solution Architect. “They surface the logic, assumptions, and drivers that form the backbone of good planning. Once these are clear, technology implementation becomes far more straightforward.”
Delivery Manager Mick Wilson concurs: “My advice to customers is: Don’t just digitise your old spreadsheets! Instead, reimagine the process to unlock smarter decisions, greater efficiency, and step into the future of planning.”
Understand the planning rhythm
Every organisation has a natural operating rhythm. Some decisions require daily feedback; others follow monthly, quarterly, or annual cycles. Tools should support, not dictate, this rhythm.
During requirements gathering, we map planning activities across time: how information flows, where delays occur, and where manual work fills gaps. This highlights where automation, integration, or simplification will deliver immediate value.
“The biggest improvements often come not from new features, but from removing unnecessary steps, optimising data processes and clarifying ownership,” says Upali.
Work across teams, not in silos
Planning touches many parts of a business. Finance, Operations, Commercial, HR and Executive Leadership often approach planning from different perspectives and may use different language to describe similar concepts.
Requirements gathering is the to time identify these differences. Doing this early helps avoid one of the most common pitfalls in planning transformation: rebuilding existing silos inside a new platform. Instead, we ensure planning processes and data structures support shared visibility and accountability across teams, and improve communication between them.
According to Upali, “This alignment between business functions and teams early in the transformation journey strengthens the case for change, because stakeholders see themselves in the future solution. Communication of the intent for optimising the process is also key to ensure the collaborative nature is instilled rather than dictated.”
Designing for adoption from the start
A planning solution only delivers value if people use it confidently. Clear requirements make adoption easier: teams understand decision points, data flows, time cycles, and governance structures.
Focusing on clarity and simplicity builds trust, improves model design, enables meaningful testing, and ensures smoother rollout.
The Zooss approach in practice
Our structured requirements process includes:
- Interviews and discovery to understand current decision-making.
- Mapping end-to-end planning workflows across teams.
- Identifying manual work, duplicate data, and bottlenecks.
- Extracting key planning logic, drivers, and assumptions.
- Prioritising improvements with the greatest business impact.
The outcome is more than implementation clarity – it creates shared understanding, aligns teams, and establishes a foundation for measurable, sustainable improvements in planning, reporting, and decision-making.
Better business planning and reporting
At Zooss, our mission is to enable better business planning and reporting. We specialise in helping organisations build modern planning capability across FP&A, and S&OP — solutions that are scalable, governed and designed for real business adoption.
Our approach brings together business process expertise, data architecture, and change support to deliver planning environments that are easier to maintain and deliver long-term value.
We have significant experience within banking, finance, retail, and manufacturing and can apply our understanding to any industry sector, uniting all business functions to enable sustainable planning for better decision-making and better outcomes for businesses, people and our planet.
If you’re exploring planning transformation – or assessing where to start – let’s discuss your goals and challenges.
Read more of our Planning Transformation in Practice series
Find out more
- Sustainable Business Planning – Our solutions
- Anaplan Partner delivering better planning for businesses in Australia & NZ
- Worldwide reach, local expertise: Global Anaplan Implementation Network
- Ready to start planning sustainably? Contact us.
Better Planning. Better Planet.