Mastering the Requirements Process

Audience

This course is designed for business and systems analysts, business users, team leaders and project managers.

Prerequisites

Those attending should have some basic knowledge of information systems development and information technology.

Duration

5 days. Lecture-based with examples and a case study.

Course Objectives

It is generally recognised that incorrect requirements account for up to 60% of errors in software products. However, capturing, analysing and documenting business or system requirements well is not easy and a process for doing so, tailored to your organisation, goes a long way to helping. This course takes delegates through the essentials of requirements elicitation, specification, documentation and traceability so that the complete requirements process is understood. In addition, vital, industry-standard techniques are included to ensure that all stakeholders, not just analysts, are able to participate fully in confirming the right requirements have been identified and used in the development process. The requirements process and techniques covered are applicable to any development process from waterfall to agile. A healthy attitude to documentation is a feature of the course meaning that only essential information is documented.

At the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Adapt a generic approach to suit their organisational requirements.
• IIdentify relevant techniques to be used in the requirements process and where they are best used in the system development life cycle and in particular projects.
• Elicit requirements using appropriate fact-finding methods and techniques.
• Organise, prioritise and specify business and system requirements.
• Build data, process and use case models in support of requirements specifications.
• Understand how to ensure that traceability of requirements is carried through a complete project from end to end.

Course Content

The Requirements Process
Definition of a requirement
Where do requirements come from?
Development life cycles
Projects and planning
Steps in the requirements process
Requirements engineering
Requirements management

Requirements Elicitation
Planning for elicitation
Brainstorming
Document Analysis
Interviews
Observation
Prototyping, tools for prototyping
Facilitated Workshops
Questionnaires

Requirements Analysis
Prioritisation
Organising requirements, functional decomposition, categories of requirements
Requirements specification
Requirements modelling techniques (use case, data and process modelling)
Assumptions and constraints
Verification
Validation
Documenting requirements

Use Case Diagrams
Use cases and requirements
Actors and use cases
Documenting use cases
Include and extend relationships
Developing use case diagrams
Context diagrams and scope

Modelling Data
Modelling required data
Data model notation
Entities, attributes and keys
Relationships and cardinality
Optional attributes
Mutually exclusive relationships
Developing a ‘to-be’ data model, business rules

Modelling Processes
Modelling processes
Activity diagrams
Initial and final nodes
Activities and flows
Forks and joins
Parallel activities
Conditions, decisions and merges
Swimlanes
Representing time
Developing a ‘to-be’ process model

Requirements Traceability
Dependencies and inter-relationships
Requirements coverage
Traceability matrix

Case Study
A realistic case study runs throughout the course, giving delegates the chance to put theory into practice.
In addition a number of templates for requirements specification documents are available as part of the course material.