Defining and Writing Business Requirements

THIS COURSE HAS BEEN CANCELED

Fall 2016 Course

Date: Monday & Tuesday, December 5 & 6

Time: 8:30 am – 5:00 pm

Decision date: Friday, November 18, 2016

Early Registration Date deadline: November 11

Before Early Registration Date:
Members $415
Non-members $430

After Early Registration Date:
Members $430
Non-members $455

WHERE: Crowne Plaza Hotel
15 Middlesex Canal Park Drive
Woburn, MA 01801
USA

Phone 781-245-5405
email sec.boston@ieee.org
Fax 781-245-5406

If paying by check, the check must be received before the appropriate dates for Early Registration and Decision Dates.

Make Checks payable and send to:
IEEE Boston Section
One Centre Street, Suite 203
Wakefield, MA 01880

Speaker: Robin Goldsmith, President, GoPro Management

Course Overview:

Defining and Writing Business Requirements

Discovering and documenting business requirements for projects always has been the weakest link in systems development. Up to 67 percent of maintenance and 40 percent of development is wasted rework and creep attributable to inadequately defined business requirements. Too often projects proceed based on something other than what the business people really need; and traditional methodologies commonly focus mainly on the format for writing requirements. This interactive workshop also emphasizes how to discover content, why to build it and what it must do to produce value for the customer/user. Using a real case, participants practice discovering, understanding, and writing clear and complete business/user requirements that can cut creep, speed project delivery, reduce maintenance, and delight customers

Objectives

  • Avoiding creep–role and importance of defining business requirements accurately and completely.
  • Distinctions between the user’s (business) requirements and the system’s (design) requirements.
  • How to gather data, spot the important things, and interpret them meaningfully.
  • Using the Problem Pyramid™ tool to define clearly problems, causes, and real requirements.
  • Formats for analyzing, documenting, and communicating business requirements.
  • Techniques and automated tools to manage requirements changes and traceability.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND

This course has been designed for systems and business managers, project leaders, analysts, programmer analysts, quality/testing professionals, auditors, and others responsible for assuring business requirements are defined adequately.

Course Schedule

REQUIREMENTS ROLE AND IMPORTANCE
Sources and economics of system errors
How requirements produce value
Business vs. system requirements
Survey on improving requirements quality
Software packages and outsourcing
How we do it now vs. what we should do

DISCOVERING “REAL” REQUIREMENTS
Do users really not know what they want?
How the “real” requirements may differ
Aligning strategy, management, operations
Technology requirements vs. design
Problem Pyramid™ tool to get on track
Understanding the business needs/purposes
Horizontal processes and vertical silos
Customer-focused business processes
Who should do it: business or systems?
Joint Application Development (JAD) limits
Management/supervisor vs. worker views

DATA GATHERING AND ANALYSIS
Surveys and questionnaires
Research and existing documentation
Observing/participating in operations
Prototyping and proofs of concept
Planning an effective interview
Controlling with suitable questions

FORMATS TO AID UNDERSTANDING
Business rules, structured English
E-R, data flow,flow, organization diagrams
Data models, process maps
performance, volume, frequency statistics
Sample forms, reports, screens menus

DOCUMENTATION FORMATS
IEEE standard for software requirements
Use cases, strengths and warnings
7 guidelines for documenting requirements
Requirements vs. implementation scope
Iterating to avoid analysis paralysis
Conceptual system design solutions
Detailing for clarity, clarifying quality

GETTING MORE CLEAR AND COMPLETE
Stakeholders and Quality Dimensions
Addressing relevant quality factor levels
Standards, guidelines, and conventions
Detailing Engineered Deliverable Quality
Simulation and prototyping
Defining acceptance criteria

MANAGING THE REQUIREMENTS
Supporting, controlling, tracing changes
Automated requirements management tools
Measuring the “proof of the pudding”

Speaker’s Bio

Robin F. Goldsmith, JD is an internationally recognized authority on software development and acquisition methodology and management. He has more than 30 years of experience in requirements definition, quality and testing, development, project management, and process improvement. A frequent featured speaker at leading professional conferences and author of the recent Artech House book, Discovering REAL Business Requirements for Software Project Success, he regularly works with and trains business and systems professionals.