NOTE: This course has been cancelled.  Please contact office at 781-245-5405 if you have any questions.

Overview:

Understanding and articulating 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 development methodologies commonly focus mainly on the format for representing 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 documenting clear and complete business requirements that can speed project delivery, reduce maintenance, and delight customers.

Audience:

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.

Benefits:

Participants will learn:

• 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.

Material:

Course materials consist of copies of the slides and a few article reprints.  Instructional format is interactive and includes frequent class exercises.

Outline:

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

DOCUMENTATION FORMATS

            Formats to aid understanding of the data

            Business rules, structured English

            E-R, data flow, flow, organization diagrams

            Data models, process maps

            Performance, volume, frequency statistics

            Sample forms, reports, screens, menus

            Formats for communicating requirements

            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.

Decision (Run/Cancel) Date for  this Courses is  Thursday, November 10, 2005

Course Fee Schedule:

On-line Registration and Payment

This course has been cancelled.  Please contact office at 781-245-5405 if you have any questions.

Copyright © 2004 IEEE Boston Section. All rights reserved.
Maintained by R M Stelting

Updated Thursday June 11, 2009