Defining and Analysing Requirements
(course code BAND3)

Overview

Perhaps the single most difficult project phase is gathering and managing project and product requirements. This course examines several facets of the process. It takes the approach that gathering requirements is a consultative activity and presents several methods, models and techniques to help IT professionals work with the business as consultants. You will also learn how to gather, document and trace requirements throughout the project life cycle. After taking this course, you will look at the requirements process in a whole new light and be much more effective at managing the effort to produce products that will delight your customers.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Use a systematic process for gathering, documenting, and managing requirements that are critical to business success;
• Trace requirements back to business problems and business objectives and forward to construction and testing;
• Identify project stakeholders and demonstrate the keys to obtaining stakeholder trust, ownership and commitment;
• Use numerous methods of eliciting the right information from your clients in the right situations:
  
  • Ask probing questions that help discover hidden requirements;
  • Interview customers to the greatest effect to get detailed requirement information;
  • List the characteristics of an effective facilitated workshop and discuss how to keep them on track;
  • Use a handy prototyping technique to elicit business requirements;
• List the components of a "great" requirement and provide examples of each;
• Create all pieces of a complete package for documenting business requirements, leveraging the interdependencies of data, processes and user interfaces:
  • Map “AS IS” and “TO BE” business processes;
  • Gather information requirements and effectively translate them to business clients and designers;
  • Develop use case diagrams and narrative flows of events;
  • Develop user interfaces based on data, process, and use case requirements;
• Manage business requirements, including additional requirements that surface throughout the project.

Who Should Attend

This course is designed for business analysts, requirements managers, project managers and anyone who is involved in software development projects. It also provides excellent information for business clients and sponsors, quality assurance analysts, and other stakeholders involved in software development projects.

Prerequisites

No technical experience is necessary, but an understanding of applications development is required.

Course Content

This course covers:

• Requirements Management:
  
  • Business Requirements Defined;
  • Business Context, Discussions and Exercises;
  • Business Rules and Requirements;
  • Requirements Management Process;
  • What Makes a Requirement ‘Great’?;
  • Importance of Requirements Traceability;
  • Analysis and Design: Where Do Requirements Fit?
• Effective Elicitation:
  
  • Discussion Exercise;
  • Elicitation Techniques;
  • Considerations in Choosing Techniques;
  • Keeping Focused, asking focused questions;
  • Agendas and Ground Rules;
  • Case Study Workshop.
• Stakeholders, Partnerships and Accountability:
  
  • Stakeholders Roles Discussion;
  • Responsibility Assignment Matrix;
  • Common Project Stakeholders and their roles and responsibilities;
  • Characteristics of an Effective Business Analyst;
  • Partnership and Trust;
  • Workshop: Introduction to Case Study.
• Process Mapping:
  
  • Process Diagrams;
  • Process Map Definition;
  • Process Scope;
  • Primary and Alternate Paths;
  • Exception Parking Lot;
  • Workshop.
• Getting and Translating Information Requirements:
  
  • Steps to Gather Information Requirements (entities, attributes, relationships);
  • Business Rules (cardinality and optionality rules, referential integrity rules, edit rules, attribute constraints);
  • Workshop.
• Use Cases:
  
  • Basic Elements;
  • Use case model: diagram and text;
  • Workshop;
  • Narrative Flow of Events;
  • Use Case Iterations;
  • Use Cases and Test Cases;
  • Use Cases and Prototype;
  • Workshop.
• User Interfaces and Prototyping:
  
  • General Considerations;
  • Actors, Objectives, and Scenarios;
  • Purpose of Prototyping;
  • Roles;
  • Prototype Review Sessions;
  • Prototyping Process;
  • Workshop.
• Managing Changes:
  
  • Scope Management;
  • Strategies for Scope Management;
  • Scope Creep.
• Course Summary

Certification Exams

There are no exams with this course.

Course Fees

We offer a range of delivery styles and packages for this course. Please go to the Packages and Inclusions page to review the inclusions provided with each package.

Professional Development

Successful completion of this course may entitle you to credits in various professional development programmes:

• For AIPM CPD points, check here;
• For PMI PDUs, check here (see page 11).

Follow-on Courses

We recommend that delegates who complete this course should proceed with our Business Process Modelling course.