C10 Establishing the Requirements Flashcards
According to Walia and Carver, what are the main problems with requirements?
- lack of relevance to the objectives of the project,
- lack of clarity in the wording,
- ambiguity,
- duplication and overlap across requirements,
- conflict between requirements,
- inconsistent levels of detail,
- business users failing to identify all requirements.
One of the main causes of poor requirements, is that they lack relevance to project objectives. This often results from a lack of terms of reference from the project. What are the areas of a complete TOR? (BOSCARD)
Background Provide background information that includes the reasons for creating the project and mentions the key stakeholders who will benefit from the project result.
Objectives Describe the project goals and link each of them with related, SMART project objectives.
Scope Provide a high-level description of the features and functions that characterise the product, service, or result the project is meant to deliver.
Constraints Identify the specific constraints or restrictions that limit or place conditions on the project, especially those associated with project scope.
Assumptions Specify all factors that are, for planning purposes considered to be true. During the planning process, these assumptions will be validated.
Risks Outline the risks identified at the start of the project. Include a quick assessment of the significance of each risk and how to deal with them.
Deliverables Define the key deliverables the project is required to produce to achieve the stated objectives.
What are the five stages included in the Requirements Engineering Framework?
Requirements Elicitation - concerned with drawing out information and requirements from the business stakeholders. When we elicit requirements they are often explained with lack of clarity and completeness.
Requirements Analysis - The business analyst has the gatekeeper role, ensuring only those requirements that pass scrutiny will be entered into the system.
Requirements Validation - External stakeholders reviewing the requirements in order to review and sign off the requirements document, which often includes models of business processes / IT models.
Requirements Documentation: concerned with the development of a well organised requirements document.
Requirements Management: covers activities needed to manage any changes required to the requirements.
The business is represented by the project sponsor, the subject matter experts and business users.
What responsibilities does the Project Sponsor have?
- To agree the project initiation document that approves the requirements engineering study,
- To deliver the specific and agreed business benefits predicted in the business case,
- To make funds and other resources available to the project,
- To approve and sign off the requirements document as a true statement of the business needs.
The project team can comprise of…?
The Project Manager,
The Business Analyst,
The Developers,
The Technical Architects.
What is the Project Manager responsible for?
- Break the project down into identifiable and measurable pieces of work, each with its deliverable,
- Allocate the pieces of work to competent people to complete;
- Schedule the tasks with their start and end times / recognise dependencies between tasks,
- Monitor the progress of the various tasks and be alerted of any slippage,
- Take any corrective action should there be slippage, or risk of non-completion of a task,
- Ensure the project is completed in a time / against an agreed budget.
When developing a new system, the business users pass onto us their explicit knowledge, however they are unlikely to share tacit knowledge with us also. Give examples of Tacit knowledge?
Individual:
Skills, values, taken-for-granted knowledge, intuitiveness.
Corporate:
Norms, Back-Story, Culture, Networks, Organisation History.
The acronym AERO explains an approach to turn tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge, explain the model.
The process for eliciting tacit knowledge:
1) Apprentice - shadowing, protocol analysis,
Observe - Observation, STROBE approach?, Shadowing,
Recount - Story-telling, Scenario,
Enact - Prototype, Scenario role-play
2) REPORT AND RECORD
3) DISSEMINATE -> Explicit
What is requirements analysis?
Requirements analysis is concerned with ensuring that all of the requirements identified during the requirements elicitation have been developed into clear, organised, well-documented requirements.
Requirements analysis is concerned with ensuring that all of the requirements identified during the requirements elicitation have been developed into clear, organised, well-documented requirements.
But what tasks are involved in Requirements Analysis?
- Categorisation of the requirements- as a first pass at the analysis, the requirements should be categorised into specific requirements types.
- Drawing up models to reflect the requirements to be elicited.
- Applying a series of filters in order to ensure the requirements are well defined.
- —- Checking for duplicates, unravelling complex requirements into single requirements, confirming the relevance of requirements, Feasibility evaluation (business, technical, financial), Removing conflicts, Checking for solutions.
All requirements should meet the quality criteria, and be:
Clear - use of precise verbs and nouns,
Concise - the requirement must be described concisely,
Consistent - the requirement must not contradict other requirements,
Relevant - the requirement must be within the scope of the project,
Unambiguous - problems arise due to terminology, jargon, poor grammer.
Correct - required to meet objectives.
Testable -
Traceable - information about the requirement must enable the trace-ability of the requirement.
What is requirements validation?
Once analysts have completed the analysis of requirements and have deemed the requirements document is complete and correct, the business and project representatives need to confirm the document provides an accurate statement of the requirements.
Multiple stakeholders can be involved in the requirements validation. How might the following stakeholders review requirements?
-Sponsor , Owners, Subject Matter Expert, Testers, Project Office representation.
Sponsor - reviews the document to ensure the requirements align with the business objectives (MOST) and TOR.
Owners - ensure requirements represent the business needs.
SMEs - to ensure they reflect correct business practise .
Developers - review requirements to see if they are technically feasible.
Testers - ensure they are testable,
Project Office - compliant with business standards and policies, and that correct quality review procedures have been followed.
Explain the three possible outcomes to a requirements review?
1) the requirements document is confimed as a satisfactory statement of the business requirements. Once the document has been agreed, it is signed off, or baselined.
2) The requirements document requires some amendment and once made, can be signed off by the chairperson (typically the business sponsor).
3) The requirements document needs significant rework and should be reviewed again once the rework has been carried out.
Explain an agile approach to requirements?
User stories are short, simple descriptions of a feature told from the perspective of the person who desires the new capability, usually a user or customer of the system. They typically follow a simple template: As a < type of user >, I want < some goal > so that < some reason >.
EPICs vs Individual Stories
