Section 5 - Investigating the business situation (12.5%)

Question 1

What is the purpose of eliciting requirements?

Answer 1

To get as much reliable information as possible from stakeholders

Question 2

What are the 3 types of information to elicit?

Answer 2

• Strategic: MI needs, terms of reference, align with objectives
• Tactical: performance targets, Who, What, Why
• Operational: As Is, How, Where, docs, problems

Question 3

What are workshops?

Answer 3

A collaborative event in which discussion occurs to reach a particular objective

Question 4

Why are workshops useful?

Answer 4

• Opportunity to resolve conflict
• Provides initial meeting for attendees
• Easier to get things signed off
• Minimal distractions

Question 5

What are the issues with workshops?

Answer 5

• Need to be well organised with objectives + agenda
• Need to get the right audience
• Venue choice is important

Question 6

What are the discovery workshop techniques?

Answer 6

• Round robin
• Brainstorming
• Brainwriting: ideas anonymously written on notes then collated into document
• Post-It exercise: post its then stuck on board can then move/group
• Stepwise refinement: start high level and break down into more steps, these are then broken down further
• Breakout groups

Question 7

What are the visualisation discovery techniques?

Answer 7

• Process models
• Rich picture
• Mindmap: the visualisation of brainstorming
• Context diagrams: high level, details wider context of a problem
• Task scenarios: come off process maps, details longer processes
• User stories

Question 8

What are the 4 types of observation?

Answer 8

• Formal observation: watch a task being performed + formally record steps involved
• Protocol Analysis: watch a task being performed + taskee explains what they are doing
• Shadowing: follow someone performing multiple tasks, useful for multiple business issues
• Ethnographic study: do the job yourself + record what happens

Question 9

Why is observation useful?

Answer 9

• See what is really happening
• Gets people involved
• Process maps
• Relationship development

Question 10

What are the issues with observation?

Answer 10

• Could see what should happen not what actually does
• Time consuming for you but not stakeholders
• Only get info from what happened at that time

Question 11

Briefly explain interviews

Answer 11

• 1:1
• Often easier with senior stakeholders
• Require a lot of prep + structure
• Send questions to interviewee pre meeting
• Who, How, What, Where, When
• Notes need to be taken + approved by interviewee

Question 12

Why are interviews useful?

Answer 12

• Relationship development
• Clear expression of a person’s view

Question 13

What are the issues with interviews?

Answer 13

• Potential for conflicting or duplicate requirements
• Time consuming for you
• Cannot share experience with others

Question 14

Briefly explain scenarios?

Answer 14

• Use a real situation to test the process + requirements
• Scenarios need to be real + representative
• Identify task –> Identify the steps + sequence –> Define control conditions –> identify exceptions

Question 15

Why are scenarios useful?

Answer 15

• Real test to solution
• Checks knowledge
• Easy to visualise situation

Question 16

What are the issues with scenarios?

Answer 16

• Easy to believe that the scenarios are the only situations the system needs to cope with​
• Can be time consuming and complex

Question 17

Briefly explain prototyping

Answer 17

• Mock up of screens or model of process of what has been asked for. Can then edit accordingly
• Helps identify non-functional requirements
• More focused to the To Be situation

Question 18

Why is prototyping useful?

Answer 18

• Visualisation of requirements
• Avoids complexity of integration with other systems
• Assessment of navigation path + non-functional requirements

Question 19

What are the issues with prototyping?

Answer 19

• Mistaken belief that issue is solved
• Look + feel may not match final solution
• Potential demo + prototype spiral

Question 20

Briefly explain user role analysis

Answer 20

• Look at how people use the proposed solutions
• Mostly done with personas

Question 21

Why is user role analysis useful?

Answer 21

• Makes requirements real
• Makes it reflective

Question 22

What are the issues with user role analysis?

Answer 22

• Mindful of stereotyping
• Huge number required
• If user type missed a whole suite of problems may be realised

Question 23

What are the 4 types of quantitative approaches?

Answer 23

• Surveys or questionnaires: send out many identical question sets
• Special purpose records: how many times do you? Or does this happen?
• Activity sampling: how long does x take?
• Document analysis: sample documents created and scrutinised

Question 24

Why are quantitative approaches useful?

Answer 24

Statistically useable results
- Consistent
- Can be geographically distributed
- Gather same info from many people

Question 25

What are the issues with quantitative approaches?

Answer 25

• Must test first
• Results can be unreliable
• Can lead to false assumptions from anomalous results

Question 26

In what 5 ways can the current business situation be visually documented?

Answer 26

• Rich picture: shows interactions between key actors
• Mind maps
• Business process models
• Spaghetti maps
• Fishbone diagrams

Question 27

What does the BCS book assume?

Answer 27

That most things would occur face to face and teams calls are not used