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At a glance

Mastering the Requirements Process

Build the Right Software - First Time

Requirements are the most misunderstood part of systems development, and yet the most crucial. Requirements must be correct if the rest of the development effort is to succeed. This MasterClass presents a complete process for eliciting the real requirements, testing them for correctness, and recording them clearly, comprehensively and unambiguously.

This course is personally delivered by Suzanne and/or James Robertson, the internationally-recognised requirements specialists who wrote the definitive book on the subject! (“Mastering the Requirements Process”, Addison-Wesley, 1999).

The book Mastering the Requirements Process (Addison-Wesley, Second Edition, 2006) by Suzanne and James Robertson is supplied to each participant on the public course.

This program will give you the acclaimed Volere Requirements Process and highlight the checkpoints where you can measure the product and make contractual commitments based on known degrees of certainty. It will show you how to accelerate your process by reusing requirements. It will teach you how to give each requirement a fit criterion, which gives you a measurement to test whether the delivered system meets the original requirements.

“Mastering the Requirements Process” teaches you how to dig out the little things that people know but don't tell you because they forgot, or they think it’s not technologically feasible, or they just didn't think of it.

This course is endorsed by the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA™), and is compliant with the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge v2.0 (BABOK™).

"The continual use of real examples and experience made it all come to life. The best course I have ever attended. All questions answered and none dodged."

Wes Mar, Insurance Australia Group

With a limited schedule available from the Robertsons coming to Australia and New Zealand only twice a year, Software Education is pleased to welcome Andrew Kendall as one of our trainers. A trained Volere consultant and trainer with experience helping organisations implement Volere in Australia and Europe, Andrew is available to deliver Mastering the Requirements Process in-house (on-site) throughout Australia and New Zealand. 

Intended For

This program has indispensable information for systems managers, project leaders, consultants, business analysts, requirements engineers, systems analysts and planners. This material applies to any stakeholders: users and customers will benefit from learning how to participate in this multi-disciplinary approach.

Prerequisites

There are no specific prerequisites for this program.

Learning outcomes

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

• Determine their client's needs - exactly
• Discover the real business, and how to improve it
• Write requirements that are complete, traceable and testable
• Precisely define the scope of the project
• Discover all the stakeholders - and keep them involved
• Use up-to-date techniques such as storyboarding, prototyping and wikis
• Get the right requirements quickly.

Content

The Requirements Process

The requirements process introduces you to a solid strategy for gathering the correct requirements. In this overview session you see how the pieces fit together - from the project blastoff that established the product's purpose and scope, the trawling and prototyping activities that elicit the product's requirements, through the Quality Gateway where requirements are made testable, to the final review of the specification that discovers any missing requirements.

Project Blastoff

This activity lays the foundation for the requirements project. It determines a measurable objective for the product, the precise scope of the work to be studied, and identifies the client, the users and other stakeholders in the project. The blastoff ensures that the project is viable and worthwhile.

Trawling for Requirements

At the core of any requirements process is the ability to get people to tell you what they really want, rather than what they think you might be able to deliver, or what they feel their boss might want. We show you how to use apprenticing, use case workshops, interviewing, brainstorming, and other techniques to discover exactly what the users need, and want.

Functional Requirements

Functional requirements are those things that the product must do. They are discovered by inspecting the work that the user does, and then determining what part of that work the automated product can do. This proposed interaction between user and product is modeled with use case scenarios. From these, we derive and write the functional requirements.

Non-Functional Requirements

Non-functional requirements are those properties that the product must have. Things such as the desired appearance, the usability, the performance and so on. This section discusses the types of non-functional requirements, and shows you how to use the template, and other methods, to find the qualitative requirements for your product.

Managing the requirements

Requirements are the lynchpin of any development effort, and so have to be written correctly and managed effectively. This section demonstrates the use of a template to help write requirements. It looks at requirements management issues like traceability, prioritization, and conflicting requirements. A number of tools are examined that can help manage requirements specifications.

The Quality Gateway

Testing is most effective when it is done early in the development cycle. Here we demonstrate how to test requirements before they become part of the Requirements Specification. This activity addresses the problem of requirements creep by rejecting inappropriate, gold-plated, non-viable, incorrect and incomplete requirements. We also demonstrate how you can attach an unambiguous Fit Criterion to each requirement. This makes the requirement testable, as well as ensuring that the implemented solution precisely matches the customer's expectations.

Prototyping and Scenarios

Some requirements are not properly understood, or not discovered, until the user has had the opportunity to use the product. Prototyping is a way of discovering requirements by testing mock-up products for the user's work. Here we discuss the merits of both low and high fidelity prototypes, and how they can be used - along with scenarios - to discover previously hidden requirements.

Reviewing the requirements process

We look at how to make your own requirements process as effective and efficient as possible. For example, accelerating the requirements gathering by establishing the scope then building an early throw-away prototype before moving on to incremental delivery. Each part of the requirements process is examined so that participants can discuss problems and ideas related to their own situation, and how they can use the lessons from this course to improve their existing requirements process.

Method Used

This course includes intensive workshops that give participants the opportunity to apply the concepts presented. Participants work in teams to discover, specify and evaluate requirements for a significant system by:

• Defining the product's purpose
• Discovering the appropriate stakeholders
• Defining the scope of the requirements
• Identifying business use cases and product use cases
• Applying the requirements specification template
• Defining functional and non-functional requirements
• Using the product's functionality to find the non-functional requirements
• Determining requirements' fit criteria
• Prioritising requirements.

Participants also get the chance to receive advice on their own situations and discuss how the ideas from this seminar can be implemented in their own work environment.

Testimonials

"I love the course because it is very practical not just theoretical. James was entertaining in addition to being knowledgeable which made the course more interesting."

Margaret Wolski, QLD Transport.

"Thank-you Suzanne. The course was fantastic, realistic and most importantly applicable to the real world. Your skills, knowledge and experiences were equally fantastic and motivating."

Kristen Giansalvo, AAMI

"The course is one of the best courses I have been on, it mixes experience and theory. Fantastic!"

Natasha Babic, Project Analyst, Woolworths.

"This has been by far the most comprehensive course on requirements that I have attended. The presentation was superb, and I have found this an extremely valuable process. This will become part of my daily working practices. "

Mark Lathouwers, Business Analyst, Capital Finance Australia Limited.

"I had heard good things about this course however I was still very impressed with all the aspects of the method that was presented. Parts of this will definitely be implemented in my organisation."

Ray Wall, Executive Manager, Group Programme Office, St George Bank Limited.

"I found the presenter fantastic. Kept my attention, spoke at a rate and in a way that the information was understood."

Jodie Farmer, Business Analyst, Computershare Technology Services Pty Ltd.

"Overall, the course is well run, conducted at the right pace. Actual examples and experiences make the whole training more real."

Lay Kheng Yeap, Business Analyst, Intec Billing.

"Very useful!  I’ve been bumbling around in the dark in a project structure I didn’t understand and now I see the light :).  Thanks for the structure - it will help no end."

Suzanne Dias, Supervisor, Brisbane, Queensland.

"Course was fantastic, it was better than I expected because it covered so many areas in sufficient detail. The speakers (Suzanne and James) were excellent – they spoke clearly, were informative and made the course interactive and fun "

Loretta Lattouf, Business Analyst, AMP Financial Services.

"I thoroughly enjoyed the course, the content was extremely well structured and will be very useful at my particular workplace in my role "

Celia  Skrlec, Senior Business Analyst.

"This course was very fulfilling and helped me to think about the requirements process from a broader perspective"

Corey Malone, Business Analyst, Commonwealth Superannuatoin Administration.

"After completing the course, it will now make my life as a BA easier and will open the minds of other people the importance of the BA role in an organisation."

Connie  Miranda, Business Analyst, Foxtel Management Pty Ltd.

"A very enjoyable and well presented course"

Peter Lloyd, Senior Business Analyst.

"Very interactive, group exercises were helpful & Suzanne was very knowledgeable & approachable.  Many areas which can be used in my role. "

Dalia Hermes, Business Analyst, QSR International.

"James and Suzanne and fantastic presenters - their knowledge is current and their continued involvement in the BA world is engaging and relevant"

David Abbott

"Really good opportunity to get some structure into my approach to requirements gathering - plenty of tools to get started appropriately"

Janine Morrison

"I enjoyed the course as it provided me with a lot of very valuable concepts, terminology, processes and techniques that I will definitely use when I return to work"

Melissa Love