Mastering the Requirements Process

Understanding a problem – the real problem – is the role of the requirements process.  This course presents a comprehensive process for uncovering, testing and recording real requirements. 

Requirements discovery is no longer about producing large, unreadable (and often unread) specifications. Requirements are about uncovering the real needs of the problem space, understanding the needs of the people who use your solution, recognising the environment for the solution, then, in a timely manner, delivering requirements that are concise, clear and testable. 

This course shows you how to precisely define the scope of the business problem, to discover and involve the appropriate stakeholders and to use today’s techniques (like agile) to learn what the business really needs.

Intended for:

This course would be beneficial to anyone involved in delivering value and has essential information for:

• Business and systems analysts
• Project leaders and managers
• Consultants
• Product owners
• Product and program managers
• Requirements engineers

Prerequisites:

There are no specific prerequisites for this course.

Learning outcomes:

During this course you will learn about:

• Determining the real needs of your stakeholders
• The role of the business analyst in agile projects
• Writing agile stories that are more effective and accurate
• Writing requirements that are complete, traceable, and testable
• Diverse elicitation techniques to uncover the real requirements
• Using the Volere knowledge model to ensure you have all the needed information and nothing that is not needed
• The need for, and how to write functional and non-functional requirements
• Precisely defining the scope of the problem
• Discovering all the stakeholders and keeping them involved
• Uncovering the essence of the business
• Using prototypes, sketches and storyboards to discover hidden needs
• Using state of the art requirements techniques
• Getting the requirements quickly, and incrementally
• Writing the right requirements and stories

Content: 

• The requirements process
• Project blast-off
• Trawling for requirements
• Functional requirements
• Non-functional requirements
• Requirements for agile projects
• Prototyping and deviations
• Writing requirements
• The quality gateway
• Managing your requirements
• Your requirements process

Method used:

Lecturing is kept to the minimum necessary, most of the learning is achieved by applying the practices and techniques in group exercises and a case study.

Course outline:

Mastering the Requirements Process Outline (PDF).