About

Eliciting Business Requirements – Translating Client’s Needs into Project Requirements
A typical project is comprised of two components: the project itself and then the content of the project. The project manager is responsible for the administration and governance, timelines and budgets, whilst the business analyst is responsible for the articulation and translation of business needs into application and operational requirements to IT.

Business Analysts are expected to understand highly complex technology projects and concepts as they relate to high-level business objectives. They are effectively the facilitators, negotiators, technicians, planners and writers who are integral to the success of the projects and products they create.

The ability to elicit detailed requirements ultimately defines the project. Eliciting Business Requirements will take you through a constructive process with a variety of techniques, communication and relationship building skills that you could apply to achieve successful outcomes.

Outline

Requirements Defined
•   Requirements management process
•   Requirements framework
•   Requirements process
•   Requirements approaches
- Waterfall
- Agile
- Incremental
•   Requirements include:
- Business, User and System Requirements
- Functional requirements
- Non-functional or Quality Requirements
- Assumptions and Constraints
- Quality assurance standards

Stakeholders, Partnerships and Accountability
•   Identifying and categorising stakeholders
•   Understanding the project stakeholders roles and responsibilities
•   Building trust with stakeholders

Elicitation
•   Defining the requirements context and objectives
•   Understanding the project ecosystem
•   Eliciting requirements within the context of the business need
•   Understanding the people factors in the requirements elicitation
•   Elicitation techniques
- Interviews
- Workshops & brainstorming
- Searching records
- Observation
- Questionnaires
- Random sampling
- Simulations and prototyping
•   Validating the highest priority and risk requirements

Challenges in Elicitation
•   The “Yes But” syndrome
•   The “User and developer” syndrome
•   The “Living with the sins of your predecessors” syndrome
•   Conflicting requirements from different stakeholders
•   Unspoken or assumed requirements
•   Difficulty gaining access to the right stakeholders
•   The stakeholders’ unwillingness to change or help design a new product
•   Response and solutions

Building a Requirements Knowledge Model
•   Business Process Models
•   Use Case models
•   Data models
•   Decision trees & decision tables

Managing Requirements
•   Change happens – deal with it!
•   Prioritising requirements
•   Managing additional requirements
•   Scope management
•   Impact analysis
•   Managing changing requirements
•   Resolving conflicts
•   Verifying and finalising requirements
•   Writing requirements that are traceable and testable
- Traceability matrix
- Formats
- Templates for different categories

Facilitator

Shane Hastie, Chief Knowledge Engineer , Software Education

Shane Hastie is the Chief Knowledge Engineer at Software Education. He provides training and consultancy in business systems analysis, requirements engineering, software project management, software testing and design techniques using traditional, Object Oriented and Agile methodologies.

Shane has designed and built systems in the finance, agriculture, pharmaceutical, manufacturing, security and aviation industries, and the systems these projects have worked on covers a similarly impressive variety – from a pharmaceutical drug dissolution analysis sytem to an airline revenue management system which was sold to 12 airlines throughout Africa.

Shane is a Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP®) and is also a Certified ScrumMaster. Shane is a member of the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA™), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the New Zealand Computer Society (NZCS). He is a frequent speaker at industry events and a trained personal development coach.

In-house Training