The Business Requirements Gathering & Writing Training Seminar including object modeling and extended practice sessions focuses on providing an all inclusive training in business analysis techniques using facilitated requirements gathering sessions. The seminar provides training in facilitation skills and business analysis techniques needed for gathering the project scope, requirements definition and the high level design. The seminar focus is on:

• Understanding the different levels of business requirements
• The requirements management process
• How requirements fit into the Project Life Cycle
• Characteristics and guidelines for writing effective business requirements and user stories
• Communication techniques for gathering business requirements and system specifications
• Instructions for writing successful scope statements, requirements lists and user stories
• Practical exercises in writing problem statements, business objectives, requirements lists, user stories, non-functional requirements, screens and reporting specifications
• Writing and critiquing use cases and requirements using guidelines and checklists
• Requirements Traceability Matrix
• Facilitated session agendas and scripts for Business Analysis
• Package software evaluation and selection process
• Practical experience in facilitating business analysis for scoping sessions, requirements gathering sessions, and high-level design focus groups

The objectives of the seminar are to:

• Provide an understanding of the business analysis deliverables needed for the problem statement, requirements gathering and high-level design phases of business requirements analysis
• Define best practices and industry standards for business requirements analysis
• Supply sample agendas, scripts and templates that can be used in business requirements analysis sessions and focus groups throughout the Project Life Cycle
• Provide practical exercises for building business analysis models using the standard industry notations and writing business and detailed use cases
• Define a repeatable process for the Problem Statement, the Business Requirements Analysis and the High Level Design Phases of the project life cycle using collaborative facilitated sessions and focus groups
• Provide each seminar participant the opportunity to write, build and facilitate the different levels of business requirements, business analysis modeling techniques and use cases with feedback and a written evaluation from the instructor

• What is Requirements Management?
• Introduction to Requirements
  • Types of Requirements
  • Different levels of requirements
• Role of the Requirements Lead/Business Analyst
• Key requirements documents
• RAD/Iterative Approach
• Overview of Joint Application Development (JAD)
  • JAD Methodology- Preparation, Workshop and Follow-up
  • Timeboxing
  • Requirements roles and responsibilities
• Key success factors to requirements definition success

• Workshop approaches
• Teleconferencing
• Storyboarding
• Interviewing
• Kit Reviews
• Prototype walk-throughs

• Key components of a workshop
• Basic facilitation skills
• Active listening skills
• Exercise- Practice questioning and active listening skills
• Reading and interpreting body language
• Leadership styles
• Facilitation rules
• Managing conflict
• Techniques for leading effective group dynamics
• How to handle problem people
• Presentation skills
• Planning your session and building an agenda

Each student is given the opportunity to select a technique and topic, build an effective meeting agenda and facilitate a short session using the presentation skills and JAD techniques learned in class.

• Writing effective project initiation deliverables:
  • Business problem statement
  • Success criteria/objectives
  • Business parameters
• Exercise- Discovering and writing business problem statements and success criteria/objectives

• How to write effective scope statements & assumptions
• Exercise- Creating questions, role playing to practice conducting business management interviews and writing the project scope statements & assumptions
• Constructing the use case model to capture the project scope
• Exercise- Building the context diagram and use case model
• Identifying and selecting high level solution alternatives
• Facilitated session agendas, scripts and facilitation techniques for conducting Problem Statement Scoping Sessions
• Prioritizing and managing the scope of a project

• Documenting requirements in iterations and understanding the different levels of requirements
• Characteristics of writing effective business requirements
• Instructions and guidelines for writing effective business requirements
• Requirements attributes
• Quality measures and checklists for writing effective business requirements
• Building the 'to be' business process flows and activity diagrams with swimlanes
• Exercise- Creating the 'to be' business process flow

• How to write 'User Stories' for Agile Projects
  • What is a user story and how are they used?
  • Format for writing and capturing a user story
  • Characteristics of a well written user story
• How to identify and write effective business rules
• Exercise- Identifying and writing quality business requirements lists, user stories and business rules
• Facilitated session agendas, scripts, and facilitation techniques for conducting Business Requirements Analysis Sessions
• Benefits of using the business use case to identify business requirements
• How to write the business use case
  • Guidelines for the use case iterations
  • Templates and Quality Checklists
• Exercise- Writing a business use case

• How to create the domain object model
• Exercise- Creating the domain object model
• How to create the state diagram using UML notation
• Exercise- Creating the state diagram
• How to write effective non-functional requirements
  • IEEE Categories
  • Non-functional definitions and examples
• Exercise- Writing quality non-functional requirements
• Writing business requirements using site maps and identifying inventories of screens, reports and system interfaces
• Exercise- Creating site maps and inventories of screens, reports and system interfaces
• Iteration Plan - What is the thought process for building a plan?
  • Setting priorities
  • Creating the build plan
    • Define the components
    • Calculate the risk
    • Estimate the time
    • Plan the iterations

• How to create the detailed use cases
• How to build an activity diagram with swimlanes
• Using brainstorming and storyboarding techniques to create the draft screens
• Creating data requirements specifications for screens and reports
• Exercise- Writing the detailed use case, creating the activity diagram with swimlanes for the use case, data fields descriptions, data dictionary and storyboarding the draft screens
• Defining the Report Specifications
  • Key components of the report specifications requirements
  • Report Mock-ups
  • Report Specifications Template
• Facilitated session agendas, scripts and facilitation techniques for conducting high level design focus group sessions
• Requirements Traceability Matrix
  • Overview of requirements traceability
  • Tracing test scenarios to requirements/use cases
  • How to create traceability worksheets

• Techniques for quality checking requirements
  • Checklists
  • Desk Checking
  • Peer reviews for requirements inspection
• Change control process and template

• Software Evaluation and Selection Steps
• Agendas and scripts for Software Evaluation and Selection
  • Building a requirements matrix
  • Vendor selection package rating
  • Building a Vendor Compliance Report

This business analysis and requirements gathering simulation demonstrates how the entire life cycle of a project fits together and how the artifacts taught in class build on each other. Each student facilitates a stage in the life cycle using the scoping, business requirements analysis and high level design artifacts and meeting agendas learned in the class. The business analysis and business models used for the business analysis simulation will be the Problem Statement, Success Criteria/Objectives, Scope Statements, Use Case Model, Activity Diagram, Business Use Case, Domain Object Model, State Diagram, Detailed Use Case and Paper Prototype. In addition, each student will document to demonstrate an understanding of the documentation process. Each student is provided with feedback from the instructor and is given a written evaluation.

Each seminar participant receives a Seminar Handbook with sample agendas and scripts for conducting problem statement scoping sessions, business requirements definition sessions and high level design focus groups. A Procedures Guide is also provided.