Business Requirements With Data

Day 1 AM

Class Introduction (8:30 – 9:00)

Requirements Management Best Practices (9 – 10:30)

• What is Requirements Management?
• Introduction to Requirements
  • Types of Requirements
  • Different levels of requirements
• Role of the Requirements Lead/Business Analyst
• Key requirements documents
• Requirements management plan
  • Identifying deliverables based on the type of project
  • Checklist approach to requirements planning
• Overview of Joint Application Development
• Session Methodology- Preparation, Workshop and Follow-up
• Iterative Requirements Approach
• Timeboxing
• Requirements roles and responsibilities
• Key success factors to requirements definition success

Communication Techniques for Gathering Requirements (10:30 – 11:30)

• Workshop approaches
• Storyboarding
• Interviewing
• Kit Reviews
• Teleconferencing
• Prototype walk-throughs
• Overview of requirements deliverables

Day 1 PM

Facilitation Skills and Techniques (11:30 – 12 and 1 – 3:00)

• 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

Facilitation Exercise (3:00 – 5:00)

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

Day 2 AM

Overview of the Project Life Cycle using Facilitation Techniques and Business Models (8:30 – 9:00)

Discovery Phase- Problem Statement/Scope of the Project (9:00 – 10:00)

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

Discovery Phase- Problem Statement/Scope of the Project (10:15 – 12N)

• 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 context diagram and the use case model to capture the project scope
• Exercise- Building the context diagram and use case model
• Facilitated session agendas, scripts and facilitation techniques for conducting Problem Statement Scoping Sessions
• Prioritizing and managing the scope of a project

Day 2 PM

Discovery Phase- Business Requirements Analysis (1 – 5 PM)

• Documenting requirements in iterations and understanding the different levels of requirements
• Characteristics of writing effective requirements
• Instructions and guidelines for writing effective requirements
• Requirements attributes
• Quality measures checklists for writing effective requirements
• How to identify and write effective business rules
• Building the “to be” business process flows and activity diagrams with swimlanes
• Exercise- Creating the “to be” business process flow with swimlanes
• Exercise- Identifying and writing quality business requirements lists and business rules
• Facilitated session agendas, scripts, and facilitation techniques for conducting Requirements Analysis Sessions

Day 3 AM

Discovery Phase- Business Requirements Analysis (continued) (8:30 – 12N)

• Benefits of using the business use case to identify 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 slice the use case to identify the user stories
• How to write a user story
• Exercise- Creating a user story spreadsheet
• How to create the domain object model
• Exercise- Creating the domain object model (optional)
• How to create the state diagram using UML notation
• Exercise- Creating the state diagram

Day 3 PM

Discovery Phase- Business Requirements Analysis (continued) (1 – 1:30 PM)

• How to write effective non-functional requirements
  • IEEE Categories
  • Non-functional definitions and examples
• Exercise- Writing quality non-functional requirements
• Writing requirements using site maps and identifying inventories of screens, reports and system interfaces

Discovery Phase- Detailed Functional Specifications Requirements (1:30 – 4 PM)

• How to build an activity diagram with swimlanes
• How to create the detailed use cases
• Defining the Screen Specifications
  • Using brainstorming and storyboarding techniques to create the draft screens
  • Creating data requirements specifications for screens and reports
• Defining the Report Specifications
  • Key components of the report specifications requirements
  • Report Mock-ups
  • Report Specifications Template
• Exercise- Writing the detailed use case, data fields descriptions and storyboarding the paper prototypes.
• How to build the data flow diagram for defining data requirements
• Exercise- Building the data flow diagram
• How to read the logical data model
• Exercise- Instructor demonstrates how to build a data model (optional)
• Facilitated session agendas, scripts and facilitation techniques for conducting functional specification focus group sessions
• Requirements Traceability Matrix
  • Overview of requirements traceability
  • Tracing test scenarios to requirements/use cases
  • How to create traceability worksheets

Quality Assurance (4 – 4:30 PM)

• Quality measures for checking requirements
• Techniques for quality checking requirements
  • Desk checking using checklists and questions for validating requirements
  • Conducting Peer Reviews for requirements validation
  • Requirements Inspection Process and Sign-off for requirements validation
• Change Control Management best practices

Preparation for the Business Analysis & Requirements Gathering Simulation (4:30 – 5 PM)

Day 4

Business Analysis and Requirements Gathering Simulation- Case Study Lab (optionally, a real life project can be used for the simulation session)

This business analysis & requirements gathering simulation demonstrates how the entire life cycle of a project fits together and how the business analysis artifacts and requirements gathering techniques taught in class build on each other. Each student facilitates a stage in the life cycle using the scoping, business requirements definition and detailed functional specifications artifacts and agendas learned in the class. The business analysis models used for the business analysis & requirements gathering simulation will be the Problem Statement/Root Causes, Success Criteria/Objectives, Scope Statements, Context Diagram, Use Case Diagram, Activity Diagram, Business Use Cases, Detailed Use Cases and Paper Prototypes/Screen Specifications. 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.

Session 1 (1:00 PM – 5:00 PM Eastern Time)

Course Introduction

Requirements Process Overview

• Introduction to Requirements
• Requirements Delivery Approach
• Roles & Responsibilities
• Success Factors

Requirements Gathering Techniques

• Conducting Requirements Workshops
• Brainstorming
• Storyboarding
• Teleconferencing
• Interviewing
• Kit Reviews and Walk-throughs
• Requirements Approach and Artifacts Overview- context diagram, use case diagram, business process flows, use cases and user stories

Discovery Phase- Defining the Scope

• Writing effective project initiation deliverables:
  • Business problem statement
  • Success criteria/objectives
  • Business parameters
  • Solution Alternative Analysis
• Exercise- Discovering and writing business problem statements, success criteria/objectives, business parameters
• How to write effective scope statements & assumptions
• Interviewing, questioning and active listening skills
• Exercise- Interviewing and writing the project scope statement & assumptions
• Building the use case diagram
• Exercise- Creating the use case diagram

Session 2 (1:00 PM – 5:00 PM Eastern Time)

Discovery Phase- Requirements Analysis

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

Discovery Phase- Requirements Analysis – User Stories and Use Cases

• Benefits of using the high level use case to identify requirements
• How to write the high level use case
  • Guidelines for the use case iterations
  • Templates and Quality Checklists
• Exercise- Writing a high level use case
• How to write the requirements using the user stories technique
• Identify and write the test cases for the user stories
• How to capture user stories for a use case
• Exercise- Creating a user story
• How to write effective non-functional requirements
• IEEE Categories
• Non-functional definitions and examples
• Exercise- Writing quality non-functional requirements
• Capturing detailed requirements using site maps and identifying inventories of screens, reports and system interfaces
• Iteration Plan – What is the thought process for building a plan?
  • Setting priorities
  • Creating the build plan

Session 3 (1:00 PM – 5:00 PM Eastern Time)

Discovery Phase- Detailed Requirements Use Cases

• How to create the detailed use cases
• How to build an activity diagram with swimlanes using UML notation
• Exercise- writing the detailed use case, creating the activity diagram with swimlanes for the use case
• Using brainstorming and storyboarding techniques to create the draft screens
• Screen mockup data field descriptions
• Exercise- storyboarding the mockups and data field descriptions
• Defining the Report Specifications
  • Key components of the report specifications requirements
  • Report Mock-ups
  • Report Specifications Template

Quality Checking Requirements (High-Level Design Sign-off)

• Quality measures for checking requirements
• Techniques for quality checking requirements
  • Desk checking using checklists and questions for validating requirements
  • Conducting Work Sessions for requirements validation
  • Requirements Inspection Process and Sign-off for requirements validation
• Change control management
  • How to control requirements defects and change requests
  • Tracing requirements defects and change requests after sign-off

Session 4 (1:00 PM – 4:00 PM Eastern Time)

Discovery Phase- Data Requirements Gathering Techniques

• How to build and use the context diagram for scoping data requirements
• How to build the dataflow diagram
• Exercise- building the context and dataflow diagram
• How to interpret and create the logical data model and matrices
• Exercise- creating a logical data model
• How to create the domain object model
• Exercise- creating the domain object model

Wrap up

Request On-site Form