Requirements Management for Project Managers

Module 1: Business Analysis Defined

Lesson 1: What is Business Analysis?

• Business Analysis Definition
• What Does Business Analysis Entail?
• Strategic, Tactical and Operational Business Analysis

Lesson 2: What are requirements?

• Requirements Defined
• Business Requirements
• Stakeholder Requirements
• Solution Requirements
• Transition Requirements

Lesson 3: Business Analysis Techniques

• An Introduction to Business Analysis Techniques
• What Tools are Used?
• What Techniques are Used?

Lesson 4: Business Analysis and SDM/SDLC

• What are SDM and SDLC?
• What Flavors of SDM Do Organizations Use?
• The Beginning of Structure
• The Incremental Philosophy
• An “Agile” Revolution
• Business Analysis in Waterfall SDM
• THE BA Role in Iterative SDM
• Agile Projects and Business Analysis

Lesson 5: Business Analysis and the Future

• Existing Situation Analysis
• Enhancing Business Analysis Skills
• Core Business Analysis Competencies from Profession to Core Skillset

 Module 2: Requirements Elicitation

Lesson 1: Managing Requirements Elicitation with a Question File

• A Question File Quantifies Uncertainty
• Discovering What You Do Not Know
• Minimal Layout of the Question File
• Using a Question File to Combat Analysis Paralysis

Lesson 2: Identifying Stakeholders for Requirements Discovery

• Missing Stakeholder Means Missing Requirements
• Identifying Stakeholders on an Org Chart
• Creating and Maintaining a Stakeholder List

Lesson 3: Problem Analysis Initiates Requirements

• Collect Problems from ALL Stakeholders
•  A Well-Structured Problem List
• A Simple Problem Analysis Technique
• Will the Real Problem Please Stand Out

Lesson 4: Requirements Brainstorming

• To Brainstorm or Not to Brainstorm
• Preparing the Session and the Participants
• Maintaining Momentum from Start to Finish
• Post-Session Steps and Lessons Learned

Lesson 5: Ten Quick Questions Guide Requirements Discovery

• Introduction to the Quick Ten
• Discovering Functional Requirements
• Getting Non-Functional Requirements
• Capturing Constraints Using the Quick Ten 

Module 3: Requirements Interviews and Workshops

Lesson 1: Best Practices for Requirements Interviews

• Introduction to Requirements Interviews
• What is “Requirements Elicitation” and Who Needs It?
• Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance
• Starting a Requirements Interview on the Right Foot
• Performing under Pressure
• Make Sure You Can Talk the Talk
• Maintain Control throughout the Requirement Interview
• Closing the Requirements Interview in Style

Lesson 2: Characteristics of an Effective Requirement Interviewer

• Three Traits that Give You a Head Start
• Maintaining Momentum During the Requirements Interview
• Using Active and Informational Listening to Hear Requirements Impediments to Effective Listening
• Overcoming the Impediments

Lesson 3: Helping Stakeholders Discover Requirements

• What Are the Five Elicitation Approaches and Which is the Simplest for Starters
• Informal Requirements Interviews
• Formal, Face-to-Face Requirements Interviews
• Requirements Elicitation Using Email
• Teleconferencing for Requirements Gathering Workshops

Lesson 4: How to Run a Requirements Gathering Workshop

• Planning and Preparing for a Productive Requirements Gathering Workshop
• How to Perform During the Workshop
• Polishing and Publishing the Workshop Results
• The Business Case for Requirements Workshops

 Module 4: Writing Requirements

Lesson 1: Setting the Stage for Writing Effective Requirements

• Why Do You Need Better Requirements?
• Managing Uncertainty
• THE Question File
• Exercise: The Subjectivity of Language
• The “Real” Problem with Requirements

Lesson 2: Capturing Requirements

• Follow the KISS concept
• A Complete Sentence Forces a Complete Thought
• Exercise: Simple, Complete, and Well-Structured
• Define the Business Need
• Exercise: Avoiding the Elusive “How”

Lesson 3: Requirements and the Project Scope

• Keeping Your Requirements in Scope
• Exercise: Relevant Requirement Components
• Combat Scope Creep from the Start
• Exercise: Testing the Scope Boundaries
• Recap of Rules One through Three
• Exercise: Applying the First Three Rules

Lesson 4: Finding and Fixing Ambiguous Requirements

• Who Needs to Understand Your Requirements?
• Roadblocks to Effective Requirements
• Desk-Checking Uncovers Ambiguity
• Exercise: Finding Ambiguity with the SME
• Use Peer Reviews to Increase Understandability
• Exercise: Requirements Interpretations
• Combating the Major Cause of Project Failure
• Exercise: Revising Requirements to Reduce Ambiguity

Lesson 5: Best Practices for Improving Understandability

• Use Acronyms and Corporate Standards
• Exercise: Using Revisions to Reduce Ambiguity
• Add Context to Eliminate Ambiguity
• Exercise: Appropriate Context Reduces Ambiguity
• Write to the Readability Level of Your Audience
• Exercise: Using Readability Indices
• Recap Rule Four
• Exercise: Rule Four Applied

Module 5: Functional and Non-Functional Requirements

Lesson 1: Setting the Stage for Requirements Decomposition

Lesson 2: Discovering Functional and Informational Requirements

• Capturing Functional Requirements
• Exercise: Decomposing Requirements to Functions
• Documenting Functions
• Capturing Informational Requirements
•  Exercise: Discovering Informational Components
•  Attributes of Informational Requirements
• Exercise: Assessing Precision and Currency

Lesson 3: Capturing Non-Functional Solution Requirements

• Performance Requirements
• Exercise: Measurable Qualities
• Common Performance Measures
• Identifying Performance-Related Functions
• Exercise: Discovering Performance-based Functions
• Business Rules and External Factors
• Discovering Constraining Requirements

Lesson 4: Conclusion

• Requirements Management Ideas
• Process and Rule Review
• Exercise: Final Exam