Chapter 3: Requirements determination and Gathering Techniques

Purpose of Requirements Determination

The purpose is to convert a high-level explanation of business needs into a precise list of system requirements

5 examples of requirements-gathering techniques

-Interviews

-Quationnaires

-Observation

-Joint application development (JAD)

-Document analysis

Process of Interviews

-Step 1: Select people and schedule

-Step 2: Design questions

-Step 3: Prepare for interview

-Step 4: Conduct interview

-Step 5: Do a follow up

Interview question types

1. Close ended (yes/no)

2. Open ended (needs details to answer)

3. Probing (go deeper)

Interviewing strategies

-High level: very general questions

-Medium-level: Moderately specific questions

-Low-level: Very specific question

Process of conducting questionnaires

-Step 1: Select participants

-Step 2: Design the questionnaire

-Step 3: Administer questionnaire

-Step 4: Conduct a follow-up

Guidelines for good questionnaire design

-avoid crowding the page

-No abbreviations

-Avoid biased questions

-pretest for confusion

-provide anonymity

Joint Application Development / JAD

A session where employees meet, sometimes for several days, to define or review the business requirements for the system.

Document Analysis

Provides information about the "as is" system through reviewing technical documents and typical user documents

Alternative techniques

-Concept maps

-User stories, Story cards and task lists

Requirements analysis strategy

strategy that structures gathered data to identify and improve specific processes

8 Requirements analysis strategies

-Problem analysis

-Root cause analysis

-Duration analysis

-Activity based costing

-informal benchmarking

-outcome analysis

-technology analysis

-activity elimination

Problem analysis - requirement analysis strategy

A scenario where users identify problems with current process/system and explain how they would solve them

Root cause analysis - requirement analysis strategy

Focuses on identifying the cause of a problem. involves creating a prioritized problem list, determining causes, and developing solutions based on those causes

Duration analysis - requirements analysis strategy

Determines the time required to complete each step in a business process

Activity-based costing - requirements analysis strategy

Determines the cost required to complete each step in a business process

Technology analysis - requirements analysis strategy

The process of searching and listing technology solutions, then evaluating how each could be applied to the business and what benefits they would provide

Common problems in determining requirements

-No access to correct users

-Unknown requirements cause delays and cost overruns

-Difficulty in validating requirements

-Lack of stakeholder involvement

-Insufficient time for thorough analysis

Functional requirements

identifies processes a system must perform to complete needed tasks and focuses on user requirements. These requirements are captured in a functional requirements specification document or in the systems proposal document

Non-Functional requirements

identifies behavioral properties the system must have to operate efficiently, securely and reliably and focuses on user expectation and experience

What functional requirements describe

-Data processing

-Use case

-Used technology

System proposal template

Combines all material created in the requirements and analysis phases of the SDLC

7 Sections of a systems proposal

-Executive summary of all info

-The system request

-Workplan

-Feasibility analysis

-Requirements definition

-Functional models (Structural and behavioural)

-Appendices

Types of non-functional requirements

Performance requirements and security requirements