Defining a clear & correct set of customer requirements is an essential first step to successful software development projects. This course provides participants with industry-proven methods for successfully identifying, analyzing, and documenting better requirements.

What You Will Learn

• How to identify real requirements
• Common requirements problems & what to do about them
• How to know a good requirement when you see one
• Effective techniques for eliciting requirements - how & when to use different techniques
• How to help the customer prioritize requirements
• How to write clear, testable, unambiguous requirements
• How to effectively document requirements
• How to ask more effective questions

Special Workshop Features

• Detailed workshop manual
• Hands-on exercises with solutions
• Real-world examples
• Good requirements checklist
• Requirements process checklist
• Requirements review checklist
• 50 Magic Questions every business analyst should know

Who Should Attend

This course is intended for software managers, business analysts, users, developers, testers, and any software professionals who are or will be involved in gathering requirements for software projects.

Course Outline

Introduction to Requirements Definition

• What's a requirement?
• Different types of requirements
• Cost of bad requirements
• Common requirements definition problems
• Characteristics of good requirements
• Aligning roles & responsibilities

The Requirements Process

• Key requirements definition activities
• Elicitation & analysis checklist
• Common tools & techniques - when & where to use them
• Requirements documentation guidelines
• Techniques for validating requirements
• Dealing with requirements changes

Requirements Elicitation Techniques

• Guidelines for effective meetings & interviews
• Asking the right questions
• Different types of questions - when & where to ask them
• Developing your questioning skills
• Use case models

Prioritizing Requirements

• Business reasons for prioritizing requirements
• Techniques for prioritizing requirements
• Nominal Group Technique (NGT)
• Multivoting
• Precedence charts
• Scoring matrices
• Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

Requirements Documentation Techniques

• How much information is enough
• Writing clearer narrative
• Improving readability & understandability
• Readability metrics
• Decision tables
• Decision trees

Seminar Length: 2 Days