Developing User Requirements Training

Developing User Requirements Training Workshop

Developing User Requirements Training Workshop provides guidelines and skills to plan and write well-defined and well-formed, testable, verifiable, validateable user requirements. Attendees will learn to enhance their requirements writing skills and system/product development processes starting with elicitation and stakeholders involvement.

User Requirements are the foundation for building any successful product or system.

Determine WHAT the product/project or system must do and drive the user requirements development. User Requirements are used to determine [verify] if the project team built the product/project or the system correctly. User requirements development process identifies the activities needed to produce a set of complete and verifiable user requirements. User requirements will also be validated based on user’s operational needs.

User Requirements development process includes  a set of activities that will produce requirements for the project, product, system or the sub-systems.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

“Requirements” are defined  as “something that governs what, how well, and under what conditions a product will achieve a given purpose.”

• Stakeholder involvement is essential for validating the user requirements. Are these the correct user’s requirements?
• Elicitation techniques enables the discovery and understanding of the needed requirements by the users.
• A trade study is used to analyze and compare alternative requirements and their  cost impacts on the project.
• Traceability of user’s requirements to needs & requirements are critical. Support documentation, and constraining policies [e.g., safety, security ot reliability requirements].

Developing User Requirements Training Workshop Objectives:

• List attribute of well-defined user requirements
• Identify the motivations behind writing well defined user requirements
• Explain value proposition of well-formed, unambiguous, validated requirements to enhance your development processes and achieving success
• Describe the process to complete a user requirements specification document
• Steps in Writing and Assembling the Requirements Document
• List steps in Stakeholder Involvement and Elicitation
• Methods to identify the needs of the stakeholders who directly interact with the product or the system
• Describe challenges in defining user requirements for complex products and systems
• Understand why User Requirements Specifications are written early in the validation process, typically before the system is created
• List the elements in User Requirements Model Roadmap
• Define Activity Diagram, Actor Map, Actor Table and Business Policies
• List Cross-Cutting Activities related to developing User Requirements
• Define the role of Project Management Practices
• Risk Management, Metrics and Configuration Management
• Define the role of Decision Gates and Decision Support/Trade Studies
• List steps in Technical Reviews
• Define techniques in User Requirements Traceability
• List methods and techniques for User Requirements Validation

Who Should Attend

• Analysts
• Project and program managers
• Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
• Agile Product Owners
• Project Leaders and Managers
• Software Engineers
• System Engineers
• Systems Analysts
• Software Testers
• Solution Architects
• and anyone else involved in planning and writing and managing user requirements

Topics Include:

• Requirements Development Process
• User Requirements Planning
• Eliciting Requirements Techniques
• Stakeholders Involvement Processes
• Developing Requirements
• Analyzing Requirements
• Writing and Validating the Requirements
• Check Requirements Completeness
• Methods to Verifying Requirements
• Methods to Validating Requirements
• Managing Baselines and Changes to the Requirements

Developing User Requirements Workshop Activities

• Templates, tools and exercises with real projects to assist in gathering user requirements and getting the correct stakeholders involved
• Tools and techniques to review requirements to make sure they are complete and address all of the users needs
• Mechanics to participate in the user requirements walkthrough
• Tools to ensure the correct requirements are being developed [validating the requirements]
• Techniques to gain stakeholder approval and support for the user requirements
• Mechanisms to track the requirements development activities

Course Agenda

User Requirements Development Process

• What are the user requirements?
• The requirements development process
• Elicit, analyze, verify, specify, verify, validate and manage
• Sources for requirements
• Rules for writing business requirements
• User requirement structures
• TONEX user requirement development template
• Steps in developing effective use requirements
• Stakeholder challenges in developing effective use requirements
• Identifying relevant stakeholders
• Identifying and managing requirements
• Differences and Similarities between Functional versus Non-Functional Requirements
• Modeling User’s Concerns as Non-Functional Requirements
• Categorizing and Characterizing Non-Functional Requirements

Techniques to Identify User Requirements

• Eliciting Requirements Techniques
• Concept of Operations
• User needs, expectations, goals, and objectives
• Operation from the user’s perspective
• Major external interfaces, high level functional requirements, and stakeholders
• Feasibility Study
• Conceptual high-level design and requirements
• Project Plan
• Review plans, configuration management plans, and risk plans
• Controlling the requirements development
• Configuration management
• Process to control changes to the requirements and manage the baseline documentation
• Risk management
• How to monitor, control, and mitigate high risk requirements
• Enablers
• Reviews
• How to identify defects, conflicts, missing, or unnecessary requirements
• Requirements review control gate
• Formal reviews
• To approve the final set of requirements
• Stakeholder involvement
• Rules for validating the requirements
• Elicitation
• Discovery and understanding of the needed requirements

Stakeholders Involvement Processes

• Processes Activities
• Develop requirements
• Stakeholder needs and input products
• Techniques to create prioritized, de-conflicted, and validated requirements with the stakeholders
• Write and document requirements
• Characteristics of “good” system requirements
• Necessary, testable, clear, concise, technology-independent, feasible, and stand-alone requirements
• The base to build upon ( baseline)
• Managing changes to the requirements
• Check completeness
• A complete set of requirements
• Functions that are needed to satisfy the stakeholder needs
• Associated performance, environmental, and other non-functional requirements
• Analyze, refine, and decompose requirements
• Tools to examine each requirement to see if it meets the characteristics of a good
• Requirement decomposition
• Refined set of requirements
• Validate requirements
• Each requirement must be validated to ensure that these are the correct requirements
• Stakeholder walkthroughs and tracing requirements to an associated need
• Manage requirements
• Accepted requirements and the baseline
• Changes to the requirements

Developing User Requirements

• Develop requirements
• To gather, analyze and develop requirements from the Concept of Operations (CONOPS), stakeholder needs, objectives and other external requirement
• Write and document requirements
• Functional and performance requirements into the appropriate requirements documents
• Initial Capabilities Document (ICD)
• Capability Development Document (CDD)
• Capability Production Document (CPD)
• Capability Development Tracking and Management
• Requirements development in the project timeline
• Requirements policy or standards
• Cataloging Non-Functional Requirements
• Quantitative Performance Requirements

Measurable Requirements

• Constraints vs. Non-Functional Requirements
• Constraining (Environmental) Elements
• Analyzing Stakeholder needs and requirements
• Bad Requirements
• Missing Requirements
• Inconsistent Requirements
• Issues with identifying Non-Functional Requirements
• Exercise: Non-Functional in Your Environment
• Non-Functional Performance Requirements
• Evaluating Performance Requirements
• Requirements Decomposition
• How do I fit these activities to my project? [Tailoring]
• What should I track in this process step to reduce project risks and get what is expected? [Metrics]

Requirements Analysis Process

• Requirement completeness
• Requirements attributes [quality factors] assignment
• Requirement’s priority, risk, cost, owner, date, verification and validation methods
• Verification methods
• Demonstration, analysis, test, and inspection
• Validation methods
• Demonstration, analysis, test, and inspection
• Stakeholders approval
• The baseline [reference point for future decisions] establishment
• Development, testing, support, deployment, production, training, and disposal
• Functional, Performance, Environmental, and Non – Functional Requirements

Analyzing Requirements Attributes

• Necessary [trace to a user need]
• Concise [minimal]
• Feasible [attainable]
• Testable [measurable]
• Technology Independent [avoid “HOW to” statements unless they are real constraints on the design of the system]
• Unambiguous [Clear]
• Complete [function fully defined]

Guidelines for Writing Requirement Statements

• Principles of well-defined requirements
• Syntax and active voice
• Requirements construct
• Well-formed, bad and irrelevant requirements
• Stakeholder requirements and needs
• What are effective requirement statements?
• Structured requirement statements
• System thinking
• Exercise: Working with requirements
• Techniques and tools to identify Functional Requirements
• Performance Requirements
• Enabling Requirements
• Training, operations, maintenance support, development, testing, production, deployment, and disposal
• How to separate Interface Requirements?
• Environmental Requirements
• Non-functional
• Reliability, availability, safety, and security

Writing and Validating the Requirements

• Check Requirements Completeness
• Characteristics of good requirements
• Good requirements statements
• Traceability to the source
• Traceability to the operational needs
• Attributable to an authoritative source
• Requirements unique identifier
• Test the wording of the requirement from different stakeholders’ perspectives
• Specific and singularity
• Measurability
• Functions assessment as quantitatively or qualitatively
• Performance factors
• Testability
• Vague statements
• Consistency and compatibility
• Feasibility
• Implementation-free
• Critical performance and level of acceptance
• Requirements analysis measures
• Measures of Effectiveness (MOEs)
• Measures of Performance (MOPs)
• Key Performance Parameters (KPPs)

Methods to Verifying and Validating Requirements

• Requirements verification vs. validation
• Methods to Validating Requirements
• Managing Baselines and Changes to the Requirements
• Validation Terminology
• User Requirement Specifications
• Functional Requirements (Functional Requirement Specifications)
• Validation Plans (VP)
• Validation Master Plans (VMP)
• Risk Assessment (RA)
• Test Plan / Test Protocol
• Operational Qualification (OQ)
• Performance Qualification (PQ)
• Requirements Traceability Matrix
• Validation Summary Report
• Change Control for Validated Systems
• Auditing and Assessments
• Verification and Validation checklists