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PMI® Houston Chapter, Inc.
Course Syllabus
“Gathering, Documenting, and Managing IT Requirements"
Be able to recognize and classify different types of requirements information. Learn about many “good practices” for requirements elicitation, analysis, specification, validation, and management. Learn how to apply the use case technique for eliciting user requirements. Select appropriate techniques for representing requirements on your projects. Be able to critically evaluate requirements statements for ambiguity and other problems. Be able to write clear, unambiguous, and actionable requirements.
Abstract
Requirements form the foundation for all the software work that follows. Arriving at a shared vision of the product to be developed is one of the greatest challenges facing the software project team, and customer involvement is among the most critical factors in software quality. The objective of this seminar is to give attendees a tool kit of practices, reinforced with practice sessions and group discussions that they can begin applying to improve the quality of the requirements development and requirements management processes in their organization.
This three-day seminar describes dozens of tested methods that can help any organization improve the way it elicits, analyzes, documents, validates, and manages software requirements. Characteristics of excellent requirements statements and requirements specifications are presented and used to evaluate some sample functional requirements. The seminar emphasizes many practical techniques, including:• Creating an effective customer-developer partnership
The basic concepts of requirements management are described, as are practical methods for managing changes to requirements. These techniques can reduce project risk by improving the quality and control of the software requirements, thereby increasing the likelihood of a successfully completed project.
• Customer involvement through a “product champion” model
• The application of use cases for defining user needs and system functions
• Writing software requirements specifications using a standard template
• Classifying and recording business rules that affect a software system
• A simple model for prioritizing requirements
• Constructing dialog maps and other analysis models to provide alternative views of the requirements
• Using prototypes to clarify and refine user needs
• Using peer reviews to find requirements errors
• Using a requirements traceability matrix to connect requirements to design elements, code, and tests
• Writing use cases, functional requirements, data dictionary entries, quality attributes, and business rules
Audience
This seminar will be useful to requirements and business analysts, project and product managers, user representatives, software engineers, marketers, and anyone else engaged in gathering, documenting, analyzing, or managing customer requirements for software applications.
Format
Blend of lecture, class discussion, group discussions on requirements problems and solutions, and practice sessions. Practice sessions give attendees some experience in working with use cases, drawing a dialog map, reviewing a requirements specification, writing good requirements, and writing an action plan to improve their group’s requirements practices.
Course Outline
(Practice activities are shown in italics)
I. Introduction to Requirements EngineeringA. Introduction to seminar, objectives, participant expectations
II. Practice session: Small group discussions on requirements problems in their projects
B. Define three levels of software requirements: business, user, and functional
C. Describe characteristics of high-quality requirements
D. Requirements development vs. requirements management
III. Software Requirements DevelopmentA. A requirements development process framework
IV. The Capability Maturity Model for Software
B. The role of the requirements analyst
C. The customer-development partnership
D. The vision and scope document
Practice session: Writing a vision statement
Practice session: Drawing a context diagram
E. Sources of software requirements
F. Classifying requirements into categories
Practice session: Classifying requirements
G. User classes
Practice session: Identifying your user classes
H. Customer involvement in the requirements process: the product champion model
Group discussion: Who are your product champions?
I. Eliciting user requirements through use cases
Practice session: Describing a use case for an airline reservation kiosk
J. Event-response tables
K. Business rules
Practice session: Writing business rules
L. Documenting requirements: the software requirements specification
M. Requirements management tools
N. Practice session and group discussion: Reviewing a portion of an SRS
O. Practice session: Examining functional requirements for problems and rewriting them
P. Prioritizing requirements
Q. Software quality attributes
Practice session: Writing quality attributes
R. Using analysis models to represent requirements graphically
S. Modeling user interfaces with dialog maps
Practice session: Drawing a dialog map from use cases
T. Reducing the expectation gap through prototyping
U. Requirements analysis and finding missing requirements
V. Requirements validation practices
W. Peer reviews and inspectionsA. Intent and structure of the CMM
V. Software Requirements Management
B. Requirements and the CMM
C. Some process improvement principles and the learning curve
D. Group discussion: Barriers to process improvementA. Requirements management goals and practices
VI. Practice session: Designing a requirements change control process
B. Version management
C. Change management
D. Group discussion: Your change control process
E. Requirements change impact analysis
F. Requirements attributes
G. Requirements traceability
H. Requirements and software risk management
VII. Practice session: Small group discussions on how to apply solutions to the requirements problems from the discussion in section II
VIII. Improving Your Requirements PracticesA. The process improvement change cycle
IX. Requirements Writing Workshop
B. Practice session: Writing a requirements process improvement action planA. Eliciting requirements
X. Wrap-up
B. Writing use cases
C. Writing functional requirements
D. Writing quality attributes
E. Writing data dictionary entries
F. Reviewing requirements
The basic concepts of requirements management are described, as are practical methods for managing changes to requirements. These techniques can reduce project risk by improving the quality and control of the software requirements, thereby increasing the likelihood of a successfully completed project.This seminar will be useful to requirements and business analysts, project and product managers, user representatives, software engineers, marketers, and anyone else engaged in gathering, documenting, analyzing, or managing customer requirements for software applications.Blend of lecture, class discussion, group discussions on requirements problems and solutions, and practice sessions. Practice sessions give attendees some experience in working with use cases, drawing a dialog map, reviewing a requirements specification, writing good requirements, and writing an action plan to improve their group’s requirements practices. ()I. Introduction to Requirements EngineeringIII. Software Requirements DevelopmentIV. The Capability Maturity Model for SoftwareV. Software Requirements ManagementX. Wrap-up
The basic concepts of requirements management are described, as are practical methods for managing changes to requirements. These techniques can reduce project risk by improving the quality and control of the software requirements, thereby increasing the likelihood of a successfully completed project.This seminar will be useful to requirements and business analysts, project and product managers, user representatives, software engineers, marketers, and anyone else engaged in gathering, documenting, analyzing, or managing customer requirements for software applications.Blend of lecture, class discussion, group discussions on requirements problems and solutions, and practice sessions. Practice sessions give attendees some experience in working with use cases, drawing a dialog map, reviewing a requirements specification, writing good requirements, and writing an action plan to improve their group’s requirements practices. ()I. Introduction to Requirements EngineeringIII. Software Requirements DevelopmentIV. The Capability Maturity Model for SoftwareV. Software Requirements ManagementX. Wrap-up
The basic concepts of requirements management are described, as are practical methods for managing changes to requirements. These techniques can reduce project risk by improving the quality and control of the software requirements, thereby increasing the likelihood of a successfully completed project.This seminar will be useful to requirements and business analysts, project and product managers, user representatives, software engineers, marketers, and anyone else engaged in gathering, documenting, analyzing, or managing customer requirements for software applications.Blend of lecture, class discussion, group discussions on requirements problems and solutions, and practice sessions. Practice sessions give attendees some experience in working with use cases, drawing a dialog map, reviewing a requirements specification, writing good requirements, and writing an action plan to improve their group’s requirements practices. ()I. Introduction to Requirements EngineeringIII. Software Requirements DevelopmentIV. The Capability Maturity Model for SoftwareV. Software Requirements ManagementX. Wrap-up
The basic concepts of requirements management are described, as are practical methods for managing changes to requirements. These techniques can reduce project risk by improving the quality and control of the software requirements, thereby increasing the likelihood of a successfully completed project.This seminar will be useful to requirements and business analysts, project and product managers, user representatives, software engineers, marketers, and anyone else engaged in gathering, documenting, analyzing, or managing customer requirements for software applications.Blend of lecture, class discussion, group discussions on requirements problems and solutions, and practice sessions. Practice sessions give attendees some experience in working with use cases, drawing a dialog map, reviewing a requirements specification, writing good requirements, and writing an action plan to improve their group’s requirements practices. ()I. Introduction to Requirements EngineeringIII. Software Requirements DevelopmentIV. The Capability Maturity Model for SoftwareV. Software Requirements ManagementX. Wrap-up
