Implied Requirements
Assume you are working on a project for an organization that is launching a new product. The product is similar to an existing group of products the organization already sells. This could be a sporting goods manufacturer that is launching a new line of hockey sticks, a packaged goods company that is adding a new line of cleaning products to its existing stable of cleaning products or a bank offering a new savings account product to their line of existing savings accounts. Assume also that...
Read MoreBusiness Analysts’ Attention to Detail
An old song says that a poker player needs to “know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em”. A similar maxim for a business analyst might be that you’ve got to “know when to drill down and know when to abstract to a higher level”. Not as poetic or lyrical but true nonetheless. A good business analyst is able to balance between the need for drilling down deeper when they perceive their customer is providing input to business requirements at too high a level and conversely,...
Read MoreBusiness Requirements vs. User Requirements
High level business requirements are usually pretty simple in a small project. Minor enhancements or changes to an existing product or service would fall into this category. Examples would be a wording change change in client correspondence or changing a commission calculation formula for a sales force contract. These business requirements often get documented in a project charter and in the business requirements with the same level of detail because from the perspective of the business sponsor...
Read MoreSo many requirements, so little understanding
Business requirements, high level requirements, user requirements, functional requirements, user interface requirements, detailed requirements, system requirements, non-functional requirements, interface requirements, software requirements, business process requirements. The good news to be taken from the list above is that there is no shortage of ways to think about requirements. The bad news is that a list of this size implies many different definitions of requirements which must be at...
Read MoreRequirements – I Got Nuthin!
After 20+ years in the IT business working on projects, I’ve decided I really don’t understand nearly enough about requirements and am going to make the harsh judgement that most IT staff who are either creators or consumers of requirements, as well as business people from whom requirements are supposed to originate, don’t know much about them either. So…I’m takin’ to readin’ to see if I can learn some of the discipline around requirements in a very orderly way. One of the more...
Read More