Duration: Half-day

Target Audience: Business Analysts, Developers, Testers, Project Managers, Systems Engineers, Staff, Software Quality Assurance staff

Description:
A poorly written requirements document can be the beginning of a journey into software development misery.  A short-circuited illicitation phase, not validating against analytical models, failure to account for non-functional requirements, and not using a quality attribute checklist can all lead to project disaster.

This workshop improves requirements writing skills through lecture and examples focused on both content and technique. Students will use quality checklists as tools to review and improve their requirements writing skills. The focus is on understanding the detail needed in a requirement and how to validate that the requirement has covered what it should. The course delves into practical ways to ensure that all stakeholders' interests are represented. This is an interactive workshop, which gets all class members involved, driving home the concepts in an enjoyable way, and we'll use a number of examples to ensure students are proficient in the methodology.

What you will learn:
Students will:

• Learn crucial elicitation techniques that help to understand the voice of the customer
• Understand how modeling can help validate a requirements specification document
•  See how a basic checklist including characteristics of well-written requirements can help overcome the typical shortcomings in requirements documents
•  Learn how quality attributes (the 'illities') are just as important as functional requirements

Course Outline:

Introduction

• Requirements, Estimates, and the Project Plan

• Why better requirements?

Characteristics of Excellent Requirements

• Complete

• Consistent

• Correct

• Feasible

• Modifiable

• Necessary

• Prioritized

• Traceable

• Unambiguous

• Verifiable

• Exercise 1 - Transforming Fuzzy Requirements

 Quality Attributes

• Availability

• Efficiency

• Flexibility

• Adaptability

• Integrity

• Interoperability

• Reliability

• Robustness

• Usability

• Maintainability

• Portability

• Reusability

• Testability

• Exercise 2 - Practicing the 'ilities'

Business Analyst Activities

• Decomposition

• Lazy English - the hazards!

• Importance and Necessity

• The Hard Work of Listening

• Globalization Issues

• Exercise 3 - Domestic Item

• The Keys to Success

Prerequisites: Familiarity with software development