Some time ago, a student asked me a question that really caught me by surprise. It was at the end of a Requirements Analysis Techniques class. In it, we look at a number of widely-used analysis techniques, and the walls of the classroom were literally covered with...
What are business requirements? A common answer I get when asking for an example of a business requirement is a sentence like: “The system shall facilitate the automation of email to the customer.” Is that a business requirement? Well of course it must be. The...
Recently, I joined Jacqueline and Kupe for an episode of their #AskAnAnalyst podcast. During this episode, we discussed a question that pops up regularly in the classes we teach related to validating requirements: How do I know I’m not missing any requirements? My...
I’m excited to announce that the book I’ve been working on for the last three years is available! In celebration (and a little promotion), I thought I would share an excerpt. I chose the excerpt below because it discusses some helpful concepts for analysts, regardless...
You deserve a pat on the back! You made it through discovery, requirements preparation, requirements elicitation (and probably a lot of negotiation), and came out the other end with a pristine, beautifully prepared business requirements document (BRD). It is time to...
Originally posted on BA Times in February 2013. Once upon a time BAs were required to write long requirements documents that told an entire story. This story started with business requirements, functional and non-functional requirements, which fed detail design...
One of the advantages being a facilitator for business analysis professionals is that I get to see real-world concerns from working BAs every day…and I get to figure out creative ways to answer their questions. Recently, a student and I were were discussing...
Eliciting business requirements is a critical skill for a business analyst. Although we hear the phrase business requirements over and over again by software vendors, by training companies, by business analysts of various industries, and by speakers in our IIBA...
Most BAs don’t have access to sophisticated requirements management tools. We are keeping our requirements in MS office documents. I am interested in where you are storing all of these documents. Sharepoint? Documentum? How are these repositories working? At the...
