Requirements Elicitation

Requirements Elicitation Introduction

Strong elicitation skills are a ‘must have’ for anyone charged with defining requirements for their project.  Success is dependent on a mixture of technical skills (i.e. knowing which technique to use and how to use it) and interpersonal skills (i.e. building relationships, listening, and gaining consensus). Whether you plan to meet with your stakeholders in one-on-one sessions, in a requirements workshop, or remotely, you will need to know how to select and implement techniques to accurately and efficiently identify the needs of your business.

In this highly interactive 2-day course, you will learn how to enhance and refine your elicitation skills. Industry best practices are explained and then augmented with professional tips and methods. Working in small groups, you will practice new techniques and discuss strategies that your organization should be using to better define stakeholder needs. A case study driven workshop comprises more than half the course and provides a real-world example, templates, and job aids to reference once you are back on the job. If you are struggling with missing requirements, lack of stakeholder involvement, out of control scope, or the inability to know which tools to apply to elicit the most thorough requirements, you’ll want to consider this workshop!

Course Objectives

By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:

• Apply best practices to resolve common problems encountered in requirements elicitation
• Establish and communicate the scope for eliciting requirements on a project
• Identify, analyze and manage stakeholders during the elicitation process
• Determine the appropriate mix of elicitation techniques to utilize on a project
• Plan and conduct an interview to elicit requirements
• Plan and conduct several different forms of requirements elicitation

Course highlights

• Describe the planning, techniques, and partnerships that are vital to the success of requirements elicitation
• Identify and differentiate between the different types of requirements that need to be elicited
• Describe the importance of documenting business objectives and product scope before eliciting requirements
• Utilize a context diagram to scope the solution space
• Utilize a process, techniques, and templates for stakeholder identification and analysis
• Apply industry best practices to common issues with stakeholders during requirements elicitation
• Plan and conduct an effective Interview
• Introduce standards in process modeling
• Obtain information about two professional associations that support business analysts

Prerequisites

• A basic understanding of the requirements process is helpful.
• We recommend taking the Business Analysis Essentials (BA01) course as a foundation.

Audience

This course is perfect for:

• Business Analysts
• Business Systems Analysts
• Systems Analysts
• Requirements Engineers
• Project Managers
• Business Sponsors

Requirements Elicitation Outline

Day 1
Unit 1: Introduction

Unit 2: Fundamentals of Requirements
Elicitation
• Challenges with requirements elicitation
and requirements
• Best practices to overcome elicitation
and requirement challenges
• Common elicitation techniques
• Requirement types

Unit 3: Understanding the Objectives and
Product Scope
• Strategy Analysis; the start to defining
the business need
• The importance of documenting business
objectives and product scope before
elicitation
• Context diagramming to define product
scope

Unit 4: Identifying and Analyzing
Stakeholders
• The importance of stakeholder analysis
and management
• Factors to consider when determining
which elicitation techniques to utilize

Unit 5: Interviews, Focus Groups, & Surveys
• The interviewing technique and when
best used
• Benefits and weaknesses of interviews
• Questions types
• Conducting a good interview
• Benefits and weaknesses of Focus
Groups and Surveys
• Best practice tips for focus groups and
surveys

Day 2
Unit 6: Brainstorming and Workshops
• The benefits and weaknesses of
workshops
• Types of workshops
• Facilitate a workshop
• Decision rules
• Practicing facilitation skills
• Benefits and weaknesses of
brainstorming

Unit 7: Process Modeling using Activity
Diagrams
• Purose and benefits of process modeling
• Using process modeling to elicit
• The UML® equivalent – Activity Diagrams
• Observation as an elicitation technique

Unit 8: Prototyping
• Benefits and weaknesses of prototyping
• Key prototyping terms
• Three forms of prototyping; storyboard,
wireframes, and HTML (functional
prototypes)

Unit 9: Document Analysis, Reverse
Engineering, and Interface Analysis
• The role of document analysis in
requirements elicitation
• Benefits and weaknesses of document
analysis
• Reverse engineering to uncover
unknown information about an existing
solution
• The value of Interface Analysis

Unit 10: Course Wrap-up
• What will you take away?
• How to obtain additional information