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 that faces a software project team, and customer involvement is among the most critical factors in software quality.

Two ProcessExchange courses address this crucial need:

• Developing and Managing Quality Requirements
   
• Mastering Requirements Development & Management

  The objective of this training is to give attendees a tool kit of practices, reinforced with exercises and group discussions, that they can apply to improve the quality of the requirements development and management processes in their organizations.

  This seminar describes dozens of validated methods that can help any organization improve the way it elicits, analyzes, documents, verifies, and manages software requirements. Characteristics of excellent requirements statements and requirements specifications are presented and used to evaluate some sample functional requirements. The course emphasizes several practical techniques:

  • creating an effective customer-development partnership

  • customer involvement through a “product champion” model

  • application of use cases for defining user needs and system functions

  • a simple model for prioritizing requirements

  • writing software requirements specifications using a standard template

  • constructing dialog maps, as well as other analysis models, to model user interfaces

  • use of prototypes to clarify and refine user needs

  • use of technical reviews and inspections to find errors in requirements

  • use of a requirements traceability matrix to connect requirements with design elements, code, and tests

  Requirements management is approached from the perspective of the Software Engineering Institute's Software Capability Maturity Model (SW-CMM). The SW-CMM's expectations for 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 software requirements, thereby increasing the likelihood of a successfully completed project.

  Requirements Elicitation by Modeling with Use Cases is a core course for any requirements professional. It provides training in Use Case modeling techniques. The course focuses on eliciting and managing the changing requirements of a project. In addition, participants will analyze and define product vision and feature requirements, define software requirements, and determine requirement attributes. The course also teaches traceability maintenance, change management, and impact analysis for project scope management. ProcessExchange® professionals will show how Use Case modeling and requirements management techniques are used to define and document requirements that map to users’ needs.