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What questions do I ask during requirements elicitation?

by Laura Brandenburg on August 30, 2010 · 21 comments

in Engaging the Business,Requirements Elicitation

Part of preparing for requirements elicitation is identifying questions. You definitely want to avoid securing valuable stakeholder time only to be lost about what questions to ask! Some stakeholders will talk your ear off, but others need to be led through a conversation. Regardless, I’ve found that preparing a list of requirements questions helps me [...]

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Using a stakeholder requests list as part of scope definition

by Laura Brandenburg on October 19, 2009 · 2 comments

in Creating alignment,Requirements Elicitation

Oftentimes a business analyst gets involved in a project with multiple different business stakeholders with competing views. Before jumping into the analysis of the project or even defining scope, it can be helpful to pull together all the competing requests and categorize them. This activity can help shed light on the nature of the requests. [...]

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Requirements specifications: what to do when you must start from scratch

by Laura Brandenburg on September 7, 2009 · 19 comments

in Requirements Planning and Management,Requirements Specifications

In my recent post on requirements templates, I found that many of you fall into two very different camps. While some of you have formalized processes and sets of documentation requirements for your software projects (this can be helpful or hurtful), others have nothing. Those of you in the latter category feel you need to [...]

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How to learn about a new business

by Laura Brandenburg on August 31, 2009 · 6 comments

in Requirements Elicitation

In a new business analyst position, it can be a challenge to figure out how to learn everything you need to know to be successful. Knowledge about the business and industry is a core competency for a business analyst. It can be acquired over the life cycle of a project, but oftentimes you need to [...]

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How do you use your requirements templates?

by Laura Brandenburg on August 26, 2009 · 12 comments

in Maturing your BA Practice,Requirements Specifications

If your company has a full-fledged software development process along with pre-defined templates for creating deliverables at every stage of the process, do you find that the templates encourage good thinking or a fill-in-the-blanks strategy? In my last three projects, I feel I’ve been lucky to work on teams where there is little formal process [...]

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Reverse Engineering Testable Requirements: Interviewing Business Subject Matter Experts

by Laura Brandenburg on January 28, 2009 · 0 comments

in Current Capabilities Assessment Series,Requirements Elicitation

When trying to uncover the functionality of an existing system, the most critical activity you will perform is interviewing stakeholders.  Everything you’ve done up until now equates to a pre-game warm-up.  Now it’s time for kick-off. Note: This is a follow-on post from “Create a Work Plan” and post #5 of the Current Capabilities Assessment [...]

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Reverse engineering requirements: Create a Work Plan

by Laura Brandenburg on January 7, 2009 · 0 comments

in Current Capabilities Assessment Series,Requirements Planning and Management

By now you are probably ready to start meeting with stakeholders to elicit requirements.  You’ve found a business sponsor, scoped your project, and learned a lot exploring the system.  It’s valuable to pause and create a plan of attack before diving into your stakeholder meetings.  Having a plan will keep you organized and make the [...]

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Reverse engineering requirements: how to explore the system

by Laura Brandenburg on December 22, 2008 · 2 comments

in Requirements Elicitation

When you are conducting a current capabilities assessment, it’s critical that you take time early on to explore the system as fully as possible.  As important as input from stakeholders will be, you’ll establish much more credibility with these individuals if you’ve done your due diligence.  After exploring the system, you’ll have a surface level [...]

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How to create quick and effective meeting agendas

by Laura Brandenburg on December 3, 2008 · 1 comment

in Effective Meetings

One of my pet peeves is attending a “mystery meeting”.  You know the type, vague subject line and no agenda.  Maybe you get a brief sentence in the invite saying “let’s meet to discuss XYZ”. No agenda, no goal. Your meeting has no requirements! An effective agenda takes a few minutes to pull together yet [...]

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Reverse Engineering Requirements: Select a Business Owner and Identify Scope

by Laura Brandenburg on November 26, 2008 · 0 comments

in Current Capabilities Assessment Series,Enterprise Analysis,Requirements Planning and Management

If you are given license to start reverse engineering a legacy system into requirements, also known as a “current capabilities assessment”, it’s often tempting to jump right in and start documenting. But before you do that it’s important to lay the groundwork for your task.  You’ll want to identify a business owner and define scope [...]

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