SYSTE

M ANALY

SIS A

ND

DESIGN

SA

F AA

S. Y

. D

AL L O

UL

REQUIREMENT DETERMINATION

UNIT 4: REQUIREMENT DETERMINATION Requirement

Determination What is a Requirement? Requirement Definition Determining

Requirements Creating the Requirement

Definition

Requirements Analysis Techniques Requirement Definition

Problem Analysis Root Cause Analysis

Business Process Improvement (BPI) Duration analysis Activity-Based Costing Informal Benchmark

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) Outcome Analysis Technology Analysis Activity Elimination

UNIT 4: REQUIREMENT DETERMINATION Comparing Analysis

Techniques Requirement Gathering

Techniques Interviews

Selecting Interviewees Designing Interview

questions Preparing for the

interview Conducting the

interview Post interview Follow-

UP

Requirement Gathering Techniques Join Application

Development JAD Participants Preparing for the JAD

sessions JAD meeting room Conducting the JAD

sessions Post JAD follow-up

Questionnaires Good questionnaire

design Document Analysis Observation Selecting the appropriate

requirement-Gathering technique

WHAT IS A REQUIREMENT?

Requirement is simply a statement of what the system will do or what characteristic it needs to have.

  Those requirements will change over time in the design

and implementation phases.

  Requirements can be either functional or non-functional

in a nature.

WHAT IS A REQUIREMENT?

Functional requirement related directly to a process that the system has to perform or information it needs to contains.

Non-functional requirement refer to behavioral properties that the system must have.

QUESTION

Requirement in analysis phase are written from the ------------------perspective, but in design phase are written by --------------------- perspective.

a)Developers and Designer

b)Analyst and developer

c) Analyst and planner

d)None of the above

FUNCTIONAL | PROCESS ORIENTED

A process the system must perform; and a

process the system must do.Examples:

The system must allow registered customers to review there own order history for the past three years.

The system must check incoming customer order for inventory availability.

The system must change customer status to 'inactive' after three years of inactivity.

FUNCTIONAL | INFORMATION ORIENTED

Information the system must containExamples:

 The system must retain customer order history for three

years.

The system must include real-time inventory levels at all

warehouses.

The system must include budgeted sales and expense

amounts for current year and three previous years.

NON-FUNCTIONAL | OPERATIONAL

The physical and technical environments in which

the system will operatesExamples:

The system can run on handheld devices.

The system should be able to integrate with the existing

inventory system.

The system should be able to work on any web browser.

NON-FUNCTIONAL | PERFORMANCE

The speed, capacity, and reliability of the systemExamples:

Any interaction between the user and the system should not

exceed two seconds.

The system downloads new status parameter within five

minutes of a change.

The system should be available for use 24 hours per day,

365 days per year.

NON-FUNCTIONAL | SECURITY

Who was authorized access to the system under

what circumstancesExamples:

Only direct manager can see personal records of staff.

Customers can see their order history only during business

hours.

The system includes all available safeguards from viruses.

NON-FUNCTIONAL | CULTURE &

POLITICALCultural, political factors and legal requirements

that affect the systemExamples:

The system should be able to distinguish between United

States and European currency.

Company policy says that we only buy computers from Dell.

Country managers are permitted to authorize custom user

interfaces within their units.

REQUIREMENT DEFINITION

The requirement definition is a straightforward text report that simply lists the functional & non-functional requirements in an outline format.

What do you think the most important the business or technical perspective?

And why?

How can I determine the requirement?

DETERMINING REQUIREMENTS

Both business perspective and technical perspective are required to determine requirements.

Users may not be aware of new opportunity which provided by new technologies, while analysis have to meet the real business needs.

DETERMINING REQUIREMENTS

Three broad techniques can be used to analyzing requirements, based on the degree of changes expected in the to-be system.

Business Process automation (BPA)

Business Process Improvement (BPI)

Business Process reengineering (BPR)

Note: Each techniques will be explained

IS THE REQUIREMENT STABLE WITHOUT CHANGES? DISCUSS

CREATING THE REQUIREMENT DEFINITION Creating the requirement definition is an interactive and

ongoing process.

Requirement definition must kept within the scope.

Minimum requirements

Maximum requirements

REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES

The basic process of analyzing requirements involves three steps:

Understanding the existing situation (as-is system)

Identifying improvement

Define requirements for the new system (to-be system).

REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES

RAD and Agile development skip the first step (understanding as-is system)

To move from here to there, an analysts needs strong critical thinking skills to translate business requirement which collected from users into procedural specifications.

BUSINESS PROCESS AUTOMATION (BPA)

Used when the business requirements which outlines in the system request focus on employment of computer technology in some parts of business process, but have the basic manner in which the organization operates change.

Two popular activities used in the BPA technique

• Problem analysis

• Root cause analysis.

PROBLEM ANALYSIS

Ask users to identify problems and solutions.

Improvements tend to be small and incremental

Rarely finds improvements with significant business value.

ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS

Challenge assumptions about why problem exists.

Trace symptoms to their causes to discover the “real” problem.

BUSINESS PROCESS IMPROVEMENT (BPI)

Business process improvement means the basic business

requirements target moderate changes to the

organization's operations to take advantage of new

opportunities offered by new technology or to copy what

competitors are doing.

BUSINESS PROCESS IMPROVEMENT (BPI)

There are three popular activities for BPI

Duration analysis

Activity-Based Costing

Informal Benchmark

DURATION ANALYSIS

Calculate time needed for each process step.

Calculate time needed for overall process

Compare the two – a large difference indicates a badly fragmented process.

DURATION ANALYSIS

Potential solutions:

Process integration – change the process to use fewer people, each with broader responsibilities.

Parallelization – change the process so that individual step are performed all together.

ACTIVITY-BASED COSTING

Calculate cost of each process step.

Consider both direct and indirect costs.

Identify most costly steps and focus improvement efforts on them.

INFORMAL BENCHMARK

Studying how other organizations perform the same business process.

Informal benchmarking

Common for customer-facing processes.

Interact with other business’ processes as if you are a customer

BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING (BPR) Business Process Reengineering means changing the

fundamental way in which the organization operates.

Obliterating the current way of doing business to take advantages of new ideas and new technologies.

There are three popular activities in BPR:

Outcome analysis

Technology analysis

Activity elimination

OUTCOME ANALYSIS

Consider desirable outcomes from customers’ perspective.

Consider what the organization could enable the customer to do.

TECHNOLOGY ANALYSIS

Analysts list important and interesting technologies.

Managers list important and interesting technologies.

The group identifies how each might be applied to the business and how the business might benefit.

ACTIVITY ELIMINATION

Identify what would happen if each organizational activity were eliminated.

Use “force-fit” to test all possibilities. Example

WHAT IS THE BEST ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES CAN I USE DETERMINE THE

REQUIREMENTS?

COMPARING ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES

Comparison between the previous techniques based on the following factors:

Potential business value

Project cost

Breadth of analysis

Risk

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Analysts work as detectives, he or she already knows

there is a problem, and the analysts have to find the

solution, so he or she will gather information from

witnesses and follow leads. (Employees, users, customer,

etc.)

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Interviews

Joint Application Development

Questionnaires

Document Analysis

Observation

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Interviews

Is the most commonly used technique, can be one-to-one

or a group of users can interviewed all together because

of time constraints.

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Interviews (Steps)

1)Selecting interviewees

2)Design interview questions

3)Prepare for the interview

4)Conducting the interview

5)Post interview follow-up

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Interviews (Steps)

1)Selecting interviewees

Based on information needs.

Best to get different perspectives (Managers, Users,

Ideally, all key stakeholders).

Keep organizational politics in mind.

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Interviews (Steps)

2) Designing Interview Questions

There are three types of questions can be used in any

interview.

1) Open-Ended Question

2) Close-Ended Question

3) Probing Question

OPEN ENDED QUESTION

Open-Ended Questions: can be used to know about

wide policy, and get a wide view, will asked

generally for managers, in the same time will give

interviewee a chance to draw your attention to a

new aspects you may miss. For Example “What are

some of the problems you face on a daily basis?”

CLOSED ENDED QUESTION

Closed-Ended Question: enable the analysts to

control and direct the interview and obtain the

detailed needed information, for example “What

information is missing from the monthly sales report?”

PROBING QUESTION

Probing Question: this type follow-up on what has

just been discussed in order to learn more.

These questions encourage the interviewee to expand on

or confirm information from a previous response.

Why?

Can you give me an example?

Can you explain that in a bit more

details?

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Interviews (Steps)

3) Preparing for the interview Prepare general interview plan• List of question• Anticipated answers and follow-ups

 

Confirm areas of knowledge

Set priorities in case of time shortage

Prepare the interviewee (Schedule, Inform of reason for interview, Inform of areas of discussion)

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Interviews (Steps)

4) Conducting the interview

Appear professional and unbiased.

Record all information.

Check on organizational policy regarding tape recording.

Be sure you understand all issues and terms.

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Interviews (Steps)

4) Conducting the interview

Separate facts from opinions.

Give interviewee time to ask questions.

Be sure to thank the interviewee.

End on time

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Interviews (Steps)

5) Post the interview follow up

Prepare interview notes

Prepare interview report

Have interviewee review and confirm interview report

Look for gaps and new questions.

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Example

of

intervie

w report

WORK IN GROUP

Group A (Interviewee) Group B (Interviewer) Group C (Coordinator)

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Join Point Development

A structured group process focused on determining

requirements.

Involves project team, users, and management working

together.

May reduce scope creep by 50%

Very useful technique

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Join Point Development : Participants

Facilitator Trained in JAD techniques Sets agenda and guides group processes

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Join Point Development : Participants

Scribe (s) Record content of JAD sessions Users and managers from business area with broad and detailed

knowledge.

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Join Point Development : Preparing for JAD session

Making the goal of session clear.

Time commitment – ½ day to several weeks.

Strong management support is needed to release key

participants from their usual responsibilities.

Careful planning is essential.

e-JAD can help alleviate some problems inherent with

groups

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Join Point Development : JAD Meeting Room

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Join Point Development : Conducting the JAD

session

Formal agenda and ground rules.

Top-down structure most successful.

Facilitator activities:

• Keep session on track

• Help with technical terms and jargon

• Record input of the group (flip chart, whiteboard, or computer

display)

• Stay neutral, but help resolve issues

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Join Point Development : Post JAD Follow up

Post session report is prepared and circulated among

session attendees.

The report should be completed approximately a week to

two after the JAD session

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Questionnaires

What is the questionnaire?

Are there types of questionnaire?

Whom will receive the questionnaire?

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Questionnaires

A set of written questions, often sent to a large number of

people.

May be paper-based or electronic.

Select participants using samples of the population.

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Questionnaires

Design the questions for clarity and ease of analysis.

Administer the questionnaire and take steps to get a

good response rate.

Questionnaire follow-up report.

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Questionnaires

How to make it more designable?

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Questionnaires

Begin with no threatening and interesting questions. 

Group items into logically coherent sections. 

Do not input important items at the very end of the questionnaire.

 

Do not crowed a page with too many items.

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Questionnaires

Avoid abbreviation.

Avoid biased or suggestive items or terms.

Number questions to avoid confusion.

Pretest the questionnaire to identify confusing question.

Provide anonymity/privacy to respondents

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Document Analysis

Study of existing material describing the current system.

Forms, reports, policy manuals, organization charts describe

the formal system.

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Document Analysis

Look for the informal system in user additions to forms/report

and unused form/report elements.

User changes to existing forms/reports or non-use of existing

forms/reports suggest the system needs modification.

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Observation

Watch processes being performed.

Users/managers often don’t accurately recall everything they

do.

Checks validity of information gathered other ways.

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

Observation

Be aware that behaviors change when people are watched

Be unobtrusive.

Identify peak and lull/break periods

REQUIREMENT GATHERING TECHNIQUES

HOW TO SELECT APPROPRIATE GATHERING

TECHNIQUE

  Interviews JAD QuestionnairesDocument

AnalysisObservation

Type of

information

As-is,

Improvement,

To-be

As-is,

Improvement,

To-be

As-is,

Improvement

As-is As-is

Depth of

information

High High Medium Low Low

Breadth of

information

Low Medium High High Low

Integration with

information

Low High Low Low Low

User involvement Medium High Low Low Low

Cost Medium Low-Medium Low Low Low-Medium

SAFAA S

.Y. D

ALLOUL

SA

F AA

DA

L L OU

L . WO

RD

PR

ES

S. C

OM

Tha

nk

You