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Course Outline

Section I. Where does Requirements Development end and Requirements Management begin?
To have a successful Requirements Managements Process that will help manage scope, first understand where Requirements Development ends and Requirements Management starts While Requirements Development starts after initial scope is defined and is key to getting the project on the road, Requirements Management is key to keeping it on the right road while managing scope to reach its final destination. This section is an overview of how the IIBA and the PMI look at where Requirements Management fits into the project timeline its importance in the success of IT projects.

• What is Requirements Development?
• What is Requirements Management?
• BABoK and PMBok — Where does Scope/Requirements Management fit?
• The SDLC and Requirements Management

Class Activity: Define Requirements Management and discussion of the differences between Requirements Development and Requirements Management

Section II. Getting to Base-lined Requirements
Changing Requirements is a reason for project failures as it contributes to Scope Creep and increasing cost and missing deadlines. This section provides a foundation for moving forward with Scope and Requirements management by describing what is a base-line, how to get to base-lined requirements and gaining signoff.

• Importance of gathering accurate requirements
• Start the project team on the same page - Base-lined Requirements
  • What is a baseline?
  • What is signoff?

Practice Session: You will hold peer reviews of the requirements document for the Case Study and gain consensus on a base line for the going forward of the project. You will gain the clear understanding of how good requirements are documented and the importance of clear and complete requirements on scope.

Section III. Overview of the major activities of Requirements Management
We’ll start digging into the details of the activities and tasks associated with Requirements Management.

• Traceability
• Tracing Requirements
• Traceability Matrix
• 3 examples of matrices
• Identify impacts to external systems and other areas of the project
• Introduction to Change Control
• Intro to the next section — overview

Practice Session: Working in your team you will complete a Traceability Matrix. You will have the opportunity to see the benefits of a Traceability Matrix in the Change Control process and be able to bring that back to you organizations.

Section IV. Define Scope Creep — The Case for Scope Management
Even when the right requirements are defined up front and base-lined, projects will have changes. Its how changes are handled that can determine ultimate project success or failure. Changes impact the schedule, the budget and/or the quality. This section introduces the need for Scope Management and the relationship of Scope Management to Change Control and Requirements Management.

• What is Scope Management?
• Why is scope management different from Requirements Management?
• The cost of NOT having a clear Scope and Requirements Management process in your project. It’s not one or the other & its BOTH!

Practice Session: Gain an in-depth understanding of the scope of the project for the Case Study. This will provide the base for the remainder of the exercises as we walk through real-life examples of change requests and managing scope.

Section V. Scope Changes
Changes will be requested as we’ve previously discussed. How we handle those requests are key. This section will include details on controlling change and making the right changes for the right reasons. We will cover the Change Control process including:

• Controlling Scope Creep
• Implementing Change Control
• Developing a Change Control Process
• Introducing the process
• A Change Request Template
• Keeping a Change Request Log
• Measure / Impact
• Roles in the Change Process
• Who should be involved?
• Identifying Scope changes (resulting from requirements changes)
• Maintaining Scope Approval
• Version Control

Practice Sessions: You will have several exercises in this section. You will work in your teams to define a change control process for your project, write a change request, determine if a scope change will result and practice communicating with the project sponsor and stakeholders.

Section VI. Measure and Report on Requirements Activity

• Project vs. Product Metrics
• Tracking Requirements Status

Practice Session: This step will be working with your team to go back to your requirements and look at the requirements status to track what has happened during the project up to this point. This will emphasize the need to track status as you progress in the project plan, understanding those pieces that are not yet started can provide easier discussions and decisions if de-scoping or negotiations are needed to meet customer (stakeholder needs.)

Section VII. User Acceptance Testing
Finishing up the project — The success of any project is determined by the stakeholders acceptance of the final deliverables in production. This section will discuss the Roles of the Business Analyst in the UAT function.

• Implementing User Acceptance Testing
• Writing a UAT test plan — Review a template ct
• Gaining sign-off
• Successful Implementation!!!

Practice Session: Using the case study you will practice writing UAT Test Cases and building a Test Plan.

Section VIII. Let’s Talk Tools
Now that we have spent almost 2 days on the methodologies and techniques for managing requirements throughout the project, let’s discuss some of the tools available for documenting and managing requirements.

• Software tools — What’s available?
• Review resources available — other websites and templates

Practice Session: We’ll take a look at some of the software tools available and discuss pros and cons.

Section IX. Challenges in Requirements Management
Anyone can follow process, but using the right tools in the right place on the project will increase your success. This section finishes up the topic of Requirements Management by the participants sharing recent and upcoming real life challenges and how we can resolve them using the tools and techniques discussed in this course.

• What challenges have you faced in the past 6 months?
• What tools or techniques discussed would have helped?
• Going forward — how will you drive your organization to better requirements management, better scope control and more successful projects.