SYS366

1. SYS366 Week 7, Lecture 1 Introduction to Requirements Gathering: Part 2 – Determining The Stakeholders’ Needs

2. Today • Stakeholders • Identifying System Requirements • Functional Requirements • Technical Requirements • Data Requirements • Fact Finding Methods • Interview Questions

3. Who is a Stakeholder? • “An individual who is materially affected by the outcome of the system or the project (s) producing the system” * • Or the people who suffer from the problem being addressed * *Use Case Modeling by Bittner and Spence, p. 51.

4. Categories of Stakeholders • Five primary categories • Users • Sponsors • Developers • Authorities • Customers

5. Users • For purposes of Exercise 5 and WP2, we are going to focus only on the User Stakeholders

6. User Stakeholders • Those who actually use the system • Technology Adopters • Interested in using all of the features of the system; in pushing it to the limit of its capabilities • Standard Users • Not interested in using all of the features of the system. Rather they want a system that allows them to perform their business processes simply and in the same way that they are used to performing them

7. Standard Users • Those in day-to-day business operations • use and change information • Those using queries • view calculated/collected information • Management • use reports, statistics • demand controls • Executives • strategic issues

8. User Stakeholders • Non-living users • Mechanical devices that the system must interact with • Other business areas • Other systems

9. Review • Let’s return to Exercises 2 & 4 to be sure that you have identified all of the technology adopters, standard users, and other business areas that you must interact with

10. Today • Stakeholders • Identifying System Requirements • Functional Requirements • Technical Requirements • Data Requirements • Fact Finding Methods • Interview Questions

11. Identifying Systems Requirements • Objective of the requirements capture and analysis phases is to understand business processes and develop requirements for the new system

12. Identifying System Requirements • “A requirement is a desired feature, property or behavior of a system.” * * Unified Modeling Language

13. Identifying System Requirements • A requirement “is either derived directly from stakeholder or user needs Or stated in a contract, standard, specification, or other formally imposed document.” * * Use Case Modeling, by Bittner & Spence, page 5.

14. Identifying System Requirements “Features represent some area of functionality of the system that, at this time, is important to the users of the system” * * Use Case Modeling, by Bittner & Spence, page 75.

15. Identifying System Requirements • “Software Requirements specify the things that the software does on behalf of the (human) user or another system.” * * Use Case Modeling, by Bittner & Spence, page 6.

16. Requirements Gathering • Analyst needs to find out what the user requires in the new system or what the user requires to be changed in an existing system • Gather the requirements by doing fact finding • Document the requirements

17. Requirements Gathering • For an existing system, analyst needs to find out: • Functionality • Some of the functionality of the existing system will be included in the new system (can be acquired from existing documentation and code) • Data needs • Some of the data of the existing system will need to be migrated into the new system

18. Requirements Gathering • For a new system, analyst needs to find out: • Functionality • What are the activities the system needs to perform? • How is the user to interact with the system? • Are other systems to interact with the system? • Data needs • What information is needed?

19. Requirements Gathering Scope of the System Functional Technical Data Requirements Requirements Requirements

20. Functional Requirements • Describe what a system does or is expected to do • Include: • Descriptions of the processing which the system will be required to carry out

21. Functional Requirements • Include: • Details of the inputs into the system from paper forms and documents or the interactions between people and the system or transfers from other systems

22. Functional Requirements • Include: • Details of the outputs that are expected from the system in the form of printed documents and reports, screen displays and transfers to other systems

23. Technical Requirements • Describe the aspects of the system that are concerned with how well it provides the functional requirements. • Include: • Performance criteria • Anticipated volumes of data

24. Data Requirements • Describe what information the system is going to need or produce – really hard to separate from Functional and Technical Requirements • Include • Details of the data that must be held in the system

25. Themes To Guide Investigation • What are business processes and operations? • How should the business processes be performed? • What are the information requirements? Understand the Users’ Needs!

26. Today • Stakeholders • Identifying System Requirements • Functional Requirements • Technical Requirements • Data Requirements • Fact Finding Methods • Interview Questions

27. Fact Finding Methods • Conduct interviews and discussion with users • Distribute and collect stakeholder questionnaires • Review existing reports, forms, and procedure descriptions

28. Fact Finding Methods • Observe business processes and workflows • Build prototypes • Conduct JAD sessions • RAD

29. Fact Finding Methods • Interviews • Questionnaires • Review Documentation • Observation • Prototypes • JAD sessions • RAD

30. Interviews • Primary technique for fact finding and information gathering • Most effective way to understand business functions and business rules • Usually requires multiple sessions

31. Interviews • Usually conducted with customers/clients/users • Clients are not always able to express their requirements clearly  it is up to the analyst to ask the right questions to help the client express their requirements

32. Interviews • We are going to concentrate on interview techniques; the rest of the slides explain the other methods for fact finding

33. Conducting effective interviews • Determine who you are going to interview • Know what information that stakeholder can provide for you • Prepare for the interview • Conduct the interview • Follow up on the interview

34. Determine who you are going to interview • Can be standard (business) or technical (technology adopters) users • Standard users provide the functional and data requirements • Technical (technology adopters) users provide the technical and data requirements

35. Determine who you are going to interview • Can be standard (business) or technical (technology adopters) users in your business area or the other business areas that communicate with yours

36. Styles of Interviews • Structured Interview • Formal style • Requires significant preparation • Unstructured Interview • Informal • No pre-determined questions or objectives

37. Structured Interview • Preparing for the interview • Establish the objectives for the interview • Have a clear agenda • Prepared in advance with a list of open and closed ended questions • Set the time and location for the interview • Inform all participants of the objective, time and location

38. Questions • Should allow you to keep on track and avoid getting off topic during the interview • Can be prepared from any of the following: • Observations made when existing form and reports may have been reviewed • Observations made when reviewing the strategic, tactical or operational plans • Observations made when observing employees doing current job tasks • Keep length of questions reasonable (15-20 words or less)

39. Questions • Phrase questions to avoid misunderstandings - use simple terms and wording • Do not ask questions that give clues to expected answers • Avoid asking two questions in one • Do not ask questions that can raise concerns about job security or other negative issues

40. Questioning Strategies Top Down How can order processing be improved? How can we reduce the number of times that customers return items they’ve ordered? How can we eliminate shipping the wrong products? High-level: very general Medium-level: moderately specific Bottom UP Low-level: very specific

41. Questions • Open ended questions • Encourages unstructured responses and generates discussion • Useful when you need to understand a larger process or to draw out opinions or suggestions from the person being interviewed

42. Questions • Closed ended questions • Limited or restricted response – a simple definitive answer • Used to get information that is more specific or when you need to verify facts

43. Sample interview questions • Open-ended • What do you think about the current system? • How do you decide what type of marketing campaigns to run? • Closed-ended • How do customers place orders? • How many orders to you receive a day?

44. Structured Interview • Conduct the interview • Dress appropriately; Arrive on time • Welcome the participants; introduce the attendees; state the objective and agenda • Ask permission if you want to tape record the interview • Ask questions from script

45. Structured Interview • Conduct the interview • Listen closely to the interviewee and encourage them to expand on key points • Take thorough notes • Identify and document unanswered questions • At end of interview, review outstanding questions that require follow up • Set date and time for the next, follow-up interview

46. Interviews • Now In-class exercise 5

47. Fact Finding Methods • Interviews • Questionnaires • Review Documentation • Observation • Prototypes • JAD sessions • RAD

48. Questionnaires • A document which contains a number of questions • Can be paper form or electronic form (email or web-based) • Allows the analyst to collect information from a large number of people • People outside the organization (I.e. customers) • Business users spread across a large geographic area

49. Questionnaires • Limited and specific information from a large number of stakeholders • Preliminary insight • Not well suited for gathering detailed information • Open-ended questions vs. close-ended questions

50. Questionnaires • Similar process to interviewing • Determine who will receive the questionnaire • Design the questionnaire • Determine objective of questionnaire • Design questions • Follow up questionnaire