Part II

Planning Requirements Activities

Creating new products and services is the means by which organizations execute their strategies and remain competitive in the marketplace. The practices and techniques for capturing requirements for new or changed business solutions have traditionally received inadequate attention. As a result, planning the requirements activities is often considered to be a somewhat trivial matter and a standard approach has not yet emerged in the industry.

A new technique that is gaining popularity in the requirements management world is the creation of a requirements management plan (RMP). Since it is new, there is still a considerable amount of confusion about how to create an effective RMP. The RMP, which is the responsibility of the business analyst, specifies the requirements development and management activities and deliverables and is considered to be a subsidiary plan to the overall project management plan, which is the purview of the project manager. Prior to beginning the requirements elicitation process, the business analyst collaborates with the project manager, business representatives, and technical leads to create a plan for how to accomplish all requirements activities. The plan data are captured in the RMP. (See Appendix C for a sample RMP template.)

In this part of the book, we propose a step-by-step requirements planning process.

In Chapter 2 we provide an overview of the preproject business analysis activities that have taken place prior to approval and funding of the project. A review of this information provides the foundation to begin requirements planning activities.

In Chapter 3 we present a project complexity model that is useful for assessing project size, risk, and complexity as an important first step in the requirements planning process.

In Chapter 4 we present a step-by-step process for conducting a stakeholder analysis, followed by a user analysis.

In Chapter 5 we discuss the value of determining the project life cycle to be used prior to planning requirements activities.

In Chapter 6 we provide an overview of the requirements planning elements, including the resources required, activities completed, and deliverables created during the life of the project.