Requirements: The Masterclass

13+ Hours of Video Instruction

Requirements: The Masterclass LiveLessons—Agile, Traditional, Outsourcing is a video course covering requirements, whether they are the requirements for software, a service, or a product. This video teaches the requirements process from initiation and scoping, through investigating the work being done and then determining the optimal solution to improve that work. After this course, business analysts, agile team members, and others concerned with requirements will be able to discover the correct requirements and communicate them precisely and unambiguously to the product developers.

Description

This video course teaches you how to become a requirements wizard—it covers the gamut of the requirements activities. It begins with how to scope the problem using a context model and then how to use business events and business use cases to subdivide the problem space into manageable and convenient chunks. It looks at how to uncover the real problem—something not done on many projects—and then how to find its optimal solution. Then the video show how to write unambiguous and correct stories or requirements to ensure correct development.

The course includes some downloadable material that enhances the video lessons and provides exercises to sharpen your requirements skills.

About the Instructor

James Robertson and Suzanne Robertson have worked with hundreds of systems projects. They are the authors of books, seminars, and articles on requirements and have consulted and assisted on requirements projects worldwide. Their unique brand of experience, practical know-how, and dogma-free approach to requirements has transformed the business analysts they come in contact with.

They are the coauthors of five books including Mastering the Requirements Process, now in its third edition, and Requirements-Led Project Management. They are also coauthors of the Volere requirements techniques, used by thousands of organizations around the world.

James and Suzanne are founders and principals of the Atlantic Systems Guild, an international partnership of systems thinkers and authors. Guild partners have written numerous influential books and are the authors of some of the most successful systems and requirements courses—and, as their readers and students attest, guild partners remain among the most compelling and lucid communicators.

Skill Level

• Intermediate to advanced

What You Will Learn

• How to discover and elicit requirements
• How to write unambiguous and testable requirements
• How to write the correct agile stories
• How to run your requirements project, whether it’s an agile, traditional, outsourced, or OTS project
• How to understand the role of good requirements in agile development
• How to scope the business problem
• How to ensure the scope and the stakeholders match the goals
• How to study the business
• How to find the right solution to the real business problem
• How to review the requirements
• How to trace requirements
• How to get requirements right

Who Should Take This Course

• Business analysts who want to be more effective in their requirements work
• Product owners and product/program managers
• Agile team members who want to improve the accuracy of their deliverables
• Users and software customers who want to ensure the requirements process is delivering what they need

Course Requirements

• Basic understanding of the need for requirements in the development process

Table of Contents

Introduction
In the Introduction, we introduce ourselves and give you a rundown on what to expect from the course. We look quickly through the course contents and set down our approach to requirements discovery.

Lesson 1: Understanding Requirements Processes
There are several accepted requirements processes, and Lesson 1 looks at the most popular, with the objective of orienting you to the most appropriate process for you.

Lesson 2: Initiating Requirements Discovery
The most important decisions in your project are the early ones. Lesson 2 looks at establishing the scope of the work to be improved, the stakeholders for the project, and aligning these with the goals of the project.

Lesson 3: Discovering the Requirements
To be effective at discovering the requirements, the business analyst needs effective techniques. Lesson 3 explores some of the better ways to discover the requirements.

Lesson 4: Getting the Right Solution
The project is charged with coming up with a solution that, when implemented, improves the work. Lesson 4 demonstrates how to find the most innovative way to improve the work, which includes finding a beneficial technological solution for it.

Lesson 5: Writing Requirements
Requirements have to be communicated within the project team. Lesson 4 shows how to write the correct agile stories and how to formulate unambiguous and testable functional and non-functional requirements.

Lesson 6: Experimenting with Requirements
Quick and dirty prototypes are an effective way to tease out hidden requirements. Lesson 6 demonstrates several prototyping techniques and shows how to use exceptions and alternatives to find the remainder of the requirements.

Lesson 7: Ensuring the Quality of Requirements
Requirements, if they are to be at all useful, must be correct. Lesson 7 gives you ways to ensure the quality of your output, how to manage your stories and requirements, and how to determine if you have the complete set of requirements and stories.

Lesson 8: Designing Your Requirements Strategy
Having the best strategy gives you and your project an advantage. Lesson 8 shows how to find the best strategy and then how to improve your skills to become a better business analyst.

Summary
The Summary reviews the course to show how the pieces fit together and how you can make the best use of them.

Downloadable Material
A PDF file of downloadable material provides assignments, hints, and reference material that you can use to revisit, review, and practice the requirements techniques.

About LiveLessons Video Training
The LiveLessons Video Training series publishes hundreds of hands-on, expert-led video tutorials covering a wide selection of technology topics designed to teach you the skills you need to succeed. This professional and personal technology video series features world-leading author instructors published by your trusted technology brands: Addison-Wesley, Cisco Press, IBM Press, Pearson IT Certification, Prentice Hall, Sams, and Que. Topics include: IT Certification, Programming, Web Development, Mobile Development, Home and Office Technologies, Business and Management, and more. View all LiveLessons on InformIT at: http://www.informit.com/livelessons .