Introducing the stakeholders,
Bobbi reflects …
| Nancy | Bobbi is releaved. Valerie liked her work and the recommended solution. Valerie will be taking the proposal to Senior Management Team for final approval. But now that the adrenaline rush as dissipated, she begins to have second thoughts. | |
| Bobbi | It has been a whirlwind of activity over the past few days and there is a long road ahead. Did I capture the high level requirements correctly? I met with all the stakeholders that Patricia and I identified, and I asked if they have any other recommendations regarding additional stakeholders. | |
| Bobbi | In addition to the textual description of the requirements, I used a collection of flow charts to illustrate the proposed workflow, a decision tree to capture high level business logic and a figure to represent the proposed solution architecture. | Specify and Model Requirements. |
| Bobbi | I recorded the requirements in our new requirements management system, which made the approval and ranking process much easier than it has been in previous years. I was able to write an initial draft of requirements quickly, and modifications to clarify the requirements were a breeze. The stakeholders were invited to review and comment on the requirements at their own leisure, so I didn’t need to schedule a workshop and get everyone in the room at the same time; and while they were validating their requirements they could quickly group and rank them into the 3 categories (must, should and could). | Validate Requirements |
| Bobbi | Working within the requirements management system (RMS) helped me to confirm that I had considered all the necessary elements. The RMS has been customized with the standard corporate requirement architecture and requirement types so nothing is left out, and the drop down menus have been customized with the appropriate categories to ensure there are no typos. And since all the requirements are captured within a database, they can be referenced and reused for future projects, and we can easily track changes in state through their lifecycle. | Define Requirement Architecture |
| Bobbi | Oh… and thank goodness for Bilal. It’s great having another business analyst within the organization review my work, ensuring that the requirements meet the quality standards of the department and provide recommendations on how they could be improved. As a result of his review, the set is more cohesive and complete. | Verify Requirements |
Bobbi continues her reflection
| Bobbi | Not only was it a lot of work to meet with the stakeholders so that I could elicit the requirements, but there was a lot of time spent with Patricia to consider design options, analyze their value, and formulate the recommendation. | |
| Bobbi | I took the initiative to do some preliminary brainstorming regarding options independently. Of course, my perspective was influenced by the conversations I had with each of the different stakeholders and my previous experiences. Everyone I spoke with had a slightly different opinion regarding what the company should do, but their opinions were not vastly different. I was able to formulate 3 options rather quickly:
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Define Design Options |
| Bobbi | From there, Patricia and I worked through the associated costs, expected business value, associated risks, and other impacts on the organization. It was a challenging, yet enlightening experience. Working collaboratively gives me a chance to learn from others. I can see how their mind works and understand the different contextual factors that need to be considered as well as different techniques that may be applied. It also provides me with the confidence that we’ve come up with the right recommendation. | Analyze Potential Value and Recommend Solutions |
| Nancy | Bobbi’s reflection helped her realize that she did apply the basic BA methodology and approach fairly well, and that she and Patricia had completed a meaningful options analysis. She also realized that she didn’t have time to waste. She needed to begin collecting the detailed requirements for the user interface and business rules, so that the project could proceed to the next phase. |