Requirements Engineering

Requirements Engineer:
Roles, Responsibilities

Requirements Development Process

Re-Evaluate

Elicitation

Analysis

Specification

Clarify

Validation

Re-Write

Correct and close gaps

Iterative process - Multiple-steps, Not sequential

RED SUN Inc.

Requirements Issues

Customer

Engineer

RED SUN Inc.

Stakeholders & Users

Stakeholders represent more than users.
What stakeholders want does not
necessarily imply what is needed.
What stakeholders need does not always
describe what users need.
What users want does not necessarily
translate to what the business needs or
what will provide value to the business.

RED SUN Inc.

Question
Should stakeholders learn how to write
good requirements so they can
communicate with BIM Engineers?
Should BIM Engineers learn about
business processes and needs so they can
come up with better requirements?

And the answer is

RED SUN Inc.

The Right Answer Is

BIM Engineers must learn about business
processes and needs so they can come up
with better requirements.
Why?
Because

Stakeholders have many choices.

Stakeholders can select who they

want to work with.

Stakeholders pay for the products or

services.
RED SUN Inc.

Understand Business Processes

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)

Review business goals & objectives

Identify stakeholders
Document stakeholders needs
Analyze business requirements
Review business assets
Conduct market analysis
Determine business case
Conduct trade-off
Verify requirements with stakeholders

RED SUN Inc.

Business Process Analysis

Business Goals & Objectives

Business Needs

Stakeholders Needs

Business Requirements
Do we have a Business Case ???

RED SUN Inc.

Where Do Requirements Come From?

Senior Management
Project Management

Business
Requirements

User Requirements

Why the project is

being undertaken

What users will

be able to do

Requirement Engineer
Architect
System Requirements

BIM Requirements

RED SUN Inc.

What systems need

to be built

What BIM needs to

be developed

Relationships of Requirements
Requirements

Business
Requirements

Document

Users view
(The Problem Space)

Vision & Scope

Users
Requirements

Use-case

System
Requirements

BIM
Requirements
Hardware
Requirements

Developers view
The solution Space

BIM Requirements
Specification
RED SUN Inc.

10

BIM Engineers Questions

The alignment of projects with business direction:
Are we doing the right thing?
Do these requirements make sense?
The value of the project:
Are we doing things right?
Does this solution solve the business problem?
The capabilities of the organization:
Are we getting things done?
What should we deliver?
The solution to business problem:
Are we providing value to the business?
How are we measuring this?

RED SUN Inc.

11

BIM Engineer Must

Analyze business needs and preliminary
requirements:
How many requirements are being addressed?
What percentage of stakeholders problems are
being solved?
How much will it approximately cost (Time &
resources)?
How much risk is being undertaken to satisfy
these requirements?
How much revenue will be achieved or how
much savings will occur as a result?

RED SUN Inc.

12

Business Flow
Business
Drivers

Product
Scope
Product Creating

Business
Needs

Business
Events

Use Cases
Product Constraint

Business Boundary

Implementing

Requirements
Specification

Functional

Non-Functional

RED SUN Inc.

Constraints

13

Process Flow
1
Identify
Purposes & Goals
And Stakeholders

Business
Needs

Business
Drivers

Product
Scope

2
Set Boundary

Business
Events

Use Cases
3
Determine
Constraint

4
Collect Facts &
Assumptions

5
Establish use
cases

Functional

RED SUN Inc.

Requirements
Specification

Non-Functional

Constraints

14

Requirements Development
Customers Needs

Senior Manager

Project Manager

Requirements
Engineer

Architect

Requirements
Developers

Testers

RED SUN Inc.

15

Senior Manager
Allocates resources (people, materials,
budget).
Ensures project goals and objectives align
with business goals.
Defines and approves overall vision &
scope.
Makes decisions about scope of project &
schedules.
Resolves conflicts in requirement priorities.
RED SUN Inc.

16

Project Manager
Coordinates users involvement.
Acts as a liaison between project team and
business management.
Ensures that requirements engineers and
architects have the resources, tools, training and
knowledge to work on requirements activities.
Defines business requirements and product vision.
Oversees requirements prioritization.
Monitors progress of requirements development.
Reviews requirements documents to ensure that
they adequately and completely represent users
needs.

RED SUN Inc.

17

Requirements Engineer
Selects elicitation techniques and
coordinates requirements activities.
Collaborates with stakeholders to develop
requirements.
Defines user requirements, creates models
and documents requirements.
Verifies that requirements are correct,
complete and consistent.
Transforms user requirements to BIM
requirements specification.
RED SUN Inc.

18

Architect
Provides details about user needs, business rules
and data.
Represents the needs of users who may not be
able to participate.
Identifies integration issues between hardware,
BIM,
and systems.
Ensures requirements align with product vision.
Consults with other experts who have relevant
requirements knowledge.
Reviews requirements document to ensure that it
adequately and completely represents users
needs.
RED SUN Inc.

19

Developer & Tester

Provides details about design constraints
and suggestions regarding the feasibility of
nonfunctional requirements.
Supports the writing of BIM
requirements specifications.
Reviews all requirements documents.
Reviews BIM requirements specifications
to ensure that they can be transformed
into design.
Ensures that requirements can be tested.
RED SUN Inc.

20

Key Project Roles

Requirements
Management

Requirement Development
Define Business
Requirements

Develop User
Requirements

Specify BIM
Requirements

Senior Manager

Owner

Reviewer

Approver

Approver

Project Manager

Producer

Reviewer

Reviewer

Reviewer

Requirements
Engineer

Reviewer

Producer

Producer

Architect

Reviewer

Approver

Owner

Owner

Developers

Reviewer

Reviewer

Reviewer

Reviewer

Reviewer

Reviewer

Reviewer

Reviewer

Producer

NG ITR C TI P LM

Testers
NG IKI M TRA

Owner: Provides complete and accurate information.

Approver: Approves and authorizes requirements.
Producer: Creates and maintains requirements.
Reviewer: Stays informed and provides feedback.
RED SUN Inc.

21

Business Requirements Questions

What business problem are you trying to solve?
This question helps align requirements with the right
objective.

What is the motivation for solving this problem?

People will work together more closely if they understand
the rational behind their work.

What would a highly successful solution do for

you?
Senior manager must be able to clarify the benefits that
they and customers will receive from the BIM product.

How can we judge the success of the solution?

This will help strengthen the teams thinking about
objectives and direction.
RED SUN Inc.

22

Business Requirements Questions

What is a successful solution worth?
By quantifying the business outcomes, the
team can understand potential opportunities
and establish measurements for cost-effective
solutions.

Who could influence this project?

This question helps the team to identify
stakeholders?

Who will be influenced by this project?

This also helps the team identify more
stakeholders to understand their needs and
expectations.
RED SUN Inc.

23

Business Requirements Questions

Are there other projects or systems that could
influence or impact this project?
This question helps identify dependencies between the
project and other systems that may need to be analyzed
for integration later.

Which business activities and systems should be

included in the solution?
This will help define the scope boundaries and identify
any dependencies with others.

Are there any adverse consequences that the new

system may cause?
By identifying risks, the team can understand the
potential solution and its impact on the project.
RED SUN Inc.

24

Project Scope
The project scope defines the concept and range
of the proposed solution. The scope also limits
certain capabilities that the product will not
include.
Having the project scope defined early, will help
to establish realistic stakeholder expectations. It
avoids features that are too expensive or lie
outside the intended project scope.
Out-of-scope requirements must be rejected
unless they are so valuable that the scope must
be enlarged to accommodate them, with
additional budget, schedule and resources.
RED SUN Inc.

25

Operating Environment
BIM Engineers must describe the
environment in which the system will be
used and define the vital quality attributes
such as availability, reliability,
performance and integrity requirements.
This information will influence the system
architecture as a key important factor of
the system design.

RED SUN Inc.

26

Example Of Operating Questionnaire

Are the users graphically widely distributed or located
closer?
How many time zone are they in?
When do users in various locations need to access the
system?
Where is the data generated and used?
How far apart are these locations?
Does data from multiple locations need to be combined?
Are specific maximum response times known for accessing
data that may be stored remotely?
Can the user tolerate service interruptions or continuous
access to the system that are critical for the operation of the
business?
What access security controls and data protection
requirements are needed?
RED SUN Inc.

27

Project Priorities
There are five key factors that every project must
operate: Scope (Feature), Quality, Schedule, Cost
and Resources (Staff).
Constraint: A limiting factor within which the
project manager must operate.
Driver: A significant success objective with
limited flexibility for adjustment.
Degree of Freedom: A factor that the project
manager has some latitude to adjust and balance
the other factors.
Project managers goal is to adjust those factors
within degrees of freedom to achieve the projects
success drivers in the limits imposed by the
constraints.
RED SUN Inc.

28

Balancing Act
Due to certain constraints such as time,
cost and features, Project Managers may:
Have multiple product releases.
Defer certain requirements to later release.
Shorten the system testing.
Incur overtime for project team.
Hire more staff to do work.
Reduce features

Project priorities dictate the actions Project

Managers take when certain conditions
arise.
RED SUN Inc.

29

Verify Assumptions = Balance

Balance business needs with other factors:
Needs vs. Cost
Needs vs. Quality
Needs vs. Wants
Needs vs. Time
Achievability
$
Risk
Tech

Acceptable risks
Acceptable costs
Others

Needs

RED SUN Inc.

30

Best Practices
Develop a clear vision for the product.
Establish a shared understanding of the
project s cope.
Involve stakeholders throughout the
requirements process.
Solicit requirements using multiple
techniques.
Document the requireme nts clearly,
accurately, consistently.
Continue to validate that requirements are
the correct ones to implement.

RED SUN Inc.

31

Best Practices
Verify the quality of requirements early
and frequently.
Prioritize the requirements and remove
unnecessary ones.
Establish a baseline for requirements that
will serve as a basis for further
development.
Trace the requirements to original form
and how they link to other requirement s or
components.
Anticipate and manage all requirements
changes.
RED SUN Inc.

32

Summary
Analyze business needs and requirements:
How many requirements are being
addressed?
What percentage of stakeholders
problems are being solved?
How much will it cost, approximately
(Time & resources)?
How much risk is being undertaken to
satisfy these requirements?
How much revenue will be achieved or
how much savings will occur as a
result?
RED SUN Inc.

33

Questions & Answers

RED SUN Inc.

34