COEPD – Center of Excellence for Professional Development Happy Learning
It is very important to figure out correct requirements. Most of the time, the projects fail because of bad requirement gathering. It is the most important responsibility of a Business Analyst to identify correct requirements using couple of elicitation techniques.
A business Analyst first speak with client to understand their requirements, he discusses the current problems faced and their expectations. Business Analysthas to undergo complete study of the business that client is involved in, they also need to understand client’s competitors to understand the demand and supply.
Business analyst then uses various elicitation techniques to identify more clear requirements where they speak with subject matter experts also to provide best solutions. Business Analyst has to ensure that no identified requirements clashes or contradicts with each other
Finding out correct requirements are very important else all continued phases go waste and jeopardise company’s image.
Hence, post finding out requirements it is important to validate the requirements. Requirement should be clear and complete. All the requirements should meet client’s business objectives.
Business Analyst should present all the requirements keeping CUCV in mind. CUCV stands for Clarity, understandable, consistent and Verifiable
Clarity – Requirements should be simplified for all to understand, should be crisp and clear
Understandable – Business Analyst should make sure that requirements are not having technical terms as not all will be able to understand them
Consistent –All the Requirements should not contradict with each other
Verifiable –A requirement should be verifiable to be able to check the result of the development
There is a possibility that requirements can conflict with each other due to multiple stakeholders and in such a case, business analyst has to re-engage with those stakeholders again and come to a common ground and have clear understanding of business objective
Requirements can be validated if they have pass SMART Features. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Traceability
SPECIFIC: Requirement should be specific and not have unnecessary details.
Measurable: This is an important feature, requirement should be measurable in order to confirm the finish of the development
Achievable – Requirement should be achievable and not hypothetical.
Realistic – Requirement should be realistic
Traceability – Stakeholders should be able to track the requirements
If the requirements pass the above criteria, then they are ready to go to business requirement document.
