2014 NCPMI Annual Conference #NCPMIAC14

Razvan Radulian

Maybe we can skip Requirements

Management? … maybe NOT!

Why-What-How Consulting/Training

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

Who’s speaking?

Razvan Radulian, aka Razz:-)

• Consultant, trainer, coach

• Why-What-How Consulting, LLC (President)

• Research Triangle Park IIBA Chapter (VP)

• ASPE, Global Knowledge, NobleProg (training)

• Experience: 17+ yrs, large & small, end-to-end…

• MBA, PMP, Certified BA, Certified Expert in BPM, PMI-ACP…

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

Agenda

Requirements Management

• Why do we care? – Myths, excuses, and facts

• What is it?

• Who cares?

• How do we do it? How should we do it? – Who does it? Who should it?

• Pitfalls and “best practices”

• Final thoughts, Q&A

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

MYTHS, EXCUSES, AND FACTS

Requirements Management

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

Why don’t we “do requirements”?

• “We have only 3 months… we don’t have time for requirements”

• “Our budget wouldn’t allow it… it’s too expensive!”

• “Nobody understands it anyway… it’s too complicated!”

• “We don’t know how to do it and we can’t afford more consultants”

• “Business people should do it! “

• “Developers should do it!”

• “Seriously, nobody really reads them… we don’t want to create

another bookshelf document”

• “Users don’t know what they want anyway.. Let’s not waste time!”

• “In our methodology, we don’t document requirements”

• “Just do it!”

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

Those are “strong” arguments…

… maybe we should skip it!

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

But, before we do that…

• Can we make sure?

• Is there any data? Facts?

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

WHY DO WE CARE?

Requirements Management

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

Let’s see… PM’s “TRIPLE” Constraint

and the 2-out-of-3 Principle

• Time/Schedule (project)

• Money/Budget (project)

• Scope (project/product)

• Quality (product)

Time

Money

Quality

Scope

“Yeah, no problem!

Which ones do you want?

Pick 2 out of 3!”

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

CHAOS Report:

Budget, Schedule, Scope, Quality

Top reasons for project

failures:

– Insufficient user involvement

– Missing and/or changing

requirements

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

… maybe it’s the methodology(?)

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

Money/Budget: Costs to Fix Requirements…

If it costs $1 to fix a problem

during Requirements phase…

• in Testing:

$20-50/requirement

• in Operations/Support:

$75-500/requirement

Noticed the

logarithmic scale?!? From B.W. Boehm, Software Engineering Economics ,

Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ (1981)

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

Time/Schedule: Impact on schedule…

Effort devoted to

Requirements

Schedule devoted

to Requirements

Faster

projects 14% 17%

Slower

Projects 7% 9% Source: Blackburn, Scudder, and Van Wassenhove (1996)

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

Scope/Quality: “Requirements” Usage

Source: The Standish Group (2002)

7%

13%

16%

19%

45%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

ALWAYS USED

OFTEN USED

SOMETIMES USED

SELDOM USED

NEVER USED

Usage

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

So, from Myths & Excuses to Facts!

Skipping or skimming Requirements Management most

often results in:

• Much longer overall delivery time

• Solutions that are lot more expensive

• Projects and products that are too complex and hard

to understand and maintain/support

• Requiring people to learn anyway (but in ways that are

not only more expensive, but also more painful and

frustrating)

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

WHAT IS IT?

Requirements Management

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

Anyway, what are we talking about?

The many definitions of “Requirements Management”: • Reqs Engineering = Development + Management

• IIBA/Business Analysis (1 of 6 Knowledge Areas):

– Enterprise Analysis, Elicitation, Req’s Analysis, Solution Assessment &

Validation, Planning and Monitoring, Req’s Management & Communication

• PMI/PMBOK (an input/output developed during Scope Management):

– Requirements Management Plan

• Also:

– Change/Scope Management

– Requirements Traceability; Requirements Tracking

– Requirements Attributes

• More…

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

OK, what are we talking about (part 2)?

Requirements > “Requirements”!

• Requirement definition:

– SWEBOK, PMBOK, BABOK, common

sense…

• Requirement Levels:

– Business, Stakeholder/User, Solution

• Requirement Perspectives:

– Function(al), Non-function(al)

• Requirements Types:

– Objective, Use Case/Process, Data

Definition, Rule…

– Quality expectation/attribute

HOW

Solution Requirements

WHO + WHAT

Stakeholder Requirements

WHY

Business Requirements

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

Requirements Engineering

Source: ProcessImpact.org

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

WHO CARES? WHY?

Requirements Management

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

Business side…

• Customer

– Product

– Benefits/value

• Sponsor

– Strategic alignment

– Resources

• User

– Quality expectations

– Usage/usability

• Business Analysis (Elicitation, Analysis, Specification,

Validation…)?

• Requirements Change Management?

• Requirements Traceability? Tracking?

… “pick your Hodj ‘n’ Podj combination!”

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

Solution side…

• IT

– Architecture/Design

– Building, integration, maintenance

• Implementation

– User Training

– Support

• QA/Testing

– Functional

– Non-functional (e.g. stress, robustness, etc.)

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

Project side…

• Project Management

– Planning

– Execution

– Monitoring & Control

• Business Analysis

– Understanding (problem and solution)

– Communication & agreement

– Product Change management

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

HOW DO WE DO IT?

HOW SHOULD WE DO IT?

Requirements Management

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

WHO DOES IT?

WHO SHOULD DO IT?

Requirements Management

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

PITFALLS AND “BEST PRACTICES”

Requirements Management

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

FINAL THOUGHTS

Requirements Management

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

Question…

Could YOU have saved Borders?

2014 NCPMI Annual Conference

Q&A

Requirements Management