IIBA ECBA – Requirements Analysis and Design Definition (IIBA – ECBA) Part 3

9. Verify Requirements: Tools and Techniques

Verify requirements, tools and Techniques after completing this topic, you should be able to recognize activities related to verifying requirements. The Business Analyst uses requirements lifecycle management tools to verify requirements. They include repositories and checklists tools, ensure requirements are atomic, unambiguous, and prioritized. Acceptance and evaluation criteria ensures clearly stated and testable requirements. Item tracking is used by the Business Analyst to manage and resolve problems and issues.

Metrics and Key Performance Indicators are used to identify and evaluate if a requirement is of sufficient quality. Reviews such as structured Walkthroughs identify requirements that are of acceptable quality. All stakeholders are expected to check for problems. Stakeholders will review requirements and confirm that the requirements have been verified. The stakeholders include the Business Analyst, the domain subject matter expert, and implementation subject matter expert.

The output is verified requirements and Designs this ensures that requirements are of sufficient quality to be used for further work so the Business Analyst uses requirements lifecycle management tools. Tools ensure requirements are atomic and ambiguous and prioritized the acceptance and evaluation criteria for techniques for verifying requirements ensure clearly stated and testable requirements. Item tracking is used to manage and resolve problems and issues.

Metrics and Key Performance Indicators are used to identify and evaluate requirement quality. Reviews identify requirements of unacceptable quality. All stakeholders check for problems. Stakeholders also confirm that all requirements have been verified. Stakeholders include the Business Analyst, domain subject matter expert, and implementation subject matter expert. The output is verify requirements and Designs requirements must be of sufficient quality to be used for further work.

10. Exercise: Verifying Requirements

Exercise Verifying Requirements after completing this topic, you should be able to recognize what’s involved in verifying requirements. So in this exercise you will demonstrate your understanding of how to verify requirements. This involves the following task identifying the input of the task, recognizing requirements requirement characteristics, identifying the verification activities, and identifying the characteristics of the output. Verifying requirements is an important task during requirements analysis. Design Definition what are the inputs to the verify requirements? Task? Specify requirements, model requirements, verify requirements, atomic requirements, or Requirements validation and here you have the answer.

Option One this option is correct. Specify requirements may be verified to ensure that the text is appropriately structured. Option Two this option is correct. Model requirements may be verified to ensure that matrices and modeling notation are used correctly. Option Three this option is incorrect. Verify requirements are the output of the task and refers to a set of requirements that is of sufficient quality to be used for further work. Option Four this option is incorrect. An atomic requirement is a type of requirement which is self contained and capable of being understood independently of other requirements. Option Five and the last one this option is incorrect. Requirements validation is an ongoing process that ensures the stakeholder and solution requirements align to the business requirements. Requirements have several characteristics that are necessary in order for them to be verified. Identify the necessary characteristics of requirements. Requirements should be consistent and not conflict with other requirements.

Complete requirements should contain enough information to guide further work. Requirements should be feasible and possible within the constraints of time and budget. Requirements and designs should be untestable. Requirements should be described using industry specific jargon so particular stakeholders understand them. And finally, requirements should be unranked before verification. And here you have the answer for you to compare. Option One this option is correct. Consistent requirements do not conflict with the other requirements and describe the business need. Option Two this option is correct. The completeness of the requirement depends on where the business analyst is in the process and the level of details provided.

Option Three this option is correct. Feasible requirements are passable within the constraints of time, budget and based on the associated risk. Option Four this option is incorrect. Testable requirements and designs describe a specific outcome based on the level of abstraction. Option Five this option is incorrect. Limited use of jargon and the use of common business terms. Ensure requirements are easily understood by all stakeholders. Option Six this option is incorrect. Prioritized requirements are ranked based on the importance of the requirement and the value that it holds before they are verified. Verification ensures organizational standards are adhered to and that models use notation that is understood by all stakeholders.

Identify the activities involved in requirement verification. Here you have the options compare relevant models. Check that models are complete and understandable. Check for missing elements and consistent referencing. Ensure that templates and forms are used properly. Identify needs and list the stakeholders involved, and here you have the answer. Option One this option is correct. Comparing relevant models ensures models are consistent. Option Two this option is also correct.

The Business Analyst should check for appropriate language and provide clarifying examples. Option Three this option is correct. The Business Analyst should check for missing elements and ensure that they are consistent with their referencing. Option Four this option is also correct. Verification ensures that organizational standards and templates are used properly. Option Five this option is incorrect. This must be done during the planning and monitoring activities, not during requirements verification. Option Six and the last One this option is incorrect.

This is not an activity performed when verifying requirements. Checklists provide guidance to stakeholders by ensuring rigorous assessment of the requirements. How are checklist used to verify requirements? Ensuring that quality standards are met, ensuring that requirements contain key characteristics, ensuring that all elements are reviewed, ensuring that the risk have been calculated, and ensuring that all stakeholders are engaged, and here have the answer. Option One this option is correct checklist ensure all elements are reviewed and corrective input is collected.

Option Two this option is correct checklist ensure that requirements contain the key characteristics necessary for validation. Option Three this option is correct checklist ensure that all elements are reviewed and corrective input is collected. Option Four this option is incorrect. Calculation of risk is not part of the Requirements Verification task. And finally option Five this option is incorrect. takeholder engagement is important for performing all business analyzed activities, but is not done through checklist. Verify requirements and designs ensures that the requirements are of sufficient quality and easily understood.

Which of these activities are performed as part of the Verify Requirements task? Here we have the options using Metrics and key performance indicators to evaluate quality using tools like Repositories and Checklists to test for quality. Confirming requirements verification is complete, ensuring that requirements are explained in industry jargon, and finally, identify stakeholder needs. And here we have the answer. Option One this option is correct. Metrics and key Performance indicators are used to identify the appropriate requirement quality evaluation approaches. Option Two this option is correct. The business analyst uses requirements lifecycle management tools to verify requirements. Option Three this option is correct.

The Business Analyst, along with other stakeholders, must confirm all the requirements have been verified. Option Four this option is incorrect. Requirements should be understandable for all stakeholders and option Five this option is incorrect. This is an activity that takes place during the planning activities, not during requirements verification. The purpose of the Verify Requirements task is to ensure that requirements are of sufficient quality and understood by the implementation team in order to move forward to the next phase. What is the output of the Verify requirements task? Verify Requirements model requirements, clarifying examples, or prioritized requirements?

Option One this option is correct. The output of the Requirement Verification task is verified. Requirements option Two this option is obviously incorrect. This is an input in the verification task. Option three. This option is again incorrect. The business analyst may provide clarifying examples where necessary, but this is not an output of the task as a whole. Option four is the last one. This option is incorrect. This describes the characteristics of the requirements.

11. Validate Requirements: Inputs and Elements

Validate requirements. Inputs and Elements after completing this topic, you should be able to recognize actions related to validating requirements. The purpose of validate requirements is to ensure that they meet the business need and provide value. The inputs are specified and modeled requirements. The task is to validate requirements, which can be done in a variety of ways, but structured walkthrough is a commonly used approach. The output is validated requirements. Don’t forget the difference between verify and validate. Verifying requirements is about the quality of the requirements and that they are understood by the implementation team.

Validating requirements ensure that the requirements meet the business need. The Business Analyst works with stakeholders to identify assumptions. It may be difficult to anticipate the actual response by the business toward the value provided by the solution. Assumptions clearly outline what is expected. For example, it is assumed that customers will utilize the new coupon feature on the new website. So validating requirements involves inputs, a task and an output. The inputs are specified and modeled requirements, the task is validating requirements and the output is validated requirements. By identifying assumptions, the Business Analyst helps identify risk. Assumptions will also outline any findings from root cause analysis. For example, it is assumed that errors resulting from the current user interface will be reduced with a new design.

Assumptions also qualify the expected benefits. For example, it is assumed that the new user interface will reduce errors by 80% and therefore increase satisfaction by 90%. Business analysts with the stakeholder define criteria that will be used to evaluate how successful the change is after implementation. The best way to measure success is to take baseline metrics on the current state, then assess success using target metrics that reflect the achievement of the business objective. Although a requirement is of benefit to a stakeholder, it may not be part of a solution. For example, there may be a need to include promotional pages to a web solution, but if it doesn’t align to the overall objective of the organization, it would be removed from the scope. A requirement that does not deliver a benefit to the Stakeholder is a candidate for elimination.

If a design cannot be validated to support the requirement, there might be something missing or it’s misunderstood, or the business analyst misunderstood the requirement or the design must change. So example of identifying assumptions include customer and stakeholder response to the new product or services, root causes and benefits to be gained. Business analysts along with stakeholders define the baseline metrics based on the current state and established target metrics based on the achievement of objectives. The business Analyst evaluates the requirements alignment with a solution scope if a requirement does not provide value eliminated. If a requirement does not align with the scope, change the solution scope or eliminate the requirement. If a design does not support the requirement, refine the requirement or change the design.

12. Validate Requirements: Guidelines and Techniques

Validate requirements, guidelines and techniques. After completing this topic, you should be able to recognize guidelines and techniques used to validate requirements during the review. To validate requirements, stakeholders should assess if the requirements align to business objectives. The future state description should have been agreed upon perhaps during the business case phase. Requirements and designs are validated to determine if they adequately describe the future State in the form of processes, features and functions.

Also says Are the benefits that the requirements deliver? Do they, based on assumptions, provide the functionality necessary to increase productivity, reduce errors and costs? Also to be considered is the question do the requirements and designs align to the solution scope? Financial Analyze determines if the requirements will deliver the return on investment needed to deliver value. This includes the cost to implement and maintain the solution within a specified period of time. So when validating requirements, stakeholders should ensure that the requirements align with the business objectives and that a future state description has been agreed upon. They should also ensure that a potential value is assessed and that a solution scope is defined.

A table list examples of techniques used to validate requirements, which are analyzes, group techniques, tools and document reviews. You will see this in the course. The analyzes column includes financial analysis and risk analyzes and risk management. The Group techniques column include reviews. The Tools column include acceptance and evaluation criteria, item tracking and metrics and key performance indicators. The document reviews column include document analyzes. The calculation for return on investment is return on investment equals total benefits minus cost of the investment divided by the cost of the investment. The higher the return on investment, the better the investment. Risk Analyzes determines if there are circumstances where value delivered is diminished. The management of risk will also add to the cost to implement and maintain the solution. Reviews are attended by stakeholders in a group setting using checklist to assess the requirements and ensure that they meet the business need. The outcome may include changes that are managed through item tracking, assessment and evaluation criteria uses metrics and key performance indicators that will guide stakeholders during a review and user acceptance testing. This ensures that the requirements deliver the necessary value. Measures and key performance indicators are determined early in the process and are critical to determine if the solution delivers what is needed by the business to achieve its goals.

And finally, document Analyzes is used to identify previously documented business needs in order to validate the requirements. All stakeholders are expected to review the requirements and need guidance to do so. Don’t assume they know what to do or what to look for. Checklists include information on what they should look for. For example, review business rules and calculations for currency. They should determine if the roles and permission matrices reflect the authority of each role and includes all roles. And of course, they need to review that all functions are represented using scenarios help the stakeholders to assess the requirements in context of their respective responsibilities.

Those will be included to confirm requirements include a business analyst, a customer, end user and a sponsor. The output is validated. Requirements and Designs remember, requirements must deliver benefits to stakeholders, align with business goals and align with the objectives of the change. So all stakeholders check for problems. Jay should confirm that all requirements have been validated by the business analyst, customer and users and sponsors. The output is validated. Requirements and Designs the requirements must deliver benefits to stakeholders, align with the business goals and align with objectives of the change. Remember this.

13. Exercise: Validating Requirements

Exercise validating Requirements after completing this topic, you should be able to recognize what’s involved in validating requirements. So, in this exercise, you will demonstrate your understanding of what is involved in validating requirements. And this involves the following task understanding the difference between various verifying and validating requirements, recognizing the actions associated with validating requirements, identifying ways in which the analyst uses guidelines to validate requirements, recognizing how techniques are used to validate requirements and finally, identifying stakeholders responsibilities to ensure that validation is complete. Understanding the difference between validating and verifying requirements is very important when performing business Analysis task. Match the statements to the appropriate actions.

Each action may have more than one match ensures that the quality of the requirements is in order, ensures the requirements are understood by the implementation team, ensures that the requirements meet the business needs, and ensures that the requirements support the necessary value. These are the options and the targets validating and verifying. And here you have the answer validating requirements ensures that they align to the needs of the business and support the needed value. Verifying requirements ensures that the requirements and designs have been defined correctly, are understood, and that offer sufficient quality requirements.

Validation is essential for ensuring requirements and designs align with business requirements and help support the achievement of necessary value. Identify some of the activities that take place during the Validated requirements task. Here you have the options define baseline metrics based on the current state identify customers or stakeholder response to a new product. Eliminate requirements that do not provide value review the business, analyze this plan or specify and model the requirements. And here you have the answer.

Option One this option is correct. The best way to measure success is to take baseline metrics on the current state and then assess success using target metrics. Option Two this option is correct the business analyst works with stakeholders to identify assumptions. Option Three this option is correct. A requirement that does not deliver a benefit of the stakeholder is a candidate for elimination. Option Four this option is incorrect. This is an activity that takes place during planning and monitoring of business analysis. Option Five this option is incorrect.

This is an activity that leads to the input of the validation task requirements. Validation ensures that requirements are aligned with business needs. Which guidelines and tools are used during the validate requirements task? Business Objectives future State description, potential value requirements, lifecycle management tools or modeling notations and standards and here you have the answer.

Option One this option is correct. Business objectives ensure that the requirements deliver the desired business benefits. Option Two this option is correct. The future state description will help determine whether the requirements outlined in the solution scope will contribute to achieving the desired future state. Option Three this option is correct. Potential value can be used as a benchmark against which the value delivered by the requirement can be assessed.

Option Four this option is incorrect. This is a tool in the verify requirements task. Option Five this option is incorrect. This is an activity related to the requirements modeling task. There are several techniques that can be used in the validation process. Match the techniques to how they are used to validate requirements. Here you have the options document analyzes, metrics and key performance indicators, financial Analysis and risk Analysis and management. And here we have the target use for selected appropriate performance measures, analyze previously documented business needs, determine the monetary benefits of the requirements, and finally, determine if there are circumstances where value delivered is diminished.

And here we have the answers. Metrics and key performance indicators are used to select appropriate performance measures for a solution, a solution component, or a requirement. Document analysis is used to identify previously documented business needs in order to validate requirements. Financial analysis is used to define the financial benefits associated with the requirements. And finally, risk analysis and management is used to identify possible scenarios that might alter the benefit delivered by requirement. All stakeholders play a key role in requirement validation. Identify stakeholders responsibilities during the validate requirements task. Here we have the options review business rules, determine if the matrices include all rules, ensure that all functions are represented, identify other stakeholders to engage and finally approve changes.

And here you have the answer. Option One this option is correct. Stakeholders review business rules and calculations for accuracy. Option Two this option is correct. Stakeholders determine if the roles and permission matrices reflect the authority of each role and include all roles. Option Three this option is correct. Using scenarios helps the stakeholders to assess the requirements in the context of the respective responsibilities. Option Four this option is incorrect. This is an example of a stakeholder responsibility during the monitoring and planning phase. And lastly, this option is incorrect. Option Five this is a stakeholder responsibility, but it is not applicable to the validation process.

14. Requirements Analysis and Design Definition (RADD)

Congratulations. You just finished the requirements analysis and Design definition course. This is the 6th course of the Business Analysis Certification program, which includes a total of 14 courses. The content is aligned with the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge Guide, and in this course we started looking at and knowledge Area Requirements Analyzes and Design Definition.

The course covered the first three tasks, which involved creating a list of requirements and then verifying that they are of sufficient quality to be used for further work, and then validating them to ensure that they deliver benefits to the stakeholders aligned with business goals and align with the objectives of the change. Just to remind you, the first section of this course is called Requirements Analysis and Design Definition and has the following structure overview of Requirements Analysis and Design Definition requirements Analyzes and Design Definition and the Business Analysis Core Concept Model and an exercise on understanding the Requirements Analyzes and Design Definition.

The second section of the course, the one called Specify and Model Requirements, includes lecture on specify and model requirements, inputs and elements, requirements Modeling Guidelines and Tools and an exercise on defining requirements. The third section of the course covered the part on verify requirements and includes the following topics verify Requirements, Inputs and Elements verify Requirements, Tools and Techniques and an exercise on verifying requirements.

The fourth and the last section is called Validate Requirements and had the following structure validate Requirements, Inputs and Elements, validate Requirements, Guidelines and Techniques and included also an exercise on validating requirements. You can use this course to improve your business analyzes knowledge and abilities and to obtain the certifications provided by the International Institute of Business Analysis. Thank you for watching and see you in the next course.