Software Requirements Essentials: Core Practices for Successful Business Analysis

by Karl Wiegers, Candase Hokanson

Overview

20 Best Practices for Developing and Managing Requirements on Any Project

Software Requirements Essentials presents 20 core practices for successful requirements planning, elicitation, analysis, specification, validation, and management. Leading requirements experts Karl Wiegers and Candase Hokanson focus on the practices most likely to deliver superior value for both traditional and agile projects, in any application domain. These core practices help teams understand business problems, engage the right participants, articulate better solutions, improve communication, implement the most valuable functionality in the right sequence, and adapt to change and growth.

Concise and tightly focused, this book offers just enough pragmatic "how-to" detail for you to apply the core practices with confidence, whether you're a business analyst, requirements engineer, product manager, product owner, or developer. Using it, your entire team can build a shared understanding of key concepts, terminology, techniques, and rationales—and work together more effectively on every project.

Learn how to:

• Clarify problems, define business objectives, and set solution boundaries
• Identify stakeholders and decision makers
• Explore user tasks, events, and responses
• Assess data concepts and relationships
• Elicit and evaluate quality attributes
• Analyze requirements and requirement sets, create models and prototypes, and set priorities
• Specify requirements in a consistent, structured, and well-documented fashion
• Review, test, and manage change to requirements

"I once read the ten best-selling requirements engineering books of the prior ten years. This one book succinctly presents more useful information than those ten books combined."
—Mike Cohn, author of User Stories Applied and co-founder, Scrum Alliance

"Diamonds come about when a huge amount of carbon atoms are compressed. Karl and Candase have done something very similar: they have compressed their vast requirements knowledge into 20 gems they call 'core practices.' These practices are potent stuff, and I recommend that they become part of everyone's requirements arsenal."
—James Robertson, author of Mastering the Requirements Process and Business Analysis Agility

"Long story short: if you are going to read only one requirements book, this is it. Software Requirements Essentials distills the wealth of information found in Software Requirements and many other texts down to twenty of the most important requirements activities that apply on nearly all projects. Today's busy BA simply doesn't have the time to read a lengthy instructive guide front-to-back. But they should find the time to read this book."
—From the Foreword by Joy Beatty, COO, ArgonDigital

"Software Requirements Essentials will be a high-value addition to your business analysis library. Anyone looking to improve their business analysis practices will find great practical advice they'll be able to apply immediately."
—Laura Paton, Principal Consultant, BA Academy, Inc.

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780138190286
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	03/19/2023
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.43(d)

About the Author

Karl Wiegers is Principal Consultant with Process Impact, a software development consulting and training company in Happy Valley, Oregon. Previously, he spent eighteen years at Kodak, where he held positions as a photographic research scientist, software developer, software manager, and software process and quality improvement leader. Karl received a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Illinois. Karl is the author of thirteen previous books and has written many articles on software development, management, design, consulting, chemistry, and military history. Karl has served on the editorial board for IEEE Software magazine and as a contributing editor for Software Development magazine. He is the author of Software Development Pearls (Addison-Wesley, 2022).

Candase Hokanson is a Business Architect and PMI-Agile Certified Practitioner at ArgonDigital, a software development, professional services, and training company based in Austin, Texas. Candase graduated from Rice University with a BS and MS in civil engineering and a BA in religious studies. She is an active member of the product and business analysis communities, previously serving as a co-chair for the Keep Austin Agile conference in 2019 and president of the Austin IIBA. She has authored multiple articles on using visual models in agile, requirements in agile, and agile in the large enterprise.

Table of Contents

Foreword xvii
Acknowledgments xix
About the Authors xxi

Chapter 1: Essentials of Software Requirements 1
Requirements Defined 2
Good Practices for Requirements Engineering 5
Who Does All This Stuff? 8
Some Recurrent Themes 9
The Life and Times of Requirements 11
Getting Started 11

Chapter 2: Laying the Foundation 13
Practice #1: Understand the problem before converging on a solution 14
Practice #2: Define business objectives 19
Practice #3: Define the solution's boundaries 26
Practice #4: Identify and characterize stakeholders 33
Practice #5: Identify empowered decision makers 39

Chapter 3: Requirements Elicitation 45
Practice #6: Understand what users need to do with the solution 47
Practice #7: Identify events and responses 53
Practice #8: Assess data concepts and relationships 59
Practice #9: Elicit and evaluate quality attributes 67

Chapter 4: Requirements Analysis 75
Practice #10: Analyze requirements and requirement sets 76
Practice #11: Create requirements models 84
Practice #12: Create and evaluate prototypes 91
Practice #13: Prioritize the requirements 97

Chapter 5: Requirements Specification 107
Practice #14: Write requirements in consistent ways 109
Practice #15: Organize requirements in a structured fashion 115
Practice #16: Identify and document business rules 121
Practice #17: Create a glossary 127

Chapter 6: Requirements Validation 131
Practice #18: Review and test the requirements 132

Chapter 7: Requirements Management 141
Practice #19: Establish and manage requirements baselines 142
Practice #20: Manage changes to requirements effectively 149

Appendix: Summary of Practices 157

References 159
Index 165

Editorial Reviews

"As research for a book, I once read the ten best-selling requirements engineering books of the prior ten years. This one book succinctly presents more useful information than those ten books combined. I wish I'd had it as a reference then."
—Mike Cohn, author of User Stories Applied and co-founder of the Scrum Alliance

"Diamonds come about when a huge amount of carbon atoms are compressed. The compression crystallizes to form diamonds. Karl and Candase have done something very similar: they have compressed their vast requirements knowledge into 20 gems they call 'core practices.'

"These 20 practices give you the essence of requirements discovery, and for extra convenience they are categorized to make your requirements journey more effective. These practices are potent stuff, and I recommend that they become part of everyone's requirements arsenal."
—James Robertson, author of Mastering the Requirements Process and Business Analysis Agility

"What a valuable resource for new and experienced business analysts alike, who want an accessible, clearly written, and well-organized introduction to key business analyst practices. Karl and Candase do a great job of breaking down a complex role into a straightforward set of practices that can be integrated into your business analysis process to make it more effective."
—Laura Brandenburg, author of How to Start a Business Analyst Career

"Candase and Karl have drawn upon their deep knowledge and experience of what it takes to elicit, identify, represent, communicate, and validate requirements for software products effectively. They have produced a useful, accessible, and clear book, which is full of practical advice, great examples, and answers to the hard questions that people building software products face in the real world. If you're involved in building software in any role, this book will give you guidance on ways to make sure the product meets customer needs and delivers real value."
—Shane Hastie, Global Delivery Lead at SoftEd and Lead Editor, Culture and Methods at InfoQ.com

"Software Requirements Essentials will be a high-value addition to your business analysis library. I give the book high marks, as it does an excellent job of selecting and comprehensively covering the most essential business analysis practices teams should be considering. I thoroughly appreciated that the content was not overdone. Lessons were succinct while remaining extremely usable. Care was taken to ensure the guidance was applicable whether you are using a waterfall, agile, or hybrid delivery approach. I believe anyone looking to improve their business analysis practices will find great practical advice they'll be able to apply immediately."
—Laura Paton, Principal Consultant, BA Academy, Inc.

"Here is a book that all business analysts should have on their shelves, a readable reference that pulls together all the best practices we've been applying in business analysis for 50 years or so. While the book is aimed at the experienced BA, Karl and Candase thoughtfully provide an opening chapter reviewing the basic precepts and principles of business analysis. The book is written in Karl's inimitable easy-to-read style, so even beginning BAs can understand and apply the practices. Karl and Candase have made the book 'agile' with lots of practices applicable both to the traditional BA approach and to the BA who's defining user stories for the agile software developers.

"Software Requirements Essentials encapsulates all of the excellent advice and counsel Karl has given us over the years into this one touchstone of a book. I wish that I had written it."
—Steve Blais, author of Business Analysis: Best Practices for Success and co-author of Business Analysis for Practitioners

"One of the many aspects of Karl Wiegers's latest book that we love is the universality of the requirements techniques he describes. Using real-life examples and easy-to-understand illustrations, Wiegers and Candase Hokanson describe practices that can be applied regardless of the project at hand or the methodology followed. They emphasize that there is no one right way to elicit and manage requirements; rather, they present many tried-and-true practices that lead to successful outcomes. Also helpful are the dozens of questions that business analysts can use to elicit various types of requirements.

"The authors emphasize concepts over methodology-specific terminology to ensure that the practices can be understood and applied as methodologies change. The recurrent themes they mention are spot-on and apply to any development effort. Software Requirements Essentials is a must-read for every business analyst who wants to avoid the pitfall of achieving 'project success but product failure.'"
—Elizabeth Larson and Richard Larson, past co-owners of Watermark Learning and authors of CBAP Certification Study Guide

"So many product development projects face challenges because the stated requirements are ill-defined. This issue can be addressed by business analysts, or anyone conducting business analysis, if they possess the necessary toolkit of techniques and skills. Software Requirements Essentials offers an excellent introduction to the requirements engineering framework, and the techniques it encompasses, in an accessible and engaging way. The book offers invaluable guidance and insights via 20 best practices that are highly relevant, if not essential, for anyone working to define requirements. All business analysts need a mental map of the requirements definition service; this book provides it and more."
—Dr. Debra Paul, Managing Director, Assist Knowledge Development

From the Publisher