Requirements. The most crucial part of development. You can overcome poor planning; you can overcome poor coding. But nobody has ever succeeded with poor requirements. Requirements are the underpinnings for whatever you intend to build, whether it be software, hardware, consumer product, service or anything else. Simply put, only the right requirements will get you the right solution.
Requirements discovery is no longer about producing large, unreadable (and often unread) specifications. Requirements today is done in an agile manner, uncovering the real needs of the problem space, understanding the needs of the people who use your solution, and then, in a timely manner, delivering requirements and stories that are concise, clear, testable and correct.
This workshop, presented by a real business analyst, gives you a thorough and well-established process for uncovering the real requirements, testing them for correctness, and ensuring that all the requirements have been discovered. The process is used with variations by both agile and traditional projects. It starts with the business, for it is only within the business that you discover the real needs. When you know the real needs, it becomes possible to determine what will best serve those needs, and to write the requirements or stories to build the right solution.
You will learn how to:
Yes, if you want to be involved in delivering the right systems—the ones that get used. Your title is probably business analyst, systems analyst, product owner, project leader or manager, requirements engineer, consultant, product or program manager or similar. Team members on agile projects benefit from understanding how requirements are best done in agile projects. Users, software customers and business stakeholders have found that this course equips them to participate more effectively in the requirements process, and so ensure that the end solution matches what they really need.
You receive a free copy of the third edition of the best-selling book, Mastering the Requirements Process – Getting Requirements Right by James and Suzanne Robertson.
Volere was introduced in 1995. Since then, the Volere approach to requirements has been used by thousands of projects. These range from the conventional commercial domains such as banking, insurance, and so on, to more exotic areas such as air traffic control, aviation, automotive engineering, real-time control of appliances, telephony, and many more. The techniques were originally developed by James Robertson and Suzanne Robertson. Since their introduction, they have evolved as a result of research and application. James and Suzanne Robertson have continually introduced improvements as their clients have continued to push the requirements envelope. Today, Volere is a trademarked brand owned by the Atlantic Systems Guild. There is a network of consultants, instructors and agents around the world that are available and qualified to help you get better value for your investment in requirements.
James Archer is an associate of the Atlantic Systems Guild. His wide ranging experience, admirable instructing skills and his ability to connect theory to practical examples make him one of the select people qualified to teach the Volere technologies. James’s contribution to Volere is significant. James is a Master of Innovation having graduated with a distinction from the Innovation, Creativity and Leadership Masters from City University in London, which has led to significant participation in the Volere curriculum. Moreover, James is one of the most approachable and knowledgeable people when it comes to discussing your requirements, business analysis and business change needs.
The Atlantic Systems Guild is a recognised training provider of the International Requirements Engineering Board (IREB) for both the foundation level and the advanced level syllabi.
Please note: the number of attendees is limited. Please register early!
At the top of this page you can download the PDF brochure of this workshop.
This event takes place at:
Hotel Lapershoek
Utrechtseweg 16
1213 TS Hilversum
The Netherlands
Telephone +31 (0) 35-6231341
For a full itinerary, please see the website of the Amrath Hotel.
The Hotel Lapershoek can also be reached by public transport. Be sure to take the train to ‘Station Hilversum Sportpark’ from which it is only a three minute walk.
Please consult www.9292.nl (door-to-door journey planner, also available in English) or call 0900-9292 (travel advice by phone, € 0.70 p/m).
For attendees interested in an overnight stay, we have made a special price agreement with the hotel. Please let us know if you wish to make use of this.
The course starts at 09.30 am and ends at 5 pm. Registration commences at 08.30 am.
The Requirements Process
The course begins with an overview of the process. It looks at how agile and traditional projects both need requirements but are done differently, the requirements food chain, and the topics to be covered by the course. Students discuss with the instructor their particular problems and objectives for the course.
Project Blastoff
The blastoff builds a foundation for your requirements project by establishing its scope, its stakeholders and the goal. The scope is the problem space or the business area to be studied. The stakeholders are the people with an interest in the outcome. The goal is testable, and ensures that the project will deliver stakeholder value. The Blastoff is also there to ensure that the project is viable and worthwhile.
Trawling for Requirements
At the core of any requirements process is the ability to get people to tell you what they really need, rather than their perceived solution, or what they think you might be able to deliver. We show you how to use business events, apprenticing, use case workshops, interviewing, brainstorming, personas and other techniques to discover exactly what your stakeholders do, and what they need to do it.
This section introduces the brown cow model that gives the business analyst different ways of thinking about the problem, and allows the essence, the real problem to emerge. We also look at innovation – fresh thinking about the problem – and how it is a necessary component of any requirements process.
Functional Requirements
Functional requirements are the things the product must do. You discover them by understanding the real work of the organisation, and determining what part of that work your solution can best do.
The solution is usually established using scenarios – these are great if you need a sign-off – and then specified by well-formed requirements or stories.
Non-functional Requirements
Non-functional requirements are properties the product must have. These include the desired look & feel, usability, performance, cultural, conformance, and so on. Non-functional requirements often determine the success or failure of solutions, so this section demonstrates their importance, and how to find and then precisely specify the qualitative requirements for your solution.
The Volere Framework
Requirements for Agile Projects
Requirements are equally important for agile projects if your solution is to match the real business needs. Effective agile projects understand that there are two parts: Discovery and Delivery. Discovery involves understanding the real work and the real problem to be solved if you are to deliver the value proposition. It uses business stories to communicate the Discovery findings. Delivery focuses on iterative development and how a story map provides the best guide to the product under development. We also teach you how to write better, more effective stories.
Prototyping and Deviations
Prototyping is a way of discovering requirements by sketching wireframe solutions. Here you assess the merits of low and high-fidelity prototypes, and how scenarios can be used to discover previously-hidden requirements. You also look at the wanted alternatives, unwanted exceptions and potential misuses of the product.
Writing Requirements
There is a need to communicate requirements – how to formulate them and how to include an unambiguous fit criterion. The fit criterion makes the requirement measurable and testable, as well as ensuring the implemented solution precisely matches the client’s expectations.
The Quality Gateway
Testing is most effective when it is done early in the development cycle. Here we demonstrate how to test requirements so that the developers receive the correct requirements. The Quality Gateway assesses the requirements and rejects any that are out-of-scope, gold-plated, non-viable, incorrect or incomplete.
Managing your Requirements
Requirements are the lynchpin of any development effort, and so must be managed effectively. You are given strategies for your requirements management, the requirements knowledge model, how to prioritise requirements, and how to resolve conflicting requirements. We take a look at tools to help manage requirements.
Your Requirements Process
You discuss and determine how to make your own requirements process as effective and efficient as possible. This involves incorporating your own organisational processes into the requirements activity. You build a demonstration of how you will use what you have learned when you return to your own work place.
Workshops
We want you to be able to use this right away. Each of the teaching chapters is reinforced with a workshop where you apply the concepts presented in the seminar. You work in a small team to scope the problem space and then discover, specify and evaluate requirements for the solution.
There’s More…
Taking part in this three-day workshop will only cost 1791 Euro per person when registering 30 days beforehand and 1990 Euro afterwards (excl. 21% Dutch VAT). This also covers documentation, lunch, coffee and the 3rd Edition of the book Mastering the Requirements Process by James and Suzanne Robertson.
For Credit Card payment please contact our office using our contact form or by e-mail mentioning your phone number to obtain your credit card information.
In completing your registration form you declare that you agree with our Terms and Conditions.
Extra discounts
Discounts are available for group bookings of two or more delegates representing the same organization made at the same time. Ten percent off for the second and third delegate and fifteen percent off for all delegates when registering four or more delegates (all delegates must be listed on the same invoice).
This cannot be used in conjunction with other discounts.
Payment
Full payment is due prior to the event. An invoice will be sent to you containing our full bank details including BIC and IBAN. Your payment should always include the invoice number as well as the name of your company and the delegate name.
Payment by credit card is available for attendees from countries outside the IBAN region. This is not an automated process via our website but requires a manual transaction by phone or Skype. For Credit Card payment please contact our office by e-mail or through our contact form mentioning your phone number to obtain your credit card information. Never mention your credit card details in our registration form, contact form or in e-mail messages.
“Very informative workshop with an excellent and experienced teacher, James Archer.”
“Very informative workshop with an excellent and experienced teacher, James Archer.”
“Very informative workshop with an excellent and experienced teacher, James Archer.”
“Very informative workshop with an excellent and experienced teacher, James Archer.”
“Very informative workshop with an excellent and experienced teacher, James Archer.”
Practically all of our seminars and workshops can be offered as an In-house course for your company exclusively. We can tailor with extra focus on specific topics that apply to your organization. Also available in online format or in face-to-face format with live video stream.