Business Requirements Analysis for Software Development Projects

When geekIT are engaged to deliver a business analysis, usually it is because there is a need or condition to meet for a new or altered product, taking account of the possibly conflicting requirements of the various internal stakeholders and external users.  When you engage geekIT to deliver a business and requirements analysis you will be working with usability experts and solution architects not a sales person.

Requirements analysis can be a long and tedious process during which many skills are involved. New systems change the environment and relationships between people, so it is important to identify all the stakeholders, take into account all their needs and ensure they understand the implications of the new systems.

At geekIT we have developed our unique methodology that uses techniques to extract the requirements from the customer.  This process starts with interviews, or holding focus groups usually in a workshop environment to establish the exact requirements of the stakeholders, so that a system that meets the business needs is produced.  The process is usually broken into three parts - requirements gathering, analyzing the requirements followed by recording the requirements.

Requirements analysis is critical to the success of a development project because requirements must be documented, actionable, measurable, testable, traceable, related to identified business needs or opportunities, and defined to a level of detail sufficient for system design. Requirements are categorised in different ways. They can be architectural, structural, behavioral, functional, and non-functional.

Customer Requirements
These are usually the facts and assumptions that define the expectations of the new or improved system in terms of objectives, environment, constraints, and measures of effectiveness and suitability (MOE/MOS). The customers are those that perform the primary functions of systems engineering, with special emphasis on the key internal user as the key customer. Operational requirements usually define the following:
•    Who are the key users - internal and external
•    Define the behavior of the internal and external users
•    Where will the system be used?
•    How will the system accomplish its objective?
•    What are the critical system parameters to accomplish the mission?
•    How are the various system components to be used?
•    How effective or efficient must the system be in performing its objective?
•    How long will the system be in use by the user?
•    What environments will the system be expected to operate in an effective manner?
•    Are there sufficient resources assigned to the system?
•    Is there sufficient funding for the development?

Architectural
Architectural requirements explain what has to be done by identifying the necessary system architecture of a system.

Structural
Structural requirements explain what has to be done by identifying the necessary structure of a system.

Behavioral
Behavioral requirements explain what has to be done by identifying the necessary behavior of a system in alignment with the user expectations.

Functional
Functional requirements explain what has to be done by identifying the necessary task, action or activity that must be accomplished. Functional requirements analysis will be used as the top level functions for functional analysis.

Non-functional
Non-functional requirements are requirements that specify criteria that can be used to judge the operation of a system, rather than specific behaviors.

Performance
The extent to which a mission or function must be executed; generally measured in terms of quantity, quality, coverage, timeliness or readiness. During requirements analysis, performance (how well does it have to be done) requirements will be interactively developed across all identified functions based on system life cycle factors; and characterised in terms of the degree of certainty in their estimate, the degree of criticality to system success, and their relationship to other requirements.

Technical Design
The build, code and other applications required for the execution are usually expressed in technical data packages and technical manuals.

UX Design

The information gathered during the focus groups and interviews usually gives us enough understanding of the different users.  This results in delivering the proposed content & functionality layout design for the interface.  it outlines how the user will mot likey experience the system.  A number of wireframes are provided and a series of refinements are made to match the final submission of the requirements documentation.

Clients that have engaged geekIT for business requirements analysis