How To Write Effective Requirements For It Simply Put

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How to Write Effective Requirements for IT – Simply Put!

Thomas and Angela Hathaway
How to Write Effective Requirements for IT Simply Put Book PDF

Author : Thomas and Angela Hathaway
Publisher : BA-Experts
Page : 120 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2016-09-03
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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How to Write Effective Requirements for IT – Simply Put! by Thomas and Angela Hathaway Pdf

WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT? Effective Requirements Reduce Project Failures Writing requirements is one of the core competencies for anyone in an organization responsible for defining future Information Technology (IT) applications. However, nearly every independently executed root-cause analysis of IT project problems and failures in the past half-century have identified “misunderstood or incomplete requirements” as the primary cause. This has made writing requirements the bane of many projects. The real problem is the subtle differences between “understanding” someone else’s requirement and “sharing a common understanding” with the author. “How to Write Effective Requirements for IT – Simply Put!” gives you a set of 4 simple rules that will make your requirement statements more easily understood by all target audiences. The focus is to increase the “common understanding” between the author of a requirement and the solution providers (e.g., in-house or outsourced IT designers, developers, analysts, and vendors). The rules we present in this book will reduce the failure rate of projects suffering from poor requirements. Regardless of your job title or role, if you are tasked with communicating your future needs to others, this book is for you. How to Get the Most out of this Book? To maximize the learning effect, you will have optional, online exercises to assess your understanding of each presented technique. Chapter titles prefaced with the phrase “Exercise” contain a link to a web-based exercise that we have prepared to give you an opportunity to try the presented technique yourself. These exercises are optional and they do not “test” your knowledge in the conventional sense. Their purpose is to demonstrate the use of the technique more real-life than our explanations can supply. You need Internet access to perform the exercises. We hope you enjoy them and that they make it easier for you to apply the techniques in real life. Specifically, this eWorkbook will give you techniques to: - Express business and stakeholder requirements in simple, complete sentences - Write requirements that focus on the business need - Test the relevance of each requirement to ensure that it is in scope for your project - Translate business needs and wants into requirements as the primary tool for defining a future solution and setting the stage for testing - Create and maintain a question file to reduce the impact of incorrect assumptions - Minimize the risk of scope creep caused by missed requirements - Ensure that your requirements can be easily understood by all target audiences - Confirm that each audience shares a mutual understanding of the requirements - Isolate and address ambiguous words and phrases in requirements. - Use our Peer Perception technique to find words and phrases that can lead to misunderstandings. - Reduce the ambiguity of a statement by adding context and using standard terms and phrases TOM AND ANGELA’S (the authors) STORY Like all good IT stories, theirs started on a project many years ago. Tom was the super techie, Angela the super SME. They fought their way through the 3-year development of a new policy maintenance system for an insurance company. They vehemently disagreed on many aspects, but in the process discovered a fundamental truth about IT projects. The business community (Angela) should decide on the business needs while the technical team’s (Tom)’s job was to make the technology deliver what the business needed. Talk about a revolutionary idea! All that was left was learning how to communicate with each other without bloodshed to make the project a resounding success. Mission accomplished. They decided this epiphany was so important that the world needed to know about it. As a result, they made it their mission (and their passion) to share this ground-breaking concept with the rest of the world. To achieve that lofty goal, they married and began the mission that still defines their life. After over 30 years of living and working together 24x7x365, they are still wildly enthusiastic about helping the victims of technology learn how to ask for and get the digital (IT) solutions they need to do their jobs better. More importantly, they are more enthusiastically in love with each other than ever before!

How to Write Effective Requirements for IT - Simply Put!

Angela Hathaway,Thomas Hathaway
How to Write Effective Requirements for IT Simply Put Book PDF

Author : Angela Hathaway,Thomas Hathaway
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Page : 102 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2016-07-31
Category : Computer software
ISBN : 1519261594

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How to Write Effective Requirements for IT - Simply Put! by Angela Hathaway,Thomas Hathaway Pdf

Writing requirements is one of the core competencies for anyone in an organization responsible for defining future Information Technology (IT) applications. However, nearly every independently executed, root-cause analysis of IT project problems and failures in the past half-century have identified "misunderstood or incomplete requirements" as the primary cause. This has made writing requirements the bane of many projects. The real problem is the subtle differences between "understanding" someone else's requirement and "sharing a common understanding" with the author. "How to Write Effective Requirements for IT - Simply Put!" gives you a set of 4 simple rules that will make your requirement statements more easily understood by all target audiences. The focus is to increase the " common understanding" between the author of a requirement and the solution providers (e.g., in-house or outsourced IT designers, developers, analysts, and vendors). The rules we present in this book will reduce the failure rate of projects suffering from poor requirements. Regardless of your job title or role, if you are tasked with communicating your future needs to others, this book will guide you step by step. It includes optional exercises with instant feedback to increase retention. Who should read this book? Anyone involved in capturing, writing, analyzing, or understanding requirements for Information Technology solutions, including (but not limited to): Subject Matter Experts (SME) Agile Product Owners Business Process Managers Business Process Users Business Analysts and anyone wearing the BA hat Regardless of your title or role, if you are involved in defining requirements, this book is for you. Specifically, this book will give you techniques to: Express business and stakeholder requirements in simple, complete sentences Write requirements that focus on the business need Test the relevance of each requirement to ensure that it is in scope for your project Translate business needs and wants into requirements as the primary tool for defining a future solution and setting the stage for testing Create and maintain a question file to reduce the impact of incorrect assumptions Minimize the risk of scope creep caused by missed requirements Ensure that your requirements can be easily understood by all target audiences Confirm that each audience shares a common understanding of the requirements Isolate and address ambiguous words and phrases in requirements. Use our Peer Perception technique to find words and phrases that can lead to misunderstandings. Reduce the ambiguity of a statement by adding context and using standard terms and phrases How to get the most out of this book? To maximize the learning effect, you will have optional, online exercises to assess your understanding of each presented technique. You will run across chapter titles prefaced with the phrase "Exercise". Those chapters contain a link to a web-based exercise that we have prepared to give you an opportunity to try the presented technique yourself.

Writing Effective User Stories

Thomas and Angela Hathaway
Writing Effective User Stories Book PDF

Author : Thomas and Angela Hathaway
Publisher : BA-Experts
Page : 51 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2013-07-29
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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Writing Effective User Stories by Thomas and Angela Hathaway Pdf

WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT? This Book Is About the “Card” (User Story: Card, Criteria, Conversation) User Stories are a great method for expressing stakeholder requirements, whether your projects follow an Agile, Iterative, or a Waterfall methodology. They are the basis for developers to deliver a suitable information technology (IT) app or application. Well-structured user stories express a single action to achieve a specific goal from the perspective of a single role. When writing user stories, stakeholders knowledgeable about the role should focus on the business result that the IT solution will enable while leaving technology decisions up to the developers. Good user stories are relevant to the project, unambiguous, and understandable to knowledge peers. The best user stories also contain crucial non-functional (quality) requirements, which are the best weapon in the war against unsatisfactory performance in IT solutions. This book presents two common user story structures to help you ensure that your user stories have all the required components and that they express the true business need as succinctly as possible. It offers five simple rules to ensure that your user stories are the best that they can be. That, in turn, will reduce the amount of time needed in user story elaboration and discussion with the development team. This book targets business professionals who are involved with an IT project, Product Owners in charge of managing a backlog, or Business Analysts working with an Agile team. Author’s Note The term “User Story” is a relative new addition to our language and its definition is evolving. In today’s parlance, a complete User Story has three primary components, namely the “Card”, the “Conversation”, and the “Criteria”. Different roles are responsible for creating each component. The “Card” expresses a business need. A representative of the business community is responsible for expressing the business need. Historically (and for practical reasons) the “Card” is the User Story from the perspective of the business community. Since we wrote this book specifically to address that audience, we use the term “User Story” in that context throughout. The “Conversation” is an ongoing discussion between a developer responsible for creating software that meets the business need and the domain expert(s) who defined it (e.g., the original author of the “Card”). The developer initiates the “Conversation” with the domain expert(s) to define the “Criteria” and any additional information the developer needs to create the application. There is much to be written about both the “Conversation” and the “Criteria”, but neither component is dealt with in any detail in this publication. A well-written User Story (“Card”) can drastically reduce the time needed for the “Conversation”. It reduces misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and false starts, thereby paving the way for faster delivery of working software. We chose to limit the content of this publication to the “User Story” as understood by the business community to keep the book focused and address the widest possible audience. WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM READING THIS BOOK? How organizations develop and deliver working software has changed significantly in recent years. Because the change was greatest in the developer community, many books and courses justifiably target that group. There is, however, an overlooked group of people essential to the development of software-as-an-asset that have been neglected. Many distinct roles or job titles in the business community perform business needs analysis for digital solutions. They include: - Product Owners - Business Analysts - Requirements Engineers - Test Developers - Business- and Customer-side Team Members - Agile Team Members - Subject Matter Experts (SME) - Project Leaders and Managers - Systems Analysts and Designers - AND “anyone wearing the business analysis hat”, meaning anyone responsible for defining a future IT solution TOM AND ANGELA’S (the authors) STORY Like all good IT stories, theirs started on a project many years ago. Tom was the super techie, Angela the super SME. They fought their way through the 3-year development of a new policy maintenance system for an insurance company. They vehemently disagreed on many aspects, but in the process discovered a fundamental truth about IT projects. The business community (Angela) should decide on the business needs while the technical team’s (Tom)’s job was to make the technology deliver what the business needed. Talk about a revolutionary idea! All that was left was learning how to communicate with each other without bloodshed to make the project a resounding success. Mission accomplished. They decided this epiphany was so important that the world needed to know about it. As a result, they made it their mission (and their passion) to share this ground-breaking concept with the rest of the world. To achieve that lofty goal, they married and began the mission that still defines their life. After over 30 years of living and working together 24x7x365, they are still wildly enthusiastic about helping the victims of technology learn how to ask for and get the digital (IT) solutions they need to do their jobs better. More importantly, they are more enthusiastically in love with each other than ever before!

Getting and Writing IT Requirements in a Lean and Agile World

Thomas and Angela Hathaway
Getting and Writing IT Requirements in a Lean and Agile World Book PDF

Author : Thomas and Angela Hathaway
Publisher : BA-Experts
Page : 247 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2019-07-15
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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Getting and Writing IT Requirements in a Lean and Agile World by Thomas and Angela Hathaway Pdf

WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT? Communicate Business Needs in an Agile (e.g. Scrum) or Lean (e.g. Kanban) Environment Problem solvers are in demand in every organization, large and small, from a Mom and Pop shop to the federal government. Increase your confidence and your value to organizations by improving your ability to analyze, extract, express, and discuss business needs in formats supported by Agile, Lean, and DevOps. The single largest challenge facing organizations around the world is how to leverage their Information Technology to gain competitive advantage. This is not about how to program the devices; it is figuring out what the devices should do. The skills needed to identify and define the best IT solutions are invaluable for every role in the organization. These skills can propel you from the mail room to the boardroom by making your organization more effective and more profitable. Whether you: - are tasked with defining business needs for a product or existing software, - need to prove that a digital solution works, - want to expand your User Story and requirements discovery toolkit, or - are interested in becoming a Business Analyst, this book presents invaluable ideas that you can steal. The future looks bright for those who embrace Lean concepts and are prepared to engage with the business community to ensure the success of Agile initiatives. WHAT YOU WILL LEARN Learn Step by Step When and How to Define Lean / Agile Requirements Agile, Lean, DevOps, and Continuous Delivery do not change the need for good business analysis. In this book, you will learn how the new software development philosophies influence the discovery, expression, and analysis of business needs. We will cover User Stories, Features, and Quality Requirements (a.k.a. Non-functional Requirements – NFR). User Story Splitting and Feature Drill-down transform business needs into technology solutions. Acceptance Tests (Scenarios, Scenario Outlines, and Examples) have become a critical part of many Lean development approaches. To support this new testing paradigm, you will also learn how to identify and optimize Scenarios, Scenario Outlines, and Examples in GIVEN-WHEN-THEN format (Gherkin) that are the bases for Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD) and Behavior Driven Development (BDD). This book presents concrete approaches that take you from day one of a change initiative to the ongoing acceptance testing in a continuous delivery environment. The authors introduce novel and innovative ideas that augment tried-and-true techniques for: - discovering and capturing what your stakeholders need, - writing and refining the needs as the work progresses, and - developing scenarios to verify that the software does what it should. Approaches that proved their value in conventional settings have been redefined to ferret out and eliminate waste (a pillar of the Lean philosophy). Those approaches are fine-tuned and perfected to support the Lean and Agile movement that defines current software development. In addition, the book is chock-full of examples and exercises that allow you to confirm your understanding of the presented ideas. WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM READING THIS BOOK? How organizations develop and deliver working software has changed significantly in recent years. Because the change was greatest in the developer community, many books and courses justifiably target that group. There is, however, an overlooked group of people essential to the development of software-as-an-asset that have been neglected. Many distinct roles or job titles in the business community perform business needs analysis for digital solutions. They include: - Product Owners - Business Analysts - Requirements Engineers - Test Developers - Business- and Customer-side Team Members - Agile Team Members - Subject Matter Experts (SME) - Project Leaders and Managers - Systems Analysts and Designers - AND “anyone wearing the business analysis hat”, meaning anyone responsible for defining a future IT solution TOM AND ANGELA’S (the authors) STORY Like all good IT stories, theirs started on a project many years ago. Tom was the super techie, Angela the super SME. They fought their way through the 3-year development of a new policy maintenance system for an insurance company. They vehemently disagreed on many aspects, but in the process discovered a fundamental truth about IT projects. The business community (Angela) should decide on the business needs while the technical team’s (Tom)’s job was to make the technology deliver what the business needed. Talk about a revolutionary idea! All that was left was learning how to communicate with each other without bloodshed to make the project a resounding success. Mission accomplished. They decided this epiphany was so important that the world needed to know about it. As a result, they made it their mission (and their passion) to share this ground-breaking concept with the rest of the world. To achieve that lofty goal, they married and began the mission that still defines their life. After over 30 years of living and working together 24x7x365, they are still wildly enthusiastic about helping the victims of technology learn how to ask for and get the IT solutions they need to do their jobs better. More importantly, they are more enthusiastically in love with each other than ever before!

Requirements Elicitation Techniques – Simply Put!

Thomas and Angela Hathaway
Requirements Elicitation Techniques Simply Put Book PDF

Author : Thomas and Angela Hathaway
Publisher : BA-Experts
Page : 122 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2016-07-29
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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Requirements Elicitation Techniques – Simply Put! by Thomas and Angela Hathaway Pdf

WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT? 7 Ways to Improve Your Requirements Elicitation Skills Getting the right requirements from the right people at the right time for your project is a critical success factor for any IT project. Nearly every study over the past 40 years has pinpointed missing and misunderstood IT requirements as the primary cause of IT project failures and overruns. “Requirements Elicitation Techniques – Simply Put!” presents 7 requirements definition techniques that evolved from our work with customers to meet that specific challenge. This book is a continuation of our Requirements Elicitation series. The previously published book “Requirements Elicitation Interviews and Workshops – Simply Put” deals with soft skills (i.e. how to run a requirements workshop) needed to elicit requirements. The book defines the concept of requirements elicitation and explains why it is necessary. It presents specific business analysis techniques for identifying stakeholders, analyzing relevant business problems, helping stakeholders discover what they need and want the solution to deliver, and a set of key questions you need answered to initiate and manage the elicitation process. Applying these techniques will significantly improve your requirements elicitation outcomes. “Requirements Elicitation Techniques – Simply Put!” will help practicing business analysts, future business analysts, subject matter experts, managers, product owners, project managers, and anyone responsible for getting the right requirements from the right people. You will learn how to: - Identify potential stakeholders - Manage the requirements elicitation process - Track progress toward requirements completion - Define and analyze business problems to ferret out hidden requirements - Facilitate effective requirements brainstorming sessions - Use 10 critical questions to initiate the WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM READING THIS BOOK? Many distinct roles or job titles in the business community perform business needs analysis for digital solutions. They include: - Product Owners - Business Analysts - Requirements Engineers - Business- and Customer-side Team Members - Agile Team Members - Subject Matter Experts (SME) - Project Leaders and Managers - Systems Analysts and Designers - AND “anyone wearing the business analysis hat”, meaning anyone responsible for defining a future digital solution TOM AND ANGELA’S (the authors) STORY Like all good IT stories, theirs started on a project many years ago. Tom was the super techie, Angela the super SME. They fought their way through the 3-year development of a new policy maintenance system for an insurance company. They vehemently disagreed on many aspects, but in the process discovered a fundamental truth about IT projects. The business community (Angela) should decide on the business needs while the technical team’s (Tom)’s job was to make the technology deliver what the business needed. Talk about a revolutionary idea! All that was left was learning how to communicate with each other without bloodshed to make the project a resounding success. Mission accomplished. They decided this epiphany was so important that the world needed to know about it. As a result, they made it their mission (and their passion) to share this ground-breaking concept with the rest of the world. To achieve that lofty goal, they married and began the mission that still defines their life. After over 30 years of living and working together 24x7x365, they are still wildly enthusiastic about helping the victims of technology learn how to ask for and get the digital (IT) solutions they need to do their jobs better. More importantly, they are more enthusiastically in love with each other than ever before!

Functional and Non-Functional Requirements Simply Put!

Angela Hathaway,Thomas Hathaway
Functional and Non Functional Requirements Simply Put Book PDF

Author : Angela Hathaway,Thomas Hathaway
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Page : 68 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 2016-08
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1534983481

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Functional and Non-Functional Requirements Simply Put! by Angela Hathaway,Thomas Hathaway Pdf

Defining solution-level requirements (aka functional and non-functional requirements) is a core competency for anyone in an organization responsible for defining future Information Technology (IT) applications. "Functional and Non-Functional Requirements - Simply Put!" will give Business Analysts, Systems Analysts, Agile Product Owners, Product Managers, Subject Matter Experts (a.k.a. SMEs), and really "anyone wearing the BA hat" simple, repeatable techniques for extracting solution-level specifications from business and stakeholder requirements that are expressed in complete sentence form. My co-author, Angela, and I have used these techniques on hundreds of IT projects around the globe and we know the value each provides. Using these approaches will improve your ability to identify and document requirements at the level of detail that solution providers (vendors or developers) need to deliver the right technology for their organization. The presented techniques will work on any set of well-expressed requirement statements. However, they were specifically designed for and work best with requirement statements that follow the "Rules for Writing Effective Requirements" that we present in our course and book "Writing Effective Requirements for IT - Simply Put!". Regardless of your job title or role, if you are involved in defining future business solutions, this book will help you communicate your business needs to solution providers. It will reduce the potential for misunderstandings that undermine IT's ability to deliver the right technology for the business. Upon successful completion of this course, you can: Decompose Business and Stakeholder Requirement Statements to identify Functional and Non-Functional Requirements Give those responsible for designing, building, and/or buying the solution the kind of information they need to make the decisions that are right for the business Identify Informational, Performance, and Constraining Requirements from a list of Functional Requirements Document and manage Business, Stakeholder, Functional and Non-Functional Requirements Capture and clarify Business Rules and External Constraints that mandate limits to the delivered solution Develop measurable Solution Requirements that facilitate End-User Acceptance Testing The course includes optional, online exercises with immediate feedback featuring our recommended resolution and the rationale behind it. At the end of the course, a "Final Exam' will allow you to test your understanding of how all of the presented ideas work together to make your requirements more easily understood by all respective target audiences. About the Authors: Angela and Tom Hathaway have trained, consulted, mentored and coached thousands of business analysts around the world for organizations from small businesses to Fortune 100. Based on their combined 70+ years of experience in information technology and business analysis, they serve up a unique perspective on this burgeoning field of knowledge.

Requirements Elicitation Interviews and Workshops - Simply Put!

Tom Hathaway,Angela Hathaway
Requirements Elicitation Interviews and Workshops Simply Put Book PDF

Author : Tom Hathaway,Angela Hathaway
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Page : 84 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2016-02-09
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1522965831

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Requirements Elicitation Interviews and Workshops - Simply Put! by Tom Hathaway,Angela Hathaway Pdf

What is "requirements elicitation" and why should you care? Why should anyone read a book about requirements gathering? All you have to do to get the requirements for anything is ask everyone involved what they want it to do, right? If you are capable of understanding their answers, you should be done in a heartbeat. So, why the fuss?Based on the track record of the Information Technology (IT) profession, it appears that gathering the right requirements from the right people to define the right IT solution for any organization is nearly impossible. Industry insiders cannot even agree on what to call the process. Over the years, we have tried "Requirements Gathering", "Requirements Capture", "Requirements Definition", "Requirements Discovery", and "Requirements Elicitation". Regardless what we call it, this book will give you a head start on getting the job done right."Requirements Elicitation Interviews and Workshops - Simply Put!" deals with the "soft skills" side of life, meaning attitudes and behaviors that promote effective requirements elicitation. In particular, you can learn how to:Define and distinguish five specific requirements elicitation approaches from one-on-one Requirements Interviews to Requirements Gathering Workshops* Evaluate the pros and cons of each approach for your organization and project* Define the seven habits to successful requirements discovery* Plan and prepare Requirements Interviews* Prepare, perform, and manage effective requirements gathering Workshops * Recognize the challenges and strengths of facilitated requirements workshops with cross-functional groups* Use informational and active listening to capture hidden requirementsAbout the authorsAngela and Tom Hathaway have trained, consulted, mentored and coached thousands of business analysts around the world for organizations from small businesses to Fortune 100. Based on their combined 60+ years of experience in Information Technology and Business Analysis, they serve up a unique perspective on this burgeoning field of knowledge.

Functional and Non-Functional Requirements – Simply Put!

Thomas and Angela Hathaway
Functional and Non Functional Requirements Simply Put Book PDF

Author : Thomas and Angela Hathaway
Publisher : BA-Experts
Page : 78 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2016-09-03
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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Functional and Non-Functional Requirements – Simply Put! by Thomas and Angela Hathaway Pdf

WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT? Functional and Non-functional Requirements Can Make or Break Your Project Defining solution-level requirements (aka functional and non-functional requirements) is a core competency for anyone in an organization responsible for defining future Information Technology (IT) applications. In this book you will learn simple and repeatable techniques for extracting solution-level specifications from business and stakeholder requirements that are expressed in complete sentence form. My co-author, Angela, and I have used these techniques on hundreds of IT projects around the globe and we know the value each provides. Using these approaches will improve your ability to identify and document requirements at the level of detail that solution providers (vendors or developers) need to deliver the right technology for their organization. The presented techniques will work on any set of well-expressed requirement statements. However, they were specifically designed for and work best with requirement statements that follow the “Rules for Writing Effective Requirements” that we present in our book “How to Write Effective Requirements for IT – Simply Put!”. Regardless of your job title or role, if you are involved in defining future business solutions, this book will help you communicate your business needs to solution providers. It will reduce the potential for misunderstandings that undermine IT’s ability to deliver the right technology for the business. How to get the most out of this book? To maximize the learning effect, you will have optional, online exercises to assess your understanding of each presented technique. Chapter titles prefaced with the phrase “Exercise” contain a link to online exercises with immediate feedback featuring our recommended resolution and the rationale behind it. These exercises are optional and they do not “test” your knowledge in the conventional sense. Their purpose is to demonstrate the use of the technique more real-life than our explanations can supply. You need Internet access to perform the exercises. We hope you enjoy them and that they make it easier for you to apply the techniques in real life. Specifically, this eWorkbook will give you techniques to: - Decompose Business and Stakeholder Requirement Statements to identify Functional and Non-Functional Requirements - Give those responsible for designing, building, and/or buying the solution the kind of information they need to make the decisions that are right for the business - Identify Informational, Performance, and Constraining Requirements from a list of Functional Requirements - Document and manage Business, Stakeholder, Functional and Non-Functional Requirements - Capture and clarify Business Rules and External Constraints that mandate limits to the delivered solution - Develop measurable Solution Requirements that facilitate End-User Acceptance Testing WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM READING THIS BOOK? Many distinct roles or job titles in the business community perform business needs analysis for digital solutions. They include: - Product Owners - Business Analysts - Requirements Engineers - Test Developers - Business- and Customer-side Team Members - Agile Team Members - Subject Matter Experts (SME) - Project Leaders and Managers - Systems Analysts and Designers - AND “anyone wearing the business analysis hat”, meaning anyone responsible for defining a future IT solution TOM AND ANGELA’S (the authors) STORY Like all good IT stories, theirs started on a project many years ago. Tom was the super techie, Angela the super SME. They fought their way through the 3-year development of a new policy maintenance system for an insurance company. They vehemently disagreed on many aspects, but in the process discovered a fundamental truth about IT projects. The business community (Angela) should decide on the business needs while the technical team’s (Tom)’s job was to make the technology deliver what the business needed. Talk about a revolutionary idea! All that was left was learning how to communicate with each other without bloodshed to make the project a resounding success. Mission accomplished. They decided this epiphany was so important that the world needed to know about it. As a result, they made it their mission (and their passion) to share this ground-breaking concept with the rest of the world. To achieve that lofty goal, they married and began the mission that still defines their life. After over 30 years of living and working together 24x7x365, they are still wildly enthusiastic about helping the victims of technology learn how to ask for and get the digital (IT) solutions they need to do their jobs better. More importantly, they are more enthusiastically in love with each other than ever before!

Data Flow Diagrams – Simply Put!

Thomas and Angela Hathaway
Data Flow Diagrams Simply Put Book PDF

Author : Thomas and Angela Hathaway
Publisher : BA-Experts
Page : 145 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2015-03-29
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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Data Flow Diagrams – Simply Put! by Thomas and Angela Hathaway Pdf

WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT? Learn about Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs), Context-level DFDs, and Rigorous Physical Process Models (RPPM), what they are, why they are important, and who can use them. Use Data Flow Diagrams to Visualize Workflows An old Chinese proverb says, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” In the world of Information Technology (IT), we maintain that it may even be worth a whole lot more. For most people, it is difficult or impossible to envision a process flow, especially when someone else is describing it. Understanding current workflows, however, is critical to defining a future IT solution. Just as critical is understanding how data is created and consumed throughout the workflow. To truly understand problems inherent in a business process or workflow, you need to help the practitioners visualize what they do. Visualization lets them identify better ways of working that remove current restrictions. Data Flow Diagrams are phenomenal tools for visualization. Working with business experts, you can help them identify problems and inefficiencies they don’t even know they have. These are not people problems; they are process problems. Understanding when and how to create and use Data Flow Diagrams will help you discover and capture the requirements for improving the use of information technology. Why Should You Take this Course? In “Data Flow Diagrams – Simply Put!”, you will learn the benefits of process visualization for the business community, for the one wearing the BA hat, for those tasked with developing the solution, and ultimately for the entire organization. You will also discover how DFDs are powerful tools for recognizing and eliminating two of the major problems that haunt IT projects, namely Scope Creep and Project Overruns caused by late project change requests. This book uses a concrete business scenario to present a simple, easy-to-learn approach for creating and using Data Flow Diagrams depicting workflow and data manipulation from interviews with Subject Matter Experts. You will learn how to create a Context-Level Data Flow Diagram and explode relevant process(es) to reveal the nitty-gritty detail (i.e., individual process and data specifications) that developers need to create IT solutions that the business community needs. This book answers the following questions: - What is a Data Flow Diagram (DFD)? - What is a Rigorous Physical Process Model? - What is a Context-Level DFD? - Why should I use Data Flow Diagrams? - What symbols can I use on each type of diagram? - How can I drill down into a process? - How can I show internal processes and flows that produce the results? - What does balancing a Data Flow Diagram mean and what is the business value? - What is the most efficient approach to balancing a DFD? - What business value do process specifications offer? - How can I express detailed specifications for processes and data? - What is “metadata" and why do you need it? - What does a fully balanced DFD look like? - What value does a DFD fragment provide? - Regardless of your job title or role, if you are tasked with communicating a workflow or functional requirements to others, this book is for you. WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM READING THIS BOOK? Many distinct roles or job titles in the business community perform business needs analysis for digital solutions. They include: - Product Owners - Business Analysts - Requirements Engineers - Test Developers - Business- and Customer-side Team Members - Agile Team Members - Subject Matter Experts (SME) - Project Leaders and Managers - Systems Analysts and Designers - AND “anyone wearing the business analysis hat”, meaning anyone responsible for defining a future IT solution TOM AND ANGELA’S (the authors) STORY Like all good IT stories, theirs started on a project many years ago. Tom was the super techie, Angela the super SME. They fought their way through the 3-year development of a new policy maintenance system for an insurance company. They vehemently disagreed on many aspects, but in the process discovered a fundamental truth about IT projects. The business community (Angela) should decide on the business needs while the technical team’s (Tom)’s job was to make the technology deliver what the business needed. Talk about a revolutionary idea! All that was left was learning how to communicate with each other without bloodshed to make the project a resounding success. Mission accomplished. They decided this epiphany was so important that the world needed to know about it. As a result, they made it their mission (and their passion) to share this ground-breaking concept with the rest of the world. To achieve that lofty goal, they married and began the mission that still defines their life. After over 30 years of living and working together 24x7x365, they are still wildly enthusiastic about helping the victims of technology learn how to ask for and get the digital (IT) solutions they need to do their jobs better. More importantly, they are more enthusiastically in love with each other than ever before!

Business Analysis Defined

Thomas and Angela Hathaway
Business Analysis Defined Book PDF

Author : Thomas and Angela Hathaway
Publisher : BA-Experts
Page : 75 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2014-03-01
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 8210379456XXX

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Business Analysis Defined by Thomas and Angela Hathaway Pdf

WHAT IS THIS BOOK ABOUT? Business Analysis in the Real World A Buddhist proverb warns, “Be mindful of intention. Intention is the seed that creates our future.” In a very real sense, this statement expresses the reason for business analysis. This discipline is really all about choosing and defining a desired future because without intention (expressed in business analysis terms, “requirements”), no future is more or less desirable than another. In reality, every organization does some form of business analysis whether it uses the term or not. For many (especially larger organizations), it is an extremely structured, managed process while others thrive on change and only do business analysis when and as needed. The perception that business analysis is only needed to develop IT solutions is inaccurate. Actually, it is a critical component of any change initiative within an organization whether software is involved or not. Current Business Analysis Techniques and Methods The book defines how business analysis is currently practiced. The authors provide insight into this fast-growing field by distinguishing strategic, tactical, and operational business analysis. It provides surveys of what Business Analysts really do and what business analysis techniques people use most often when they are the one “wearing the BA hat”. You will learn what “requirements” really are and what different types of requirements exist. Because many requirements define future information technology (IT) solutions, the authors share their experience on how Waterfall, Iterative, Agile, and Experimental (aka “Chaotic”) Software Development methodologies impact the business analysis responsibility. Who Needs Business Analysis Skills? Although the field of Business Analysis offers great career opportunities for those seeking employment, some level of business analysis skill is essential for any adult in the business world today. Many of the techniques used in the field evolved from earlier lessons learned in systems analysis and have proven themselves to be useful in every walk of life. We have personally experienced how business analysis techniques help even in your private life. We wrote this book for everyday people in the real world to give you a basic understanding of some core business analysis methods and concepts. If this book answers some of your questions, great. If it raises more questions than it answers (implying that it piqued your curiosity), even better. If it motivates you to learn more about this emerging and fascinating topic, it has served its purpose well. WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM READING THIS BOOK? Many distinct roles or job titles in the business community perform business needs analysis for digital solutions. They include: - Product Owners - Business Analysts - Requirements Engineers - Test Developers - Business- and Customer-side Team Members - Agile Team Members - Subject Matter Experts (SME) - Project Leaders and Managers - Systems Analysts and Designers - AND “anyone wearing the business analysis hat”, meaning anyone responsible for defining a future digital solution TOM AND ANGELA’S (the authors) STORY Like all good IT stories, theirs started on a project many years ago. Tom was the super techie, Angela the super SME. They fought their way through the 3-year development of a new policy maintenance system for an insurance company. They vehemently disagreed on many aspects, but in the process discovered a fundamental truth about IT projects. The business community (Angela) should decide on the business needs while the technical team’s (Tom)’s job was to make the technology deliver what the business needed. Talk about a revolutionary idea! All that was left was learning how to communicate with each other without bloodshed to make the project a resounding success. Mission accomplished. They decided this epiphany was so important that the world needed to know about it. As a result, they made it their mission (and their passion) to share this ground-breaking concept with the rest of the world. To achieve that lofty goal, they married and began the mission that still defines their life. After over 30 years of living and working together 24x7x365, they are still wildly enthusiastic about helping the victims of technology learn how to ask for and get the digital (IT) solutions they need to do their jobs better. More importantly, they are more enthusiastically in love with each other than ever before!

Creating Requirements for Software Projects: A Business Analyst's Guide to Requirements Management

Pamela Paterson
Creating Requirements for Software Projects A Business Analyst s Guide to Requirements Management Book PDF

Author : Pamela Paterson
Publisher : Library and Archives Canada
Page : 84 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 2020-04-22
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0987824562

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Creating Requirements for Software Projects: A Business Analyst's Guide to Requirements Management by Pamela Paterson Pdf

If you're new to writing requirements, and you're assigned to a new enterprise software or IT project to create requirements, where do you begin? How do you elicit requirements effectively from stakeholders? What's a good requirement versus a bad one? This book explains how to write requirements according to the standards in A Guide to the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge(R) (the BABOK(R) Guide) published by the International Association of Business Analysts. It describes the process you'll need to go through from start to finish, from the point that you're assigned to the project to when you finalize your requirements. It provides suggestions for tools, processes, and techniques you'll need to develop quality-oriented requirements for your stakeholders, all aligned with the knowledge areas of the BABOK(R) Guide. Some examples of requirements for the Agile software methodology are also provided. This book is written by Pamela Paterson, MS, CBAP, who is a senior business analyst with over 20 years of experience on enterprise IT projects. Pamela has written several books, including the #1 international best-seller Get the Job.

I Can't Make This Up

Kevin Hart
I Can t Make This Up Book PDF

Author : Kevin Hart
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 452 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2017-06-06
Category : Humor
ISBN : 9781501155581

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I Can't Make This Up by Kevin Hart Pdf

New York Times bestselling author, superstar comedian, and Hollywood box office star Kevin Hart turns his immense talent to the written word in this “hilarious but also heartfelt” (Elle) memoir on survival, success, and the importance of believing in yourself. The question you’re probably asking yourself right now is: What does Kevin Hart have that a book also has? According to the three people who have seen Kevin Hart and a book in the same room, the answer is clear: A book is compact. Kevin Hart is compact. A book has a spine that holds it together. Kevin Hart has a spine that holds him together. A book has a beginning. Kevin Hart’s life uniquely qualifies him to write this book by also having a beginning. It begins in North Philadelphia. He was born an accident, unwanted by his parents. His father was a drug addict who was in and out of jail. His brother was a crack dealer and petty thief. And his mother was overwhelmingly strict, beating him with belts, frying pans, and his own toys. The odds, in short, were stacked against our young hero. But Kevin Hart, like Ernest Hemingway, J.K. Rowling, and Chocolate Droppa before him, was able to defy the odds and turn it around. In his literary debut, he takes us on a journey through what his life was, what it is today, and how he’s overcome each challenge to become the man he is today. And that man happens to be the biggest comedian in the world, with tours that sell out football stadiums and films that have collectively grossed over $3.5 billion. He achieved this not just through hard work, determination, and talent. “Hart is an incredibly magnetic storyteller, on the page as he is onstage, and that’s what shines through [in this] genial, entertaining guide to a life in comedy” (Kirkus Reviews).

Why I Write

George Orwell
Why I Write Book PDF

Author : George Orwell
Publisher : Renard Press Ltd
Page : 15 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2021-01-01
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 9781913724269

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Why I Write by George Orwell Pdf

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

The Murder Complex

Lindsay Cummings
The Murder Complex Book PDF

Author : Lindsay Cummings
Publisher : Harper Collins
Page : 303 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2014-06-10
Category : Young Adult Fiction
ISBN : 9780062220028

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The Murder Complex by Lindsay Cummings Pdf

An action-packed, blood-soaked, futuristic debut thriller—set in a world where the murder rate is higher than the birthrate—by Lindsay Cummings, co-author (with Sasha Alsberg) of the New York Times #1 Bestseller Zenith. "Legend meets La Femme Nikita in this dark and dangerous bloody thriller. The nonstop action of The Murder Complex kept us guessing at every twist and turn. It's a must for fans of action-packed dystopians like The Hunger Games and Divergent."—Justine Magazine Meadow Woodson, a fifteen-year-old girl who has been trained by her father to fight, to kill, and to survive in any situation, lives with her family on a houseboat in Florida. The state is controlled by The Murder Complex, an organization that tracks the population with precision. The plot starts to thicken when Meadow meets Zephyr James, who is—although he doesn't know it—one of the MC's programmed assassins. Is their meeting a coincidence? Destiny? Or part of a terrifying strategy? And will Zephyr keep Meadow from discovering the haunting truth about her family? Action-packed, blood-soaked, and chilling, this is a dark and compelling debut novel by Lindsay Cummings.

LEAN Business Analysis for Agile Teams

Angela Hathaway,Thomas Hathaway
LEAN Business Analysis for Agile Teams Book PDF

Author : Angela Hathaway,Thomas Hathaway
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 156 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2020-02-25
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9798616146175

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LEAN Business Analysis for Agile Teams by Angela Hathaway,Thomas Hathaway Pdf

Lean Business Analysis Weaponizes the Agile Software Development Revolution With the widespread adoption of Agile, software development has gone through some serious remodeling. The changes are a seismic shift from the days of mega-projects and monolithic methodologies. Agile teams build robust products incrementally and iteratively, requiring fast feedback from the business community to define ongoing work. As a result, the process of defining IT requirements is evolving rapidly. Backlogs replace requirements definition documents. User Stories, Epics and Features replace requirement statements. Scenarios and Examples replace test cases. The timing of business analysis activities is shifting like sand. But What Is LEAN Business Analysis? Business Analysis defines the future of Information Technology (IT) in an organization. Lean Business Analysis is the essential next step that enables the business community to take advantage of the speed of software delivery. This book offers a brief overview of how you can reduce waste in Business Analysis practices to optimally support the new lean and agile software development world. Learn how lean principles: Gain business agility by shifting from Project to Product Thinking Accelerate time-to-market with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) Combat waste in your Business Analysis Life Cycle Optimize software development with effective Product Backlogs Improve the outcome of your Business Analysis techniques Express business needs in Features, User Stories, and Scenarios Deliver product quality with Acceptance (Business-Facing) Testing The authors describe the problems and the process plaguing organizations struggling to ensure that the software development community produces the IT environment that the business community needs. They also show solutions that take advantage of Lean Manufacturing principles to capture and analyze business needs. They explain types of waste prevalent in conventional Business Analysis and suggest approaches to minimize the waste while increasing the quality of the deliverables, namely actionable Features, User Stories, and Requirements that enable Agile Teams. Who Should Read This Book? This book will help anyone who is involved with Agile Software development. In particular, it targets the neglected business roles such as Product Owners, Business Analysts, Test Developers, Business-side and Agile Team Members, Subject Matter Experts, and Product Managers. Who Wrote It? The authors, Tom and Angela Hathaway, have taught thousands of students in face-to-face training, published multiple business analysis books, produced courses available on platforms such as Udemy.com with over 30K students, and enriched the global community with millions of views on their YouTube channel "baexperts".