Requirements Elicitation

Get the Users "IN" the Doghouse and Keep Yourself Out: Eliciting Nonfunctional Requirements

Presented by Roxanne Miller, CBAP^®, Requirements Quest

Functionally, the home builder constructed a beautiful home. However, somehow this nonfunctional detail was missed. Does this scenario sound familiar to any of the missed requirements on your projects lately? Do performance requirements such as response time, throughput, capacity, and availability get missed? What about flexibility requirements such as scalability, multi-lingual, insatiability, and extendibility? Roxanne Miller will reveal “patterns” of nonfunctional requirements that can reduce the possibility of missed requirements that cause project rework. Come and find out what you’ve been missing.

Learning Objectives:

Recognize the difference between functional and nonfunctional requirements
Understand various categories of nonfunctional requirements
Discover the simplicity of this frequently misunderstood and overlooked requirement type

Speaker Biography: Roxanne Miller is a self proclaimed ‘Requirements Super Freak.' Roxanne's information-packed, high-energy sessions are always a crowd pleaser. She delivers practical advice and real-world stories from her work with state universities, government agencies and Fortune 500 enterprises. Founder of Requirements Quest, Roxanne has been consulting on business analysis practices for over 15 years. She is a Certified Business Analysis Professional and an active member of the IIBA^®. Her book, The Quest for Software Requirements, is an in-depth reference guide with over 2,000 elicitation questions and a tested framework to help individuals make their project work more efficient and effective.

Working Back to Requirements from a Solution

Presented by David DeWitt, CBAP^®, NueVista Group

It is commonplace in the life of a business analyst to receive requirements mixed with the customer’s solution. Often it is hard to tell where the solution ends and the requirements begin. When this happens the business analyst is faced with the tough task of getting the customers to take the time to discuss what the requirements really are. In this workshop, the facilitator will provide a framework for managing the situation where a customer has provided a solution instead of requirements. Often the difficulty is that the customer does not even know the difference. When it is brought up, the customers may resist further discussion from a fear of failure or a misunderstanding about the value of working through requirements before developing a solution. The initial work is establishing the context for the conversation and framing the questions needed to move the customer to think about the requirements.

Learning Objectives:

Manage customer anxiety about discussing requirements when they are more interested in the solution
Distinguish requirements/problem statements from solution statements
Identify the five steps to uncover the requirements when a solution is presented

Speaker Biography: David De Witt, Practice Director for NueVista Group’s IT Leadership Practice, has more than 25 years experience in organizational leadership, management consulting, and Information Systems optimization in a number of industries, including supply chain and third party logistics, financial services, and telecommunications. He has mentored companies and facilitated cross-functional, multi-level work groups through many kinds of projects, including process improvement and business requirements development. He holds the Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP^®) designation from the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA^®) and currently serves as Vice President, Relationships and Marketing for the Chicagoland IIBA^® Chapter. He has served on the Board of Directors, Midwest Facilitators Network, and Advisor to the College of Business, Indiana State University. A graduate of Furman University, Greenville, SC, he earned his Doctorate at Tulane University in New Orleans.

Contextual Inquiry: Defining Requirements by Understanding How Users Really Work

Presented by Larry Marturano, InContext Design

We introduce Contextual Inquiry, a customer data gathering method widely used in the design field to shadow users and capture real world behaviors and values using structured methods, show how this data can be used to define requirements, and show how prototypes and iterative testing can be used to validate requirements with end users so that incorrect or missing requirements can be caught in the front end, where they are easier to correct.

Learning Objectives:

Understand why contextual methods are an important augmentation to SME interviews, focus groups and other "workshop" elicitation methods
See how shadowing, contextual inquiry and prototyping relate to the latest BABOK release
Learn how Contextual Inquiry can be applied as a BA tool in the course of requirements elicitation

Speaker Biography: Larry brings both a passion for user centered design and a multi-disciplinary skill set to his work, built upon over twenty years of design and technology development. Larry applies his project management, user centered design and technical skills in matching clients’ strategic needs with InContext’s coaching and design services, fostering client relationships, as well as leading individual Contextual Design projects. Prior to joining InContext, Larry spent twenty years at Motorola Labs, where he led numerous technology research and development projects, specializing in the successful commercialization of advanced research, shepherding technology transfer across organizational boundaries. Larry holds a PhD from Northwestern University, and M.S. and B.S. degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, all in electrical engineering. He holds four U.S. patents.

Taking the BA Out of the Box

Presented by Jennifer Battan, CBAP^®, Express Scripts

The role of the BA isn’t simply scribe or order taker. Our job is to dig: to listen to what the stakeholder’s problem is and to help lead them to a solution (or find the requirements that lead us all to the solution). In many cases, we may be successful at digging down to the real problem and write perfectly formed requirements to help solve that problem, but does our role end there? Can we add value to our projects by giving teams a jolt out of old habits? There is a tool in your BA tool kit that may be collecting a little bit of dust. See it? It’s over in the corner under the use case. Let’s reach in, dust off and apply our creative thinking and creative problem solving skills to our role as business analysts. Creative problem solving techniques can be used to reframe a problem, efficiently lead to a fresh perspective that causes a solution to become obvious or simply increase the quantity of ideas.

Learning Objectives:

Understand mental rigidity and other barriers to creative thinking
Learn how we can use creative thinking techniques to lead project teams to innovative and powerful solutions
Identify and practice 12 creative thinking techniques you can apply to the process of business analysis

Speaker Biography: Jennifer Battan is a Certified Business Analysis Professional™ with experience in requirements analysis and process reengineering. In addition to project work as a Senior Business Analyst at Express Scripts, Inc., Jennifer chairs the Business Analysis Center of Excellence steering committee, leads an SDLC Professional Development group, and mentors BAs. She has developed processes and best practices and is the ‘go to’ trainer and presenter for business analysis topics within the ESI community. Prior to Express Scripts, Jennifer worked on two enterprise level systems at Data Recognition Corporation. She also wore several hats at CarSoup.com. Jennifer is a CBAP®, having earned the designation within the first year it was offered. She is President-Elect of the IIBA® Minneapolis-St. Paul Chapter and was on the Practitioner Review Committee for version 2.0 of the BABOK®.

Beyond Listening to Users

Presented by Tsun Chow, Capella University

Traditional methods of requirements elicitation such as brain-storming, document analysis, interview, surveys and focus groups are based on listening to users. Users may not always tell the truth. Sometimes they do it intentionally, while other times they do it by omission. Methods such as observations or protocol analysis may be used to supplement traditional methods of requirement elicitation. The presentation will explain how to apply observations and protocol analysis. Their strengths and weaknesses will also be examined.

Learning Objectives:

Understand the limitation of listening to users
Identify how to apply observation to find out what users do
Understand how to apply protocol analysis to find out what users think

Speaker Biography: Tsun Chow, faculty in the School of Business and Technology, Capella University. Prior joining Capella, Dr. Chow spent 20 years experience in IT and IT Management, with the last 7 years as an executive in a Fortune 100 company. His background covers managing all aspects of IT, including infrastructure, operations, technical support, applications development and vendor relationships. His current research interest is in outsourcing, IT management and virtual communities on the Web. He received his Bachelor's in Computer Science from the UCLA and his PhD in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley. He also completed Business Executive Programs at Harvard, Columbia and Stanford.

Room to Breathe: The Vital Role of the BA in Shaping Early Project Effort Expectations

Presented by Robert Merrill, uFunctional LLC

Too many projects start with two strikes against them. In organizations with a gated process, or project contracting firms, project cost and schedule expectations or even commitments are often established before a project is even approved and a PM assigned. Because the first project team member on the scene is often a Business Analyst, and because total effort is significantly correlated, somehow, to the requirements, BAs are ideally placed to make sure their projects have room to breathe. It's a place we should relish, because with our analytical and facilitative skills, we're often the best suited to help shape realistic expectations. Most people shrink back from project estimation, but with the right concepts and skills, you won't have to. And your teammates and your organization will thank you for it (most of the time).

Learning Objectives:

Facilitate better Analogous and Expert-Judgment estimates using "the squeeze”
Present an estimate and the sources of uncertainty in it, and facilitate the negotiation of realistic expectations and commitments
Know how to prepare and use a requirements-driven project history database for Parametric estimation

Speaker Biography: Robert Merrill is an independent consultant helping non-technical and technical people in Madison, WI area organizations maximize the value of their software development activities. Robert's first career was as a meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center and the UW's Space Science and Engineering Center, doing basic and applied research and software development for both organizations. Robert then spent 10 years with Berbee, beginning as a software engineer and ending as a senior sales engineer responsible for scoping and estimating ecommerce and other custom web applications. Robert holds a PhD in Atmospheric Science and a recent graduate certificate in Bioinformatics.

Don’t Just Talk, Be Heard! In Action!

Presented by David Levin

David Levin's keynote was full of great ideas, but now what? How can you apply them to YOUR situation? Come to this session and find out! It's a live coaching session where attendees will share questions and situations, and David will provide specific ideas and feedback for how the situation might be improved with a different approach. Bring your communication examples, situations, and questions, and be ready to work! (Come even if you don't have a situation you want to share. There's a lot to be learned from hearing solutions to other's situations, too.)

Learning Objectives:

Learn to apply general communication principles to individual situations
Identify common threads between individual's communication issues
Gain an experiential understanding of the benefits of feedback and planning

Speaker Biography: David Levin is the author of Don’t Just talk, Be Heard! Closing the Gap Between What You Say and What People Hear. He works with people who want to have more impact and influence in their work, and with teams who want to communicate better on a daily basis. David is also co-author, with John G. Miller, of the bestselling QBQ! The Question Behind the Question, Flipping the Switch, and Outstanding! 47 Ways to Make Your Organization Exceptional.

Business Analyst’s Guide to Leveraging Business Architecture

***Presented by David Heidt , CBAP^®, IIBA^® Chicagoland Chapter***

Recently, Business Architecture has become a buzzword used by vendors and pundits to try to engage the business at an Enterprise Analysis level. Past efforts to define business architecture have been focused on primarily defining a business process layer within Enterprise Architecture. Although many are excited about the possibility of new roles within corporations called the Business Architect, the reality is, for better or worse, many in BA and PM roles are involved in some form of business architecting. Business architecture is very much about leveraging business analysis techniques in support of portfolio, program and project management. This session walks through the practical value that business architecture can bring to PMOs and Business Analysts in their work to operationalize an organization’s strategic goals.

Learning Objectives:

What is business architecture
How does business architecting related to my work as a business analyst and project manager
What resources are there to help my organization leverage business architecture the right way

Speakers Biography: David Heidt is president of the IIBA^® Chicagoland Chapter. David’s focus is on tailoring business analysis frameworks where integrated business processes, rules and automation specifications are keys to increasing business agility and reducing operational costs. He is instrumental in the roll-out of the Business Change Ecosystem which includes the Business Analysis and Architecture Maturity Models (theBAMM.org) along with the Business Engineering Framework which guides mentoring and leadership activities for clients in the areas of business analysis, rules-driven business process management and business process transformation. Frequently presenting and writing on the topics of business analysis, architecture, process and rules, he provides mentoring and leadership services for Fortune 1000 clients. He is an advisory board member at Northwestern University for their Business Analyst certificate program, an IIBA^® Endorsed Educational Provider and a member of the OMG’s Business Architecture Working Group.

The 5 BA Musts for a COTS Project

***Presented by Barbara Carkenord, CBAP^®, B2T Training***

Most organizations buy application software to save time and money over internal software development. Business Analysts are frequently involved in package selection, customization, implementation, and upgrade projects for these COTS (Commercial Off the Shelf) packages. Choosing to buy a software application rather than develop it appears to reduce the need for business analysis and requirements but in reality analysis is a critical component of successful implementations. BAs are often shut out of the selection process when requirements should be developed upfront, before selection of the package. Analysis work also includes determination of the differences (gaps) between it and the true business needs, decisions about what changes to make (customizations), and development an implementation plan to smooth the transition. Business analysts also must learn to communicate clearly with business users about the functions, features, and benefits of using pre-defined software.

Learning Objectives:

Learn to perform gap analysis between business requirements and the COTS package
Learn to identify interfaces and perform interface analysis
Consider the true costs of customization vs. functionality sacrifices

Speaker Biography: Barbara Carkenord, CBAP^®, has over 25 years experience in business analysis and project management. Barbara is the author of Seven Steps to Mastering Business Analysis and was a core team contributor to the IIBA^® BABOK^®. Barbara possesses an MBA from University of Michigan and began her career in the Information Technology area as a programmer, systems analyst, business analyst, and project manager. She is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and has authored many articles on business analysis. Actively involved in the IIBA^®, Barbara is currently writing a chapter for a new IIBA^®book, Managing Business Analysis.

Working Successfully with an Increasingly Diverse Workforce

Presented by Paula Bell, Wells Fargo, & Heather Mylan-Mains, Farmers Mutual Hail

More and more we find ourselves, as business analysts, working with a diverse workforce. Diverse not only by ethnicity but by different skill sets, personalities, approaches and more. In some instance these differences can present challenges to the business analysts and the project teams. This course will provide best practices, lessons learned, hands on activities and strategies on how to leverage these differences to get the information needed for project succession. Business Analysis is a balancing act and we will learn how to balance diversity to maximize project results.

Learning Objectives:

Understand tools on how to leverage differences to produce success
Make diversity an asset on your project team
Balance the needs of the business and IT partners you work with

Speaker Biography: Paula Bell is originally from Brooklyn, NY and currently resides in Des Moines, Iowa. Paula started her career in 1997 as a software engineer intern for Prevue Networks. In 1999 she graduated from Oral Roberts University with a Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems. Once she completed college she moved to Atlanta, GA and after a few months landed a job with Shaw Industries as an Integration Specialist, which included her wearing multiple hats as a project manager, business analyst, technical writer, developer, testing and implementation lead. She continued wearing multiple hats until she moved to Raleigh, NC where she realized her true passion was Business Analysis. While in North Carolina she received her B2T certification for business analysis.

Speaker Biography: Heather Mylan-Mains is from Des Moines Iowa. Heather has worked as a Business Analyst long before there was a formal title. For the past 15 years, she has worked with a variety of product teams and challenges in the financial services and insurance industries. Her experience includes new system development, disaster recovery, time management and more. She is a stimulus for change as President of Central Iowa Chapter of the IIBA^®. She has a passion for sharing the power of the Business Analyst role and promoting the importance of that role in every business. Heather is a natural collaborator in her BA role and engages people at all levels in organizations. Heather has a BA in Accounting from Grand View College and an MBA from Drake University.

Business Analysis Through Improvisation

Presented by Jonathan "Kupe" Kupersmith, CBAP^®, B2T Training

Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment. Talking and reacting in the moment is the core of what you do as a business analyst. Much of what happens on a project is unscripted. To propel to the senior level of your profession you need to continually improve your creative thinking skills and how you interact and communicate with your stakeholders.

Learning Objectives:

The ability to think on your feet and keep a conversation moving forward
Learn lessons that will help you establish and strengthen your relationships
Gain confidence and trust in yourself and others

Speaker Biography: Kupe Kupersmith, VP of Brand Development, B2T Training, possesses over 12 years of experience in software systems development. He has served as the lead Business Analyst and Project Manager on projects in the utility, television and sports management and marketing industries. Kupe was the first president of the Atlanta IIBA^® chapter. He is a Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP^®) through the IIBA^® and is BA Certified through B2T Training. Kupe is a trained improvisational actor and performed for years in clubs around Atlanta. Now he improvises every day at work and at home. Kupe is a connector and has a goal in life to meet everyone!

Facilitating Requirements Gathering

Presented by Gary Rush, IAF CPF, MGR Consulting

Gary Rush will facilitate 12 of the attendees in developing a process model or a data model for event management (participants will determine). The remaining attendees will be observers of the facilitated workshop. The facilitated workshop will have the participants role-play as clients and business analysts as Gary facilitates them to build the model. This live action facilitation will demonstrate the value and power of facilitating requirements gathering. The session will conclude with questions and answers from the participants and the audience.

Learning Objectives:

Understand how facilitation enables Business Analysts to gather requirements effectively
Incorporate facilitation concepts into their practice
Describe how clients behave when involved in a facilitated workshop

Speaker Biography: Gary Rush, IAF CPF, Founder and President of MGR Consulting has written numerous “how to” books and continues to be the leader in the field of facilitation and Facilitator training. He is Chair of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF). Gary created FoCuSeD™ – the next revolution in structured facilitation. The FoCuSeD™ Facilitator Academy is the most complete, most comprehensive, and most effective facilitation class providing detailed training on the concepts of Holistic Facilitation. His facilitation technique is used widely around the world and his alumni are amongst the most successful. Gary teaches effective Facilitative Skills to Project Managers, Business Analysts, and others who want to become successful collaborative leaders and successfully improve communication to achieve commitment and support from stakeholders. His primary job is to get a group of individuals to form as a team, learn to communicate, and achieve a goal or accomplish a task. MGR Consulting is a PMI R.E.P. and an IIBA^® E.E.P.