Documenting Project Requirements

Name: Documenting Project Requirements
Author: Jeff Hedrington

Learn to accurately and effectively document all project requirements.

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Course: On-Demand

(soft music) Welcome to Documenting Project Requirements. In these lessons, we will describe required developed documents for gathering project requirements. You'll also discover the importance of producing proper documentation and its relevance to project management life cycles. We will also identify several methods for gathering requirements. Requirements gathering is necessary to develop the project objectives early in the project. This is one area in the project plan where stakeholder involvement and the involvement of subject matter experts are essential. The other area where stakeholder and subject matter expert involvement are critical is in user-acceptable testing to verify the requirements were delivered by the team. A requirement traceability matrix is a valuable tool to ensure each requirement can be tested. Several other information gathering tools and techniques include document analysis, interface analysis, interviews, surveys, focus groups, and facilitated workshops used to gather requirements. Prototype development and demonstrating partial work are becoming more frequently used to verify user interfaces. The business requirements document or BRD is a formal report that details all the business needs and objectives for a new business solution to be created and delivered by the project team. The full document describes what is expected from the team as the project proceeds. in the requirements document, the project team captures the business needs which are opportunities for improvement and pain points, which are weaknesses that the business would like to project to correct or improve. Building a business requirements document with all the requirements provides structure for the project team and helps win the trust of key stakeholders. Use cases, user scenarios, or user stories show business processes and provide insight into the use and operation of a deployed system. They are a step by step listing of the activities performed by system users to accomplish a single function in a written and narrative form, such as workflow diagram. A use case will at minimum include all the actors or devices in the scenario, any preconditions that must exist or triggers to start the story, the main tasks or function steps performed by each story, the system information that the actor requires, produces or changes, and conditions for when the use case ends successfully or as a failure. Occurrence state model is a process model and workflow diagram that shows business processes as they currently exist. The model may be built by business analysts and subject matter experts. Once the current state as is model is developed and reviewed, then the future state model delivers the potential workflow and shows improvement suggested by subject matter experts. Some common themes for improvements include reducing wasted steps in the process, reducing the time involved in certain steps in the process, providing more complete information to a person doing the work, removing obstacles or challenges in the existing process, and providing better service to the customer and motivate employees. The process of building current state and future state models provides guidance for the project team. It's also a useful exercise to draw out requirements by showing business needs from expert generated improvements. The group building the future state model uses their experience and creativity to make a weak process better. In looking ahead to design, the project team works with the functional business areas to gather business rules and requirements about the data necessary for the solution. Business rules are statements that describe criteria and conditions for making a business decision. Stakeholder mapping is a part of stakeholder analysis and is built by the project team to determine the level of stakeholder involvement and guide communication planning for the project. This same stakeholder map can be used for requirements planning. It can also be used as a starting point to plan out the approach and working sessions by groups to gather requirements. Generally, it is more difficult to gather requirements in a large group. It's easier to break the stakeholders up with work sessions of four to eight people to focus on details by topic. After the small work sessions, the project team then brings the full group together to review and finalize requirements. One way of documenting requirements is a requirement traceability matrix or RTM. An RTM enables project managers to monitor project requirements and project objectives by using a table that catalogs the requirements. These requirements are numbered and linked with the project objectives. The purpose of this tracking system is to ensure each requirement is met and that the project team has a way to trace the work related to a requirement throughout the project duration.

Intermediate Provider : Jeff Hedrington 4 Lessons · 18m in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Urdu, Chinese

Course Description

Once you’re able to identify and define project requirements, the next step is to document them. Documenting project requirements is a key step that ensures the requirements are understood and adhered to by everyone on the project team. As a project manager, it’s integral that you’re able to properly document all necessary project requirements at every stage of the project.

In these lessons, you’ll learn how to develop and document project requirements and understand the relevance of requirements-gathering in project management life cycles. You’ll get practical guidance on requirements-gathering strategies to establish a starting set of documents. We will go over the concepts of stakeholder mapping and stakeholder analysis, and demonstrate how these affect documenting requirements. You’ll also discover the importance of producing proper documentation for all teams on the project, various methods and techniques for gathering requirements, and recommended requirements-gathering approaches to use for different groups and projects.

What You'll Learn

Develop project requirements early in the project life cycle
Identify information-gathering tools and techniques
Understand stakeholder mapping and stakeholder analysis
Apply requirements-management processes to gather and validate requirements
Use a requirements traceability matrix
Document project requirements using appropriate methods and techniques

Key Takeaways

Documenting project requirements ensures the requirements are understood and adhered to by everyone on the project team.
As a project manager, properly documenting all necessary project requirements at every stage of the project is integral to the role.
Stakeholder mapping and stakeholder analysis affect how requirements are documented.
Producing proper documentation for all teams on the project is important, and different requirements-gathering approaches are recommended for different groups and projects.
Requirements-gathering is relevant across the project management life cycles.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is this course for?

This course is aimed at project managers, for whom it is integral to be able to properly document all necessary project requirements at every stage of the project.

What does this course cover?

It covers how to develop and document project requirements, the relevance of requirements-gathering in project management life cycles, stakeholder mapping and stakeholder analysis, various methods and techniques for gathering requirements, and recommended requirements-gathering approaches for different groups and projects.

What skills will I gain from this course?

You will build skills in Business Requirements Documentation, Project Documentation, Project Initiation Documentation, Requirements Engineering, Requirements Elicitation, and Requirements Management.

What lessons are included?

The course includes the lessons Defining Documents, The Value of Documentation, Methods and Techniques, and Test Your Knowledge.

What practical guidance does the course provide?

It offers practical guidance on requirements-gathering strategies to establish a starting set of documents, and demonstrates how stakeholder mapping and stakeholder analysis affect documenting requirements.

Professional Certifications and Continuing Education Units (CEUs)

Project Management Institute (PMI®)

Professional Development Units (PDUs): 0.5

Certification Program Categories:

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