Recognizing and controlling requirements risk

Course Code: 1934

$1495

Overview
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What you'll learn
Outline
Prerequisites
Who should attend

Overview

This course surveys more than 50 safety tactics to help participants understand how to develop an effective requirements risk management strategy. The course provides participants with hands-on experience of some safety tactics, helping them learn how to avoid failures, how to mitigate the impact of defects, how to minimize communication problems and how to monitor the status as well as master the tactics for staffing, planning and preparing for requirements risk management.

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Course Delivery

This course is available in the following formats:

Live Classroom
Duration: 3 days

Live Virtual Classroom
Duration: 3 days

What You'll learn

Understand the nature of requirements risk and the need to control it
Avoid requirements-based failures by reconfirming needs and feasibility, managing customer expectations, prioritizing requirements, and incrementally committing to a project
Mitigate the impact of requirements-based defects by requiring frequent demos, decoupling vision from build, and building in multilane cycles
Minimize communication problems using rich definitions, algebraic formulas, spec patterns, and picture requirements information
Monitor requirements status by tracking requirements instability and growth, the accuracy of assumptions, and stakeholder participation
Identify unclear, imprecise, and missing information using requirements analysis and reviews with stakeholders
Staff for requirements development by building a cross-functional team and practicing team success factors
Plan for requirements risk management by eliciting meta-requirements, by brainstorming risks, risk indicators, and root causes, and by developing a requirements risk management strategy
Prepare for requirements risk management by formulating a baseline requirements development process, providing tools, developing defect and root cause profiles, and conducting requirements retrospectives

Outline

Module 1: Why is requirements development so hard?

Challenge of communication
Why review and analysis don’t fit find most defects
Role of human factors
Why requirements are dangerous

Module 2: Types of requirement risk

Application risk
Stakeholder risk
Process risk
Resource risk
Change risk
Implementation risk
Defect risk
Exercise: Participants identify their requirements risks. Then, teams share their risks with the entire group.

Module 3: Requirements risk management

Recognizing requirements risk
Forecasting project-specific dangers
Developing a strategy
Monitoring reality

Module 4: Safety tactics 1 – Avoid requirements-based failures

Reconfirm reality and satisfiability of stated needs
Triage and prioritize requirements
Manage customer expectations
Reconfirm project feasibility or reduce scope
Identify and resolve conflicts early
Commit incrementally
Exercise: The entire group identifies challenges of incremental commitment — why might it be hard?

Module 5: Safety tactics 2 – Mitigating impact of requirements-based problems

Require frequent demos of understanding
Decouple vision from build
Prototype unfamiliar functions and interfaces
Subdivide project scope
Build in multilane cycles

Module 6: Safety tactics 3a – Minimizing communication problems

Maintain a climate of safety and respect
Document assumptions
Mark intentional imprecision
Use rich definitions
Use derived values rather than “magic numbers”
Identify user types and create user personas
Clarify with examples and measures
Structure information with spec patterns
Picture requirements information
Capture context
Exercise: Teams create rich definitions including a derived value, quality profile, and action contract. Team definitions are shared with the entire group.
Exercise: Teams replace a “magic number” with a derived value.
Exercise: Teams create a state transition table and then share with the entire group.

Module 7: Safety tactics 3b – Minimizing other problems

Improve results of current requirements development process
Identify minimal sets of marketable features
Focus on quality and environmental requirements early
Identify impacts and mitigation strategies
Analyze benefits, risks, priority, and cost of proposed requirements and changes

Module 8: Safety tactics 4 – Monitoring requirements status

Monitor requirements instability and growth
Monitor accuracy of assumptions, expectations, and priorities
Monitor stakeholder participation
Use workshops to find issues early
Incrementally review long specifications
Identify unclear, imprecise, and missing information
Estimate defect risk
Verify satisfaction arguments of derived requirements
Track requirements defects
Analyze and classify requirements defects and root causes
Exercise: The entire group interprets requirements change measures.

Module 9: Safety tactics 5 – Staffing for requirements development

Build cross-functional team
Supplement with outside knowledge, skill, and experience
Replace underperformers and disruptors
Train stakeholders in technical communication
Immerse stakeholders

Module 10: Safety tactics 6 – Planning for requirements risk management

Elicit meta-requirements
Brainstorm risks and tactics
Identify risk indicators and root causes
Customize requirements development and specification strategy
Customize, carry out, and monitor requirements risk management strategy
Exercise: Team brainstorms risks and tactics for a case study and then share results with the entire group