Requirements Engineering

Requirements engineering is one of the key competencies of a business analyst. Practices in this area enable the development of a cohesive and comprehensive solution concept that meets specific business needs. Requirements engineering encompasses a whole set of practices and techniques—not just gathering information or analyzing requirements. It also involves specification, requirements management, and ensuring quality. All of these practices should be appropriately planned and executed to achieve the set goals at the right level of quality. In this chapter, readers will learn the principles of requirements elicitation and understand the main sources of requirements—because there are many, not just stakeholders. They will also learn the principles of planning requirements elicitation activities. Additionally, the chapter will describe practices of requirements analysis and modeling, examples of requirements specifications indicating what information should be included in requirements documentation. Readers will understand what to pay attention to when documenting requirements and what forms requirements documentation can take. They will also become familiar with guidelines and checklists to design their approach to requirements specification. Furthermore, the chapter will present basic practices in requirements management—with particular emphasis on tracing dependencies and managing change. Readers will learn various ways of defining and maintaining traceability, starting from determining artifacts whose development should be monitored through the traceability mechanism. Part of requirements management processes involves ensuring quality. Readers will learn how to control the quality of requirements and other analytical artifacts, what to focus on when creating and evaluating work products, and how to engage the team to achieve the best results possible. The chapter will be complemented by examples and case studies illustrating the discussed topics.