A focus on requirements is a key aspect of business analysis.
What is requirements definition?
Identifying, capturing, clarifying, and documenting the needs and expectations of stakeholders in relation to the development and delivery of a product or service.
In the context of local government transformation, requirements definition is most often carried out when there is a need to develop, or change software, or to deliver use cases that enable data insights.
A well-defined set of requirements is an essential foundation in the development of solutions that meet stakeholder expectations.
Knowledge
- Contextual awareness.
- How to implement and / or follow effective governance.
- Understanding of different requirement capture methods, techniques, templates, and tools.
- Understanding of different requirement types including functional and non-functional.
- Understanding of different project delivery approaches, including Agile and waterfall and the different requirements definition approaches needed for each.
- Understanding of best practice principles and approaches to service design and user research.
- Technological awareness.
Skills
Able to:
- Think strategically: Ensuring requirements align with the overall strategic objectives of the organisation and consider key constraints.
- Manage stakeholders: Identifying and working with stakeholders to understand their needs, drivers, and priorities.
- Elicit requirements: Gather information from stakeholders including end users and subject matter experts via workshops, surveys, one to one interviews and observation to understand their needs and expectations.
- Analyse data: To understand current service use and pain points, commonality in need and to enable prioritisation.
- Document requirements: In sufficient detail to ensure that the expectation is unambiguous, and the success or acceptance criteria is clear.
- Validate requirements: Collaborating with stakeholders to confirm that what has been documented accurately meets their needs.
- Work at pace, with attention to detail: To ensure efficient requirements definition.
- Analyse and prioritise requirements: Ensuring requirements are prioritised in support of business objectives, considering dependencies.
- Manage conflicting needs: Where requirements overlap or conflict with one another, work with stakeholders to de-conflict requirements, focused on delivering the overall outcome.
- Manage requirements and ensure traceability: Linking requirements back to related documentation including design and testing documents.
- Manage change: Work within project or programme governance to ensure changes to requirements are well managed, documented and fully traceable.
- Communicate and collaborate effectively: With stakeholders at all levels, including technical and non-technical teams.
- Manage risk: Understand the risks associated with the requirement capture process and any risks created by requirements themselves, ensuring these are reflected in the risk register appropriately.
- Be emotionally intelligent: Recognise, understand, and use emotional responses effectively in the achievement of outcomes.
Behaviours
Behaviours associated with requirement definition require team members to be:
- Collaborative
- Precise
- Analytical
- Solution focused
- Open minded
- Curious
- Positive
- Empathetic
- Inclusive
- Constructively challenging
- Organised
- Adaptable and pragmatic
- Committed to continual learning
Business analysis – maturity index
A related business analysis maturity index has been created to enable councils to understand their current maturity and to set, and work towards, a target state. This can be downloaded below.