BA02 - Gathering and Documenting Requirements with Use Cases

Over the course of a case-study project, trainees gain experience facilitating requirements-gathering workshops and creating textual use-case documentation with supporting diagrams.

Course Outline

Summary

Learn state-of-the-art practices for gathering and documenting user requirements
based on the use-case approach. Over the course of a case-study project, trainees gain experience facilitating requirements-gathering workshops and creating textual use-case documentation with supporting diagrams.

The course covers what the Business Analyst needs to know to plan and execute each requirementsgathering session as the project progresses, including, for each session: meeting goals, agenda, who to invite, artifacts, etc. The course walks the trainee through the project starting from business use-case sessions that focus on the business context through to system use cases that focus on user-IT interactions. Trainees also learn advanced techniques for structuring use cases (extending,
generalized and included use cases) that result in requirements documentation that is easy to revise as business rules change.

Why Attend this Course?

Use cases are the state-of-the-art approach to capturing, analyzing and documenting user requirements.
– The clear style and organization of use cases makes them well-suited for deriving test cases and for communicating with both business stakeholders and developers. In addition, use cases are a central component of iterative development
methodologies such as IBM’s RUP and Microsoft’s MSF.

Many BAs are not sure how to write use-cases.
– This course provides explicit, detailed instruction and hands-on experience in the writing, numbering and organization of the textual requirements.

Many BAs are unclear about the level of user requirements to capture at each phase of a project.
– This course provides clear, actionable guidance regarding how much detail to elicit from stakeholders at each point in the project.

User requirements can become hard to organize when there is a high number of system use cases involved.
– This course provides tips for organizing use-cases into use-case packages.

Small changes to the business environment can lead to big changes in the documentation when the user requirements are not optimally organized.
– This course provides detailed instruction in the use of advanced documentation features (extensions, inclusions and
generalizations) that help keep each fact in one place, making the documentation easier to revise when changes occur in
the business.

Many BAs lack experience in facilitating use-case requirements workshops.
– In this course, trainees gain experience acting as facilitators for their group as they progress through an integrated casestudy
project.

What Makes this Course Stand Apart?

The best course for learning what questions to ask stakeholders when.
– Learn what you need to ask stakeholders at each stage of the project.

Trainees learn by doing – by developing a case study in ‘real time’; each technique is learned in the context in which it is used.

Full-spectrum approach that begins with business use cases
Group facilitation sessions provide in-depth experience in using a team-based approach to development.

2 courses in one:

– Many of our competitors offer one course in requirements gathering and another in use-cases. Rather than teach you hard-to-apply general rules for requirements analysis that require a follow-up course, we teach the topic once – the right way. In one course you learn how to capture requirements with detailed guidance for doing it using today’s most popular approach – use cases.

Includes valuable take-home materials: Comprehensive printed material including valuable job aids, examples, glossaries, tips, the Noble Path, as well as agendas and lists of questions for each type of interview session.

The course content draws from direct experience working in a variety of sectors, including banking, accounting, call centers, education and NGOs.

Focused content: includes the practical tools and techniques most commonly used to get the job done.

Audience

• IT Business Analysts
• Project Leaders
• Facilitators who will be leading requirements gathering sessions
• Business Users who will be explaining business requirements to software developers
• Systems Analysts expanding their role into the business realm.

Class Format

• Working in small interview teams, trainees facilitate requirements-gathering sessions and document requirements for an end-to-end case study, learning what types of interviews, questions and techniques are appropriate for each phase of the IT project.
• The approach is presented in an easy-to-follow step-by-step plan.
• Each step is introduced and demonstrated by the instructor. Trainees follow by actively facilitating and participating in requirements-gathering sessions.

Objectives
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Facilitate requirements-gathering sessions with Business and System Use Cases.
• Examine the impact of the project on the enterprise through business use-case analysis.
• Create detailed textual requirements using a Use-Case Description Template.
• Decrease software bugs and omissions introduced in the analysis phase of your project – by employing advanced use-case techniques that reduce redundancies and inconsistencies in the documentation.
• Facilitate communication of user requirements between business stakeholders and the solution provider.
• Model who-does-what with use-case diagrams.
• Understand how use cases are used in the context of iterative development.
• Link other relevant material to use cases – such as business entities, non-functional requirements and activity diagrams.

Content

• Introduction to Use Cases
> History of Use Cases
> Use Cases and the Business Requirements Document
> Link to other technologies:
– OO, Iterative development
• Criteria for selecting projects
• Facilitating Requirements – Gathering Sessions with Use Cases:
> Rules for conducting use case workshop sessions
> Preparation
> Who should attend
> Roles
>
Defining the Deliverables – When to best introduce and create:
– Stakeholder Interest Table
– Use Case Packages
– Role Maps
– Use Case Diagrams
– Use Case Text
• Analyzing the impact on the Enterprise – Eliciting and documenting end-to-end business processes with business use cases:
> Business use-case diagrams
> Documenting business use cases
– Modeling business use-case workflow with activity diagrams
• Eliciting and documenting user requirements with system use cases
> Use Case Description Template for textual documentation
> Writing guidelines
> How to number the requirements
• Defining the users of the system:
> Role Map
> Defining actors, “generalized” and “specialized” actors
• Working with stakeholders to discover and document system use cases:
> Triggers
> Preconditions
> Postconditions
> Basic (Normal) Flow
> Alternate and Exceptional Flows
• Organizing the documentation for maximum reuse with inclusion, extension and generalized use cases.
• Links to other documentation
> Data dictionary
> Entity classes and class diagrams
> Activity Diagrams
> Non-functional requirements
• Avoiding common errors
• Standard solutions for common situations, e.g.:
> Customer IVR (Interactive Voice Response) identification
> CRUD (Create/Read/Update/Delete a business object)
> Login
> Customer self-service
> Geographical sub-sites within an e-commerce application
• Job Aids containing:
> Templates
> Tips
> Examples
> Glossary of technical terms

This course addresses the following BABOK knowledge areas and tasks:

Business Analysis Planning and Monitoring

The course provides guidance in conducting stakeholder analysis in the following
areas: identifying stakeholders and interests; modeling business stakeholders and their relationships to business processes (business use cases) and user tasks supported by the IT solution. Guidance is also provided in planning use-case analysis activities and communication events over the project lifecycle.

Elicitation

The course provides hands-on experience conducting elicitation activities, guidance in structuring the interview and lists of questions for elicitation events over the lifecycle.

Requirements Management and Communication

The course provides guidance and experience maintaining requirements for reuse
with included, extending and generalized use cases.

Enterprise Analysis

The course provides guidance and experience in modeling business use cases in order to analyze As-Is and To-Be business processes and identify gaps. The course also covers the definition of the IT solution scope using system use cases.

Requirements Analysis

The course provides guidance and experience in organizing requirements by groupingsystem use cases into packages and by mapping the behavioural, use-case model to other project components and artifacts. Guidance in specifying and modeling requirements is provided through the definition of user classes (actors) with a role map and through the following BABOK 2 techniques listed for this KA: Process Modeling (business use cases); Scenarios and Use Cases. The course also provides guidance in verifying the user requirements expressed in the behavioural model against rules expressed in the structural model.

Solution Assessment and Validation

The course provides guidance and experience in validating the solution by deriving
test cases from use cases.

Additional Details

Pre-Requisites

Certificates offered

Duration - 2 days CDUs (Continuing Development Units): 14 BABOK Compliance: BABOK Release 2

Cancellation Policy

Map & Reviews

CTE Solutions
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CTE Solutions Toronto
77 Bloor St West
suite 1406
Toronto, Ontario
Canada   M5S 1M2

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This course was great, very informative, had Lionel as instructor and he was also very good.

Reviewed by Robin T. 2012

   

Instructor was eager to assist but lacked subject matter expertise. Course time management was very poor. Content provided could have been delivered effectively in a one day course.

Reviewed by Inta N. 2012

   

Good Course, good trainer. All questions addressed equally and in a timely professional manner.

Reviewed by Joe L. 2011

   

The course content was interesting; however, the instructor didn't have enough knowledge about Microsoft Sharepoint 2010 Development and wasn't able to answer questions without google search. In the future CTE needs to make sure the instructors have real on-hands experience and are highly trained in the technologies they are supposed be teaching.

Reviewed by Heliana P. 2011