Week 8 1

Requirements engineering

Can you do that as a job?

Not a job so much as

a role.

Week 8 2

RE is a role in different jobs

� Business Analyst

� Business Systems Analyst

� Systems Analyst

� Requirements engineer?

� Software architect

� Product designer

� Product manager

� Project manager

� ...

Week 8 3

Business analyst skills

� Interviewing stakeholders

� Independent fact-finding

� Asking ‘why’ without always using the word why

� Conceptual modelling

� Going from abstract to detail and back again

� Communicating details and concepts

� Same as a Systems Analyst?

Week 8 4

PRODUCT

MANAGEMENT AS A

REQUIREMENTS

ENGINEERING ROLE?

But, how about

Week 8 5

Product management

� Defined as ‘‘the discipline and role which governs a product

◦ (or solution or service)

� from its inception

� to the market/customer delivery

� in order to generate biggest possible

value to the business”

A discipline

� Back in 1995, Netscape had a market share of 80%.

� By 1997 this had begun to slide until…

� In 2003, Netscape went bankrupt.

� Why?

� “We had no product management, it was just a collection of features.”

Week 8 6

Product managers do product management� Work mostly in large companies

� Work typically with mature ‘in-use’ products

◦ Products that are undergoing evolution, revision and re-development

� So, typically not in product innovation

Nothing new under the sun

“What has been is what will be,and what has been done is what will be done,and there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there a thing of which it is said,“See, this is new”?It has been alreadyin the ages before us.”

Ecclesiastes 1:4-11

Week 8 7

Software product management (SPM) � ‘‘The process of managing requirements,

defining releases, and defining products in a context where many internal and external stakeholders are involved.”

� So the software product manager is the keeper of the requirements

� In a market-oriented requirements situation.

Different situations regarding requirements

�Market-oriented

◦Cases 2, 3, etc.

�Solution-oriented

◦Cases, 4, 5, 6, etc.

�Problem-oriented

◦Cases 1, 7, etc.

Week 8 8

Market-oriented

A product � Defined as:

� “something that delivers value to its users”

� Can combine systems, solutions, materials and services.

Week 8 9

A Service

� “an intangible temporary product

� delivered to a client

� the result of co-creating value

� at the interface between the client and supplier”

� Software can be a product

� Or delivered as a service (SaaS).

If you are a product manager.

Week 8 10

TO DISCOVER VALUE

Main Aim of the Product manager is

Week 8 11

Two aspects of Value

1. Customer value

2. Business value

� Business value is the value of a product to the company that produces it

� Business value depends on customer value which is the value a product has for the customer.

� Or the value a service has for the client.

Discovering value

� Recognising that which the customers or clients (will) value

� Something that matters to the company's stakeholders

� Something that can be turned into revenue for the company.

Week 8 12

Product manager

� Aims to discover and manage both types of value

� Works closely with Marketing

� Making decisions that will help to promote the company’s product(s)

� But not working in marketing.

� Not a marketing manager

� Not a project manager either.

Key questions – guess who

� Role A: How can I sell more of this product?

� Role B: How do I get this product finished with the available resources?

� Role C: How do I improve the products we sell to the customers?

Week 8 13

Tools for the Product manager

� Business case

◦ A cost-benefit analysis justifying a recommended feature or product improvement

� Requirements document

◦ Take your pick…

� Product roadmap

◦ Past, Present and Future requirements

◦ Priorities among requirements

◦ Allocation of features and enhancements to product releases.

Product manager responsibilities

Discover

value

Manage

requirements

Week 8 14

REQUIREMENTS MANAGEMENT

As distinct from requirements development

Requirements “attributes”

� Identifier

� Creation date

� Revision number

� Author

� Origin/source/rationale

� Status…

� Allocated to sub-system X

� Allocated to release Y

� Priority…

� Stability…

Week 8 15

The status of a requirement

�Proposed

�Approved

�Verified

�Tested

�Implemented

�Delivered

�Deleted� The life cycle of a requirement?

Requirements Priority� Some requirements are more important

than others◦ Must have these ◦Would like to have those ◦ Nice to have…

� Different stakeholders have different priorities (maybe for each different requirement)

� Priorities are not inherent in requirements, they are◦ Decided by people◦ Assigned by people◦ Maybe arbitrarily?

� Priority numbers help to keep track.

Week 8 16

Different Approaches to Priority

� Karlsson and Ryan – the Cost-Value approach

◦ Take your requirements two at a time

◦ Assign a relative cost and a relative value to each requirement

◦ Get the ratio of these two

◦ Apply a sorting algorithm

� Or forget about that, just assign priority numbers or codes, such as...

Various Priority Coding schemes

� For example, find out for each requirement is it:

◦ Must have,

◦Would like to have,

◦ Nice to have

� (ECO) Essential, conditional, or optional

� DuBLiN

◦ (definitely have, better have, like to have, not have)

� MoSCoW

◦ (must, should, could, won’t)

� high, medium, low; or critical, important, useful.

� 1,2,3,4 or 5

Week 8 17

But...

� For example, find out for each requirement is it:

◦ Must have,

◦Would like to have,

◦ Nice to have

According

to which

(set of)

stakeholders