1. Introductions

• Course programme
• Course objectives
• Introductions to participants and trainer
  

• The relationship of requirements engineering to business objectives
• Derivation of business and technical requirements from business needs

3. The requirements engineering process

• A framework for requirements engineering
• Requirements engineering in the systems development lifecycle
• The importance of project initiation

4. Actors and viewpoints

• Stakeholders in systems development projects
• Actors in the requirements engineering process
• Reconciling different interest groups

5. Types of system requirements

• Functional and non-functional requirements
• Technical and general requirements
• The importance of capturing all requirements

6. The range of requirements elicitation techniques

• Observation and ethnographic studies
• Activity sampling
• Document and data source analysis
• Questionnaires
• Choosing the appropriate technique/s

7. Interviewing (theory)

• Structure of a fact-finding interview
• Questioning techniques
• Documenting interviews

8. Interviewing (practical)

• Case study briefing
• Interviewing exercises
• Interviewing – wash-up and feedback
• Identifying requirements from interviews

9. Scenarios

• The use of scenarios to explore requirements
• Use case descriptions as a method of documenting scenarios

10. Prototyping

• The use of prototyping to explore requirements
• Types of prototyping (throwaway, evolutionary etc.)
• The dangers and difficulties of prototyping
• Managing prototyping exercises

11. Documenting requirements and existing systems

• The requirements catalogue
• Documenting an existing system with data flow models

12. Facilitated workshops and creative thinking

• The use of workshops to elicit, analyse and negotiate requirements
• Structure of a facilitated workshop
• Workshop roles
• Facilitation skills
• Stimulating creative thinking
• Practical exercise

13. Analysing requirements

• Examining the requirements catalogue
• Prioritising requirements (MoSCoW)
• Checking for ambiguity and lack of clarity
• Testability of requirements.

14. Validating requirements

• Validation techniques
• Quality control in requirements engineering

15. Requirements management

• Controlling requirements engineering projects
• Change control and requirements engineering
• Requirements traceability
• The use of CASE tools in requirements engineering

ISEB certificates

• This Capturing & Engineering Requirements training course covers the syllabi of two certificates – Business Systems Investigation and Requirements Engineering – offered by the Information Systems Examinations Board (ISEB). On course completion, participants will be ready for the one-hour examinations that lead to these certificates. Each certificate also earns two credits towards the ISEB diplomas in Systems Analysis and Design and Business Analysis.