Software Requirements Engineering

Lecture:
06
Requirement Workshop
Benefits - Requirements Workshop

• It assists in building an effective team,

committed to one common purpose: the success
of this project
• All stakeholders get their say; no one is left out.
• It helps to form an agreement between the
stakeholders and the development team
• It can expose and resolve political issues that are
interfering with project success
• The output, a preliminary system definition at
the features level, is available immediately

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Preparing for Workshop
• Proper preparation is the key to a
successful workshop
—Selling the Concept:
– By communicating the benefits of the workshop approach
to prospective members of the team
—Ensuring the Participation of the Right
Stakeholders
– These stakeholders will have already been identified
—Attending to Logistics
– Logistics involve everything from structuring the proper
invitation to travel arrangements to the lighting in the
workshop meeting room

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Preparing for Workshop
• Providing Warm-Up Materials: Warm-up
materials should encourages both in-context and
out-of-the-box thinking
—1. Project-specific information (in context)
– This might include drafts of requirements documents,
bulleted lists of suggested features, copies of interviews
with prospective users, analyst's reports on trends in the
industry, letters from customers, bug reports from the
existing system, new marketing data, and so on
—2. Out-of-the-box thinking
– To encouraging attendees to think "out of the box
– Ask to simply bring your insights on the features of
this new project, and be prepared to think 'out of the
box

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See Figure 11-1 Sample memo for kick-
starting a requirements workshop

…………………………………..
Choosing the Facilitator
• If possible, have a facilitator who is not a team
member to run the workshop
• It will reduce the possible biasness which may be
introduced if he is a stakeholder.
• However, if this is simply not practical in your
environment, the workshop could be facilitated
by a team member if that person:
— Has received some training in the process
— Has demonstrated solid consensus-building or team-
building skills
— Is well respected by both the internal and external team
members
— Is strong enough to chair what could be a challenging
meeting
Responsibilities of the Facilitator
• Some of the responsibilities of the facilitator
include the following: -
— Establish a professional and objective tone for the
meeting.
— Start and stop the meeting on time.
— Establish and enforce the "rules" for the meeting.
— Introduce the goals and agenda for the meeting.
— Manage the meeting and keep the team "on track."
— Facilitate a process of decision and consensus making.
— Make certain that all stakeholders participate and have
their input heard.
— Control disruptive or unproductive behavior.

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Setting the Agenda
Running the Workshop
Problems and Tricks of the Trade

• These workshops are often characterized by a

highly charged atmosphere
• Indeed, the setting may even be politically
charged, confrontational, or both
• Many facilitators carry a "bag of tricks" with them
to help manage this highly charged atmosphere
• There is one very useful technique of issuing
“Workshop Tickets”.
• The more difficult the workshop, the more
valuable they become!
• These also help to encourage "out-of-the-box"
thinking
Running the Workshop
Problems and Tricks of the Trade

• Figure 11-2. Workshop tickets

Figure 11-2. Workshop tickets
Figure 11-2. Workshop tickets
Figure 11-2. Workshop tickets
Problems & Solution - Requirements
Workshop Setting

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Brainstorming
Benefits of Brainstorming

• It encourages participation by all parties

present.

• Many ideas can be generated in a short

period of time.

• It encourages out-of-the-box thinking

Rules for brainstorming
Live Brainstorming Setting
• All the significant stakeholders gather in one
room, and supplies are distributed.
• The supplies given to each participant can be as
simple as a stack of large sticky notes and a thick
black marker for writing on the notes.
• The sheets should be at least 3" x 5" (7 cm x 12
cm) and no larger than 5" x 7" (12 cm x 17 cm).
• Each participant should have at least 25 sheets
for each brainstorming session.
• You may also need index cards, pushpins, and a
soft wall.
Live Brainstorming Process
• The facilitator also explains the objective of the
process.
• For example, the following questions are a few
ways to state the objective.
— What features would you like to see in the product?
— What services should the product provide?
— What opportunities are we missing in the product or the
market?
• After stating the objective of the process, the
facilitator asks participants to share their ideas
aloud and to write them down, one per sheet
• As ideas are generated, the facilitator collects
them and posts them on a wall in the meeting
room
Live Brainstorming - Ideas Generation
• The number of ideas generated will be a function
of how fertile the subject being discussed is, but
it is common to generate 50–100 ideas
• The process tends to have a natural end; at
some point, the stakeholders will simply run out
of ideas.
• This is typified by longer and longer gaps
between idea submissions.
• At this point, the facilitator ends the session, and
it may well be a great time for a break
Idea Reduction - Pruning Ideas
• The first step is to "prune" those ideas
that are not worthy of further investment
by the group.
• The facilitator asks the participants
whether each idea is worthy of further
consideration and then removes an invalid
idea,
• but if there is any disagreement among
the participants, the idea stays on the list.
• If participants find two sheets with the
same idea, group them together on the
wall.
Idea Reduction - Grouping Ideas
• It may be helpful during this process to start
grouping similar ideas.
• Doing so is most effective when participants from
the session volunteer to go to the wall and do the
grouping.
• Related ideas are grouped together in regions of
the walls.
• Name the groups of related ideas.
• For example, the groups might be labeled as
follows:
— New features
— Performance issues
— Enhancements to current features
— User interface
Idea Reduction - Defining Features
• In this process, the facilitator walks through each
idea that has not been pruned and asks the
submitter to provide a one-sentence description.
Idea Reduction - Prioritizing Ideas
• Once the groupings have stabilized and been
agreed to, it is time to move on to the next step.
• Two out of many techniques for prioritization are:
-
— Cumulative Voting: The Hundred-Dollar Test
– Each person is given $100 of "idea money" to be
spent on "purchasing ideas.
– Each participant is asked to write on a sheet of paper
how much of this money to spend on each idea.
—"Critical, Important, Useful" Categorization
– Each participant is given a number of votes equal to
the number of ideas, but each vote must be
categorized "critical," "important," or "useful."
– The trick is that each stakeholder is given only one-
third of the votes from each category
Storyboard
Storyboard
• A Storyboard is a logical and conceptual description of system
functionality for a specific scenario, including the interaction
required between the users and the system

• A Storyboard "tells a specific story“

• Often used in combination with another technique

— Capture ideas via brainstorming or interviewing
— Document in a storyboard to show user what is understood

• Storyboards identify the players, explain what happens to them,

and describe how it happens.

• The goal in this techniques is to interact with the user

— purpose of storyboarding is to gain an early reaction from the
users on the concepts proposed for the application.
— With storyboarding, the user's reaction can be observed very
early in the lifecycle. In so doing, storyboards offer an effective
technique for addressing the "Yes, But" syndrome.
Storyboards Types

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Cont…
• Passive Storyboards
—Passive storyboards tell a story to the user.

—They can consist of sketches, pictures, screen

shots or sample application outputs.

—In a passive storyboard, the analyst plays the

role of the system and simply walks the user
through the storyboard, with a "When you do
this, this happens" explanation.
Cont..
• Active Storyboards
—Active storyboards try to make the user see "a
movie“

—Active storyboards are animated or

automated, perhaps by an automatically
sequencing slide presentation, an animation
tool

—Active storyboards provide an automated

description of the way the system behaves in a
typical usage or operational scenario.
Cont…
• Interactive storyboards
—Interactive storyboards let the user experience
the system in as realistic manner as practical.

— They require participation by the user.

— Interactive storyboards can mock-ups or can

be advanced to the point of throwaway code.
Tips for Storyboarding
• Don't invest too much in a storyboard
• Make the storyboard easy to modify
• Don't make the storyboard too functional
• So here's our advice to the development
team.
—Storyboard early.
—Storyboard often.
—Storyboard on every project that has new or
innovative content.

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Example Storyboard
• Imagine that in reviewing this visual storyboard,
our end-user accountant says, "Well, actually,
billing numbers are divided into two parts, the
year and a unique number.
• This drawing shows only one field for the account
number." Then he adds: "And by the way, I don't
want to enter the year all the time, so please
initialize this value with the current year, which I
can overwrite if necessary.