Inception

Determining Whether or Not to Build

Inception
 Recall that the main purpose of Inception is
to determine if the project should go forth
 This could involve:
 Determining if the project is financially feasible
 Determining if we have adequate human
resources for the project
 This includes analysts, designers, developers, quality
assurance personnel, administrators, and more
 Determining if the project is technically possible
 For example, if the project requires interfacing with a
legacy system: Can it be done?
Inception
 Another way to describe a main goal of Inception is
risk management
 First, we want to determine risk factors
 e.g. financial, human, the financial market, the customer
market, technical risks
 Next, we want to eliminate as many of those risks as
possible
 Acquire an adequate budget, hire appropriate personnel,
marketing polls, and maybe even writing proof-of-concept
code
 However, writing code in Inception only occurs if an aspect of
the software system is vital to the system’s success, and its
possible that we cannot achieve it
Requirements Capture
 To evaluate whether or not the project is
feasible, we must obviously know what the
project entails
 To do this we must acquire a requirements
document from our customer or an analyst
 Initially, the requirements document will be written
by our customers (if that is possible), but will be
refined by an analyst
 The refining process will clear up any ambiguities
or vagueness in the document
Requirements Capture

 An example:
Customer:
… The system should support the loan application
process for our bank customers…
Analyst: Who does that?
Customer: The loan manager & the client
Analyst:
… The system allows clients to apply for loans through
the loan manager…
Inception
 Inception isn’t really for architects, designers, or
developers, it is for:
 Project Managers
 Determining personnel and timelines for the project
 Analysts
 Requirements capture
 Financial executives
 Budget estimates, budgetary approval
 Thus, many of the artifacts of inception will not be
discussed here