Strategic Requirements Analysis : From Interviews to Models

One of the many important skills a business analyst needs in requirements discovery is the ability to effectively plan, conduct and manage a set of interviews to get the requirements right, be they strategic, operational or IT-oriented. In Strategic Requirements Analysis Dr Karl A. Cox offers a process, guidelines and ideas - that have been tried and tested in practice - for conducting interviews and shows you how to turn interview findings into strategic requirements models all on one page, to present to your clients, customers, team and supervisors.

A strategic requirement is something an organisation sets out to achieve; it could be the long-term vision the organisation sets itself, the key business condition for a specific project to be a success or a business strategy to achieve a goal. A set of strategic requirements defines the goals, strategies and tactics that organisations need to put in place to give them direction and impetus. Business analysts and consultants have to understand strategic requirements to know where projects can deliver business benefits and where not. The ability of the analyst to interview, gather, analyse, model and present strategic requirements is key to success. The primary tool consultants and business analysts use for communication is talking; but, if you cannot present all that incredible information back to your client effectively, it is hard for them and you to get to grips quickly enough with what is going on. Being able to present a model is really powerful because it provides a visual format and structure on one page to reason about those strategic requirements. Dr Karl A. Cox offers a process, guidelines and ideas - that have been tried and tested in practice - for conducting interviews and shows you how to rapidly turn interview findings into strategic requirements models all on one page, to present to your clients, customers, team and / or supervisors.