Collecting Requirements

1
Chapter 4

• Collecting Requirements

2
What do you want to know?

• What is the problem area?
• How does the business you approach it?
• Is the data available?
• Who will use the results?
• Who cares?

3
ROMC

• Representations
• Operations
• Memory Aids
• Controls

4
Interviews

• Individual or group
• Roles
• Lead Interviewer
• Scribe
• Pre-interview research
• Questionnaire
• Agenda
• User Preparation
• Write-up

5
Interview Roles

• Lead Interviewer(s)
• direct the questions and adapt to the
  conversation
• Scribe
• take notes.
• interject if the lead interviewer misses
  something.
• write up the session
• Observer (not more than two)
• observe not participate

6
Tape recorders

• Cannot really replace people
• Ask first
• May make subjects nervous
• Require listening to the meeting twice

7
Process

• Research
• Select subjects
• Schedule interviews

8
Research

• Literature, Plan, Web sites, etc.
• What is the business?
• Who are the subjects?
• Is there a history of data warehousing? Good/Bad?

9
Subjects (pp. 116 117)

• Business Executive
• What are the business issues?
• What is your vision?
• Business Manager or Analyst
• What are your measures of success?
• What data do you use?
• What analysis do you typically do?
• Data Audit
• Data quality or quantity issues?
• Potential roadblocks (political or technical)?
• How is ad hoc analysis conducted?

10
Caveats

• The one question to never ask is What do you
  want in your computer system? That is your job,
  not theirs.
• You need to be brave enough to ask executives
  what keeps them up at night?
• The interview team needs to resist the temptation
  to focus only on the top 5 reports or top ten
  questions.
• Continually manage expectations.

11
Preparation

• Questionnaire
• Let users know what is coming
• Assign roles and stick to them
• Lead(s)
• Scribe(s)
• Observer(s)

12
The interview process

• Introduce everyone make everyone feel
  comfortable.
• Introduce the subject
• Remember your role
• Verify communication
• Define terminology
• Establish peer basis know interviewees
  vocabulary and business understanding

13
The interview process (cont.)

• Be flexible
• be prepared to schedule additional interviews
• respect your interviewees time and reschedule if
  needed
• Avoid burnout
• dont schedule too many at once
• leave time between sessions
• Manage Expectations

14
The interview process (cont.)

• Wrap up the interview
• Summarize
• Ask for permission to call back
• Get documentation
• Write up the interview
• soon (2 hours to 2 days)

15
Requirements Findings Document (Business Case)

• Establishes the relevance and credibility of the
  data warehouse project.
• Ties the business requirements to the realistic
  availability of data.

16
Facilitated sessions

• Each one takes more time than interviews, but may
  generate more
• Requires an experienced facilitator
• Requires an initial understanding of the user
  area
• Participants feed of of each others ideas
• Participants can negotiate disagreements