Tips for Writing Excellent Business Requirements

Understand that the purpose of the businessrequirements meetings
requirements document is to ensure that the design1. The analyst should summarize the information
and development team has a clear and well-definedgathered at the meeting, prepare a report, and then
understanding of the tasks that are going to becreate another question and answer form targeting
automated, how those tasks fit into thethe new issues that came to light in the previous
organizational context, and who the role players are.meeting.
Ensure that the requirements analyst meets with the2. This process should continue until the analyst is
major stakeholders in the project for a series ofable to produce a final report that everyone agrees
meetings designed to flesh out the requirements ofencompasses all of the business requirements.
the system. Subsequent meetings may includePhase 3: After the business requirements gathering
secondary stakeholders and actual end users. This isphase is completed
to make sure that all roles are uncovered and1. The analyst prepares the formal business
properly documented.requirements document and presents it to all
The business requirements phase of the projectsstakeholders for approval and signoff.
consists of these three steps:2. If signoff it received, the business analyst's work is
Phase 1: Conduct meetings with all stakeholders andfinished unless and until additional requirements are
role players.identified later in the software development cycle.
Phase 2: Assimilate all of the information that was3. If signoff is not received then it is likely that the
gathered at the meetings.project will go back to Stage 1 for additional business
Phase 3: Create the business requirements document.requirements gathering and analysis.
Phase 1: Steps to conducting the businessBecause the success of the projects depends upon it
requirements meetingsbeing built to the client's specifications and
1. Prior to the meeting the analyst should create a listexpectations, the business requirements document is
of questions that will be asked of each stakeholdera key deliverable. This stage of the project should
and user involved in the business requirementsnever be skipped in order to expedite the
gathering process.development cycle.
2. The analyst should note the answers to theFailure to identify and document all business
questions and identify new issues that were notrequirements creates unnecessary project risk that
previously identified.will be very difficult to mitigate later in the software
Phase 2: Steps to conducting the businessdevelopment project lifecycle.