Gathering Requirements
Where do you find these requirements anyway?



How do you go about gathering requirements? So where is it that you go to get all these Business Requirements you might ask? There are several sources for Business Requirements.

Key sources are listed here but are not in any particular order:

There are various techniques which can be used for gathering Requirements. Some of these techniques help engage the participants in a meaningful discussion which gets their thoughts flowing and paints a better picture for what the stakeholder is looking for. The SWEBOK uses the term “Elicit” to refer to their Gathering Requirements activity. This term implies that not all business requirements are obvious and that the Business Analysts must work hard to ensure they capture all the requirements.

Another common term used for the Requirements gathering activity is “Requirements Capture”. Clearly Put’s Requirementing approach uses the term "Gathering Requirements" Whatever the term, the objective is still the same. To ensure that most, if not all of the requirements will be included in the User Requirements document.

It would be worth noting that the likely hood of gathering all requirements during this Phase of the Project would be slim to none. Requirements change and they were probably not understood properly when first stated or interpreted. Expect to manage change during the project. This is further expanded in the Control Requirements section of this site.

The focus of the Requirements Gathering activity is to capture all the requirements. It is not to ensure that the requirements are being expressed properly nor is it to resolve which requirements takes priority over other requirements. The Analysis will take care of that. Just capture all the ”raw” requirements you can and you will weed through them later.


Summary

Requirements Gathering is used to capture all the business requirements. There are several sources for Business Requirements and various techniques used to gather the Business Requirements.

Requirementing Steps