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1. Business Requirements

The business requirements provide the foundation and reference for all detailed requirements development. You may gather business requirements from the customer or development organization’s senior management, an executive sponsor, a project visionary, product management, the marketing department, or other individuals who have a clear sense of why the project is being undertaken and the ultimate value it will provide, both to the business and to customers.

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1.1. Background

This section summarizes the rationale for the new product. Provide a general description of the history or situation that leads to the recognition that this product should be built.

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1.2. Business Opportunity

Describe the market opportunity that exists or the business problem that is being solved. Describe the market in which a commercial product will be competing or the environment in which an information system will be used. This may include a brief comparative evaluation of existing products and potential solutions, indicating why the proposed product is attractive. Identify the problems that cannot currently be solved without the product, and how the product fits in with market trends or corporate strategic directions.

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1.3. Business Objectives and Success Criteria

Describe the important business objectives of the product in a way that is quantitative and measurable. The value provided to customers is described in section 1.4, so this section should focus on the value provided to the business. This could include estimates of revenue or cost savings, return on investment analysis, or target release dates. Determine how success will be defined and measured on this project, and describe the factors that are likely to have the greatest impact on achieving that success. Include things within the direct control of the organization, as well as external factors. Establish measurable criteria to assess whether the business objectives have been met.

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1.4. Customer or Market Needs

Describe the needs of typical customers or market segments, including needs that are not yet met by the marketplace or by existing systems. You may wish to describe problems customers currently encounter that the new product will (or will not) address and how the product would be used by customers. Identify the customer hardware and software environment in which the product must operate. Define at a high level any known critical interface or performance requirements. Avoid including any design or implementation details. Present the requirements in a numbered list so that more detailed user or functional requirements can be traced to them.

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1.5. Business Risks

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2. Vision of the Solution

This section establishes a long-term vision for the system to be built to address the business objectives. This vision will provide the context for making decisions throughout the course of the product development life cycle. The vision should not include detailed functional requirements or project planning information.

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2.1. Vision Statement

Write a concise vision statement that summarizes the purpose and intent of the new product and describes what the world will be like when it includes the product. The vision statement should reflect a balanced view that will satisfy the needs of diverse customers as well as those of the developing organization. It may be somewhat idealistic, but it should be grounded in the realities of existing or anticipated customer markets, enterprise architectures, organizational strategic directions, and cost and resource limitations.

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2.2. Major Features

Include a numbered list of the major features of the new product, emphasizing those features that distinguish it from previous or competing products. Specific user requirements and functional requirements may be traced back to these features.>

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2.3. Assumptions and Dependencies

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3. Scope and Limitations

The project scope defines the concept and range of the proposed solution. It’s also important to define what will not be included in the product. Clarifying the scope and limitations helps to establish realistic expectations of the many stakeholders. It also provides a reference frame against which proposed features and requirements changes can be evaluated. Proposed requirements that are out of scope for the envisioned product must be rejected, unless they are so beneficial that the scope should be enlarged to accommodate them (with accompanying changes in budget, schedule, and/or resources).

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3.1. Scope of Initial Release

Describe the intended major features that will be included in the initial release of the product. Consider the benefits the product is intended to bring to the various customer communities, and generally describe the product features and quality characteristics that will enable it to provide those benefits. Avoid the temptation to include every possible feature that any potential customer category might conceivably want some day. Focus on those features and product characteristics that will provide the most value, at the most acceptable development cost, to the broadest community.

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3.2. Scope of Subsequent Releases

If a staged evolution of the product is envisioned over time, indicate which major features will be deferred to later releases.

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3.3. Limitations and Exclusions

Identify any product features or characteristics that a stakeholder might anticipate, but which are not planned to be included in the new product.

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4. Business Context

This section summarizes some of the business issues around the project, including profiles of major customer categories, assumptions that went into the project concept, and the management priorities for the project.>

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4.1. Stakeholder Profiles

1. improved productivity
2. reduced rework
3. cost savings
4. streamlined business processes
5. automation of previously manual tasks
6. ability to perform entirely new tasks or functions
7. conformance to current standards or regulations
8. improved usability or reduced frustration level compared to current applications

Example

Stakeholder Major Value Attitudes Major Interests Constraints executives increased revenue see product as avenue to 25% increase in market share richer feature set than competitors; time to market maximum budget = $1.4M editors fewer errors in work highly receptive, but expect high usability automatic error correction; ease of use; high reliability must run on low-end workstations legal aides quick access to data resistant unless product is keystroke-compatible with current system ability to handle much larger database than current system; easy to learn no budget for retraining

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4.2. Project Priorities

Describe the priorities among the project’s requirements, schedule, and budget. The table below may be helpful in identifying the parameters around the project’s key drivers (top priority objectives), constraints to work within, and dimensions that can be balanced against each other to achieve the drivers within the known constraints. For more information, see chapter 2 of Creating a Software Engineering Culture by Karl E. Wiegers (Dorset House, 1996).

Examples

Dimension	Driver(state objective)	Constraint(state limits)	Degree of Freedom (state allowable range)
Schedule	Schedule release 1.0 to be available by 10/1, release 1.1 by 12/1	N/A	N/A
Features	N/A	N/A	70-80% of high priority features must be included in release 1.0
Quality	N/A	N/A	90-95% of user acceptance tests must pass for release 1.0, 95-98% for release 1.1
Staff	N/A	maximum team size is 6 developers + 4 testers	N/A
Cost	N/A	N/A	budget overrun up to 15% acceptable without executive review

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4.3. Operating Environment

Describe the environment in which the system will be used and define the major availability, reliability, performance, and integrity requirements. This information will significantly influence the definition of the system’s architecture. Consider questions such as:

1. Are the users widely distributed geographically or located close to each other? How many time zones are they in?
2. When do the users in various locations need to access the system?
3. Where is the data generated and used? How far apart are these locations? Does the data from multiple locations need to be combined?
4. Are specific maximum response times known for accessing data that might be stored remotely?
5. Can the users tolerate service interruptions or is continuous access to the system critical for the operation of their business?
6. What access security controls and data protection requirements are needed?