Writing Effective Requirements
Course: WEREQ
Duration: 2 Days
Level: I
Course Summary
Writing effective requirements is a critical skill for business
analysts, subject matter experts and others who represent
the business interests on an IT project. This workshop
provides detailed instructions on the conversion of requirements
into highly effective requirements specifications.
The challenge lies in defining business needs in the form
of business requirements, stakeholder requirements, solution
requirements, and transition requirements that other audiences
will interpret and use to design the solution.
This workshop provides a proven set of core business analysis
techniques, methods and tricks to help business professionals
create, clarify, and confirm business, stakeholder, solution,
and transition requirements – the kind of business
requirements that IT professionals need to do their job
well.
This is an intensive training session on how to write clear,
crisp, technically accurate requirements documents. It
is designed to teach the principles and techniques of
readable requirements writing.
The Writing Effective Requirements workshop focuses on how
to write the different levels of requirements effectively.
The workshop focuses on industry standards and best practices
for writing requirements needed for project scope definition,
requirements and documenting the system specifications
necessary for IT projects.
« Hide The Details
Topics Covered In This Course
Introduction to Requirements Writing
- Writing Effective Business Requirements
- Clarifying Requirements
- Initial Requirement Statements
Writing Effective Requirements
- Creating Requirement Statements
- Business System Requirements
- Rules for a "Good" Requirement Sentence
- Reducing Complexity Increases Comprehension
- A Complete Sentence Forces a Complete Thought
- Structured Requirement Statements
- Rules for a "Good" Requirement Sentence
- Think "What", Not "How"
- Rules Review
Writing Understandable Requirements
- Removing Requirements Ambiguity
- Rules for an "Understandable" Requirement Sentence
- The five Cs of writing: correct, clear, concise, comprehensive,
and cohesive
- Relevance Increases Comprehension
- Ambiguity Ruins Requirements
- Increasing Understandability
- Rules for a "Good" Requirement Sentence
- Peer Reviews Clarify Requirements
- Clarifying Mutual Understanding
- Revise, Define and Clarify Your Requirements
- Verifying Understandability
- Rules Review
- Clarifying Requirements
Writing Measurable Requirements
- Writing Measurable Requirement Statements
- Rules for a "Testable" Requirement Sentence
- To Test or Not to Test is NOT the Question
- Requirements Testability
- Effective Requirements are Verifiable or Testable
- Confirming Performance Requirements
- Understanding Performance Requirements
- Clarifying Quantitative Performance Requirements
- Quantifying Qualitative Requirements
- Testing Performance Components
Requirements Verification and Validation
- Achieving well-formed requirements through validation
- Reviewing requirements with walkthroughs
- Verifying requirements with inspections
Fundamentals of Grammar
- Key grammatical rules for technical writers
- Proper use of punctuation marks
- Guidelines for proper use of abbreviations
- Guidelines for capitalization
- Basic spelling rules
- How to Write Numbers, Units, Equations, and Symbols
Principles of Technical Composition
- Use of active vs. passive voice
- Use of simple vs. complex language
- How to write more concisely
- Use of specific and concrete terms vs. vague, general language
- Making writing more powerful with visual description
- Add eye appeal:
- Rules for handling tenses
- Making writing more readable by keeping sections, paragraphs,
and sentences short
- How to keep ideas parallel
- Informal vs. formal, professional vs. conversational—
which style is best?
Use of Words and Phrases
- How to tell the difference between correct technical terminology
vs. unnecessary jargon
- Why you should substitute small words for big words
- How to eliminate wordy phrases and redundancy from your
writing
- Why you should avoid cliches, corporatese, and overblown
phrases
- Rules for using nouns as adjectives
- Misused and troublesome words and phrases
- How to avoid sexist language
- How to achieve a contemporary style
Principles of Organization
- How to organize your material to suit the reader's needs
- Ways to organize a technical document for easy reading
- Use and misuse of executive summaries, leads, and warm-up
paragraphs
- How to separate fact from opinion in your writing
- Use of headings and subheads to organize technical documents
Principles of Communication and Persuasion
- Do technical documents merely inform—or do they also
persuade?
- How to gain your reader's attention in the first paragraph
- Use of facts, opinions, and statistics to prove your case
- How to determine when you are giving too much detail
- How to get the reader on your side
- How to get the reader to take the next step
Special Concerns of the Technical Writer
- How to quickly gain specialized background knowledge in
technical fields
- The collaboration between the writer and the client/technical
expert—who does what?
- What to do if the subject matter is too technical for you
to understand
- What to do if technical experts you must work with or interview
are uncooperative, arrogant, or poor communicators
- Tips for making a boring topic more exciting
- How to write for a specific audience
What You Can Expect
At the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- Define best practices and standards for writing requirements
and solutions documents
- Understanding the different levels of requirements
- Document functional and non-functional (quality) requirements
- Understand the requirements management process
- Define characteristics and guidelines for writing effective
requirements
- Understand communication techniques for gathering requirements
- Learn writing skills for writing successful scoping and
requirements documents
- Participate in practical exercises in writing problem statements,
business objectives, high-level requirements, non-functional
requirements, screen and reporting specifications
- Focus on your purpose and the reader's needs (understand
your audience)
- Apply the five Cs of writing: correct, clear, concise, comprehensive,
and cohesive to writing requirements
- Organize to highlight main messages
- Make ideas flow smoothly
- Weed out wasted words
- Energize your verbs
- Catch the right tone
- Add eye appeal
- Sharpen editing skills
- Learn to consider the needs and abilities of the audience
- Learn how to incorporate clarity and utility
- Learn stylistic methods for effective writing
Who Should Take This Course
This course is intended for anyone who desires to develop
their technical requirements writing ability to a professional
level.
Those who will find this of value include Business Managers,
Business Analysts, Business Requirements Leads, Project
Managers, Solutions Leads, Technical Leads, Quality Assurance,
Business Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), Architects, Designers
and Developers.
Recommended Prerequisites
There are no specific prerequisites for this workshop.
Training Style
Instructor-led, group-paced, classroom-delivery learning
model with structured hands-on activities.
If possible, the instructor would like to receive specific
templates used within the organization in advance of the
seminar date. The instructor would demonstrate their function
during the workshop.
The seminar can be tailored to your specific needs. Actual
organization examples may be used throughout the presentation
as examples or the instructor will use generic examples.
In addition, we further customize by going through the course
agenda with you and have you tell us which items you want
stressed and emphasized. There is no extra charge for
this customization.
« Hide The Details
Related Courses
| Code |
Course Title |
Duration |
Level |
|
TWTEP |
Professional Writing for Technical and Engineering Professionals |
2 Days |
I |
Details |
REQUSE |
Developing Requirements with Use Cases |
3 Days |
I |
Details |
TTVREQ |
Testing Techniques for Tracing and Validating Requirements |
3 Days |
I |
Details |
EFFWRT |
Effective Technical Writing |
2 Days |
I |
Details |
BAREQ |
Eliciting and Managing Requirements for Successful Software Development |
3 Days |
I |
Details |
Every student attending a Verhoef Training class will receive
a certificate good for $100 toward their next public class taken
within a year.
You can also buy "Verhoef Vouchers" to get a discounted rate for a
single student in any of our public or web-based classes.
Contact your account manager or our sales office for details.
