jaane tu...ya jaane na

Seems the story is inspired by Dil Chahta Hai, without that much of depth in the story as the former had. Also the 2nd part gets little predictable and offcourse a hindi cinema should have a FILMY CLIMAX (a guy dogging a huge airpot security and to be left after found with any charges)..

Out and out a good, flimsy movie with a great lead pair, with good characters. By all odds should be a good evening watch.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step…

Requirements analysis is critical to the success of a development project

What is Requirements Gathering/Analysis?

Definition:

Requirements are a description of how a system should behave or a description of system properties or attributes. It can alternatively be a statement of ‘what’ an application is expected to do

Why is Requirements Gathering necessary?

It is proven that inadequate attention to Software Requirements Gathering at the beginning of a project is the most common cause for vulnerable projects that often do not deliver even on the basic tasks for which they were designed. There are instances in my career that, even after spending time and money on software projects where the end application eventually does not perform the tasks it was intended for.

Small and Medium companies are now getting into this practice by investing time and resources into effective and streamlined Software Requirement gathering process as the initial step.

The key to successfully completing a project is align with clients business goals and meet the projects requirement specifications.

5 most important questions to be asked?

Why is the need of software?

What is realizing (earning) model of the client?

What are the end users (stake holder) of the project?

What is the wish list of the client?

5th Ask question until you are have further questions.


1) Identify the boundaries:

This initial step helps in identifying how the new application integrates with the business processes, how it fits into the larger picture and what its scope and limitations will be.

2) Knowledge transfer/Gathering phase

Information is gathered from multiple sources. The Requirement Analyst (BA or Project manager as per the hierarchy of the company) draws out information from respective sources on their requirement from the application and what their expectation are from the application.

Problems while gathering information from various sources:

1) Conflicting inputs

2) Ambiguous understanding of processes

3) Insufficient information from sources

4) Changes in requirement after this phase (which we cant stop J )

Thus to overcome these Requirement Analyst (BA or PM) should have strong communication skills, people skills and sound programming knowledge are prerequisites.

3) Tools used in requirement gathering

Tradition methods of requirement gathering are meetings, interviews with end users, on-site analysis, market research and competitor analysis.

Other methods include flowcharting of business process, existing user manuals or docs, current process models, process specification.

The most current and the medium sized companies style which are better equipped to handle the complex and often changing requirements are:

* Prototypes

* Use cases

* Data flow diagrams

* User stories

* Transition process diagrams

Once the requirement gather is done, the most important is making a model of the requirement.

This should be followed by documenting the requirement into SRS.
There is no silver bullet, no one answer, no perfect approach method or technique to requirements gathering. Developing a good requirements document is about giving your project the best chance of success. To do so, you must reduce the risk of common mistakes that arise from a lack of communication or understanding. Keep this in mind as you gather your requirements, and the documentation — and project as a whole — will have the best chance of success.


© 2007 Harshad Narvekar