JAD Workshops

Slide 1: Gather data to identify business requirements JAD Workshops

Slide 2: JAD Workshops There are two main types of workshops  that we are interested in as information gatherers: Joint Application Design (JAD) - or Joint Requirements Planning (JRP) - and Brainstorming.

Slide 3: JAD Joint Application Design (JAD) was developed  by IBM in the late 1970s. method that brings together business and IT  professionals in a structured workshop to determine and discuss system requirements. Benefits received from adding JAD to currently  used information gathering tools include savings on time and resources, and systems requirements written through cooperation of future users and IT development teams. (what are some of the methods looked at last week) 

Slide 4: Systems development process The systems requirements identification  stage is one of the most important integral parts of the process, that can \"make or break\" the project. Results of reviewing industry statistics are there to prove it: \"60% to 80% of errors originate in the user requirements and functional specification\" stage.

Slide 5: Traditional requirements elicitation techniques The most common techniques of  requirement elicitation are interviews and questionnaires  These techniques allow IT professionals to get feedback on the processes of the organisation as they are now, and get a sense of what is lacking in the current system.

Slide 6: The following disadvantages are evident: It is hard to set convenient time for interviews with all  the people able to provide insight into the problem. Usually many follow-ups are necessary for  clarification, making the process more expensive. Not as many people from various parts of the  company are interviewed, because of cost, so there exists high possibility for bias. Even with structuring interview questions, analysts  have to do a lot of guesswork when choosing aspects most beneficial for business needs of the organisation

Slide 7: Questionaires- Cheaper option A cheaper way to get feedback from users  is a questionnaire. Questionnaires can reach a large number of users in a short period of time.  They are easier to analyse than interviews, because they consist of multiple-choice and true and false questions created with an interpretation system in mind.  They are not as time consuming as interviews are.

Slide 8: questionnaires disadvantages: It is hard to create questionnaires that will  give all possible answer options customer wants to give  There is always a high risk of question ambiguity.  Access to emotional feedback is impossible, unless follow-up interviews are scheduled, subsequently adding to the cost.

Slide 9:  Therefore, these traditional information-gathering techniques need a counterpart or a substitute that will eliminate, at least in part, problems plaguing the analysis process. Joint Application Design (JAD) is a great addition to the usual requirement determination processes.

Slide 10: Joint Application Design (JAD) The old saying - \"Two heads are better  than one\"- gives a great basis for understanding on importance of group work. Teamwork makes one modern technique of systems requirement identification very successful .

Slide 11: Joint Application Design (JAD) JAD brings team approach into play  gathering users from various departments and IT specialists together in 3-to-1 ratio for a structured work session  It allows users to share their opinions on the current system, and gives a chance through shared purpose to come to a consensus on what needs to be changed

Slide 12: Joint Application Design (JAD) is a technique ensuring that requirements that are received in outcome  are approved by all participants, and not only by decision of system analysts collecting the requirements JAD systematizes the systems requirement  process, solving project managers dilemma of uniting disciplined approach to systems analysis with flexible user coordination

Slide 13: JAD Workshops Usually JAD workshops last for 3-5 days with several  sessions, and require several key participants to be present : Executive Sponsor - owner of the systems that is being  discussed. Members of IT team that will be working on the project,  mainly systems analysts, but possibly programmers, database administrators, etc. Business Users - people who have expertise of business  operations. Users should be represented in two types: employees that will use the system in their day-to-day operations, and employees who are \"responsible for standards and methodology for business functions they represent

Slide 14: JAD Workshops continued During JAD session users contribute their views  on current processes and on what will have to be changed. All the information received during the  discussion is recorded by a scribe. And finally, a facilitator - a person who runs the  machine of requirement gathering process. It is facilitator's goal to direct and sustain discussion, make sure that goals of the session are achieved. \"Good facilitators listen, recognize issues as they arise, and provide leadership and direction to help people come together\"

Slide 15: Pre JAD Workshop preparation

Slide 16: 1-3 weeks before workshop executive team must identify : Project and its objectives  Objectives of workshop and its deliverables  Participants that will be most beneficial to the  project Tentative agenda of JAD sessions, and choose  place, time, tools to be used. Without good preparation, without clear plan of  action workshop can become a disorganised waste of resources.

Slide 17: Reasons why JAD is effective in the requirement identification process: JAD decreases time and costs associated  with requirements elicitation process .  During 2-4 weeks information not only is collected, but requirements, agreed upon by various system users, are identified.  JAD sessions help bring experts together giving them a chance to share their views, understand views of others, and develop the sense of project ownership

Slide 18: Reasons why JAD is effective in the requirement identification process: The techniques of JAD implementation are well  known, as it is \"the first accelerated design technique available on the market and probably best known\" and can easily be applied by any organisation. Easy integration of CASE tools into JAD  workshops improves session productivity and provides systems analysts with discussed and ready to use models.

Slide 19: Disadvantages of JAD Systems analysts always have to keep  in mind that none of techniques they use are a full-proof way to acquire the information, neither is JAD.

Slide 20: Quality system requirements provide a foundation for success of any project. Good requirements should be verifiable and  attainable, and to achieve this is impossible without user input However, to use a cliché - \"Time is money\",  therefore JAD as a rapid information-gathering technique, should be learned and used by systems analysis teams. JAD sessions offer organisations ability to get  detailed information in a short period of time, which means it saves money and resources that could be used elsewhere.