This document provides a template for outlining high-level business requirements and expectations for information solutions that significantly impact data management. It details criteria for solution requirements, objectives, ownership, documentation inputs and outputs, control artifacts, resources, and related business processes. The goal is to capture meaningful expectations to guide the development of information solutions that facilitate better business outcomes.

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Example Data Specifications &
Information Requirements Framework
INFORMATION SOLUTION OUTLINE &
HIGH-LEVEL REQUIREMENTS
TEMPLATE (Project Mandate)
Alan D. Duncan
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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1 Purpose
This is a document template for capturing the overall high-level business requirements and
expectations for business information solutions with a significant impact on or requirement for data.
(cf. the “Project Mandate” document in PRINCE2).
At this stage, expectations are captured in general terms and while additional detail is of value, the
main aims are to ensure that the overall expectations and goals of the solution are captured in terms
that are meaningful to the business community. For guidance, the information solution will be outlined
at a level of understanding sufficient to support the outline Business Case.
This template forms part of example data specification & information requirements framework. The
framework offers a set of outline principles, standards and guidelines to describe and clarify the
semantic meaning of data terms in support of an Information Requirements Management process.
(See the Framework Overview for further details.)

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2 Information Solution Outline & High-Level Requirements
(Project Mandate)
SOLUTION
REQUIREMENT:
The area of information & data management under review and the overall
expectations for the solution.
SOLUTION
OBJECTIVES:
Purpose or outcome required.
Why is the change to information (or associated systems) needed? What
business outcomes are intended?
SOLUTION
DESCRIPTION:
What data or information is required? How is the solution intended to
function?
What is the scope of changes to the information within the solution?
Where does this apply?
What will happen to the data? What will change?
SOLUTION DATA
OWNER:
Who is requesting the information solution?
Who is accountable for the solutions completion and outcomes of the
requirements for any resulting changes to the business information?
DATA STEWARD(s): Who is responsible for the execution of the changes to the data?
SYSTEMS
IMPACTED
Which information systems or architectural components will be involved
when a change is being made to the definition or consumption of this data
e.g.:
 SOA
 DWH
 MDM
 Application
 Project
SOLUTION
DELIVERY
METHODS & DATA
UPDATE
PROCESSES
How is the solution to be implemented?
What methodologies are to be applied? (e.g. MIKE2.0, DMBOK, SCRUM)
What changes to the data will be applied?
What steps are involved?
EXCEPTIONS,
CONSTRAINTS &
EXCLUSIONS
Are there any exceptions or constraints that limit the scope of data delivery?
Is there are any data that explicitly won’t be included?
DATA VERIFICATION
MODE
How will the solution changes and impacts on the data be verified as
effective and complete?
 Audit: after-the-fact review for compliance.
 Self-Certification: team compiles the evidence to demonstrate that
the checkpoint has been applied
 Intervention: Requirement for Data Governance Unit participation
will be proactively flagged
SOLUTION
DOCUMENTATION
INPUTS
What information or deliverables will be used as an input to the solution
delivery process?
E,g. requirements documents, draft design documents, Business Case,
options papers etc. etc.
SOLUTION
DOCUMENTATION
OUTPUTS
What information or deliverables will be created as an output of the
process?
E,g. minutes, design documents, updates to metadata repository etc.

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RELEVANT
CONTROL
ARTEFACTS
Which Data Governance and Information Management standards,
guidelines, methods and constraints need to be applied? E.g.
 Update the Enterprise Conceptual Model
 Update the Enterprise Logical Model
 Update the solution Physical Design
What other principles, guidelines and reference materials could be useful?
(e.g. legislation, regulation, policies and standards)
RESOURCES &
ROLES:
Who is to participate in making the required changes to the data and
systems?
In what capacity/role will they contribute?
SOLUTION DATA DEFINITIONS:
Capture any known business & technical metadata
Are any data lineage impacts identified?
Define any updates than need to be applied to Business Data Network & Business Glossary
IDENTIFIED DEPENDENCIES
Pre-requisites etc. that need to be satisfied before the solution can be implemented.
RELATED BUSINESS PROCESSES
Identify existing business processes impacted by the delivery of the new data solution.
OTHER INFORMATION & NOTES

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About the author
Alan D. Duncan is an evangelist for information and analytics as
enablers of better business outcomes, and a member of the
Advisory Board for QFire Software.
An executive-level leader in the field of Information and Data
Management Strategy, Governance and Business Analytics, he
has over 20 years of international business experience, working
with blue-chip companies in a range of industry sectors. Alan
was named by Information-Management.com in their 2012 list of
“Top 12 Data Governance gurus you should be following on
Twitter”.
Twitter: @Alan_D_Duncan
Blog: http://informationaction.blogspot.com.au/

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Intellectual curiosity
Skeptical scrutiny
Critical thinking
http://www.informationaction.blogspot.com.au/
@Alan_D_Duncan
http://www.linkedin.com/in/alandduncan