The document discusses a study that found 68% of IT projects fail. Key findings from the study include: 17% of large IT projects threaten the company's existence when they go badly; large IT projects run 45% over budget and deliver 56% less value than predicted; and 78% of respondents reported the business is usually or always out of sync with project requirements.

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3. Study: 68 percent of IT projects fail!
Source: www.techrepublic.com
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4. Facts and Figures

17% of large IT projects go so badly that they can
threaten the very existence of the company.

On average, large IT projects run 45% over budget, while
delivering 56% less value than predicted.

A truly stunning 78% of respondents reported that the
“Business is usually - or always! - out of sync with project
requirements”.
Source: Why Projects Fail
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5. Agile Requirements Engineering
A practical approach

6. Yours truly :)
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7. Agenda

Seven Questions Analysis.

The Now, The Work and The Goal.

Navigational Mockups.

F.U.R.P.S. Requirements.

User Stories and Usage Scenarios.
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8. What do we search to achieve
when performing
requirements engineering?
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9. To describe that product or service
(a great one, if it’s possible)
that will put a smile on our
customer’s face.
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10. Each question reveals a different dimension
How?
Why?
Functional
Motivational
Temporal
Where?
Who?
Organizational
What?
Conceptual
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When?
Geographical
The
Product
How Much?
Quantitative
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11. In every job that must be done,
there is an element of fun.
You find the fun, and - SNAP - the
job's a game!
- Mary Poppins, A Spoonful Of Sugar 11
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12. What?
A little customization…

How did you get the idea?

Conceptual
How will a success story
(the perfect one, if it’s possible),
will unfold in your case?
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13. Who?
People and
Organizations
A little customization…

Who are they? Those entities that will:
Investors
Customers
IT Ops
Invest their money
Use the product
The City Hall,
Governmental
Institutions etc.
Keep the system
running
Try to make you fail
Competition
Give you different permits
and approvals
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Commercial
Partners
Invoice you or being
invoiced by you
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14. Who?
People and
Organizations
A little customization…

What do they need?

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Why?
Motivational
Things that can be acted upon (real-life objects,
services, functionalities).
For what purpose?

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Motivations attached to these real-life objects, services,
functionalities.
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15. Why?
Dig beyond the surface

Motivational
Don’t take the first given reason. Look for something
meaningful for the business.
The marketing manager needs a sales report.

Why?


To what end?

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To see the sales figures.
To check if the company products are in demand.
And then?
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If necessary, to initiate corrective measures (as marketing
campaigns).
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16. All of them in one place

After collecting their needs and whys, we need to see if
the envisioned functionalities satisfy them.
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17. How?
A little customization…

Functional
How will the envisioned product fulfill their needs?

A clickable Happy-Path.

Navigational and UI Mockups.
View Message
Main Page
Login
Inbox
Compose
Delete message
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Viewing Message
Editing Message
Deleting
Message
Warning
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18. When?
A little customization…

Temporal
Take a look to a real calendar to identify those special
days or periods in the product lifecycle.
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And then, go deeper: When is the most busy hour of the day,
day of the week, period of the month for a product of this
kind?
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19. Where?
A little customization…

Geographical
What are those physical places that your product will
impact (or be impacted by)?

Accessed, administered, attacked from? Hosted where?
Backups stored in? Delivered at?

What about in five years from now?
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20. How Much?
A little customization…

Quantitative
Now, let’s go back and challenge, from a quantitative point
of view, every answer we have received so far.

Only one portal? What it should happen in order to have two
portals?

One portal administrator? What if he gets stranded on a
tropical island, without any internet connection?

How many visitors (at minimum) per month
to keep de business running?
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21. The Now, the Work and the Goal
The "Now"
The Work
The Goal
Who is going to work
in this project?
Who offers the
same services now?
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Who is going to use
the product?
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22. Let's try a clickable mockup

Microsoft Word, the simplest tool to build a navigational
mockup.
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23. Don’t forget, gathering
requirements for a product means
more than identifying its
functionalities!
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24. F.U.R.P.S.

An acronym representing a model for classifying software
quality attributes (functional and non-functional requirements):
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Functionality - Feature set, Capabilities, Generality, Security.
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Usability - Human factors, Aesthetics, Consistency, Documentation.

Reliability - Frequency/severity of failure, Recoverability, Predictability,
Accuracy, Mean time to failure.

Performance - Speed, Efficiency, Resource consumption, Throughput,
Response time.

Scalability - Testability, Extensibility, Adaptability, Maintainability,
Compatibility, Configurability, Serviceability, Installability, Localizability,
Portability.
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25. User Stories and Usage Scenarios

User Story:

A user story is a very high-level definition of a requirement,
containing just enough information so that the developers can
produce a reasonable estimate of the effort to implement it.
As a <role>, I want to <functionality>, so that I can <benefit>.
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Usage Scenario:
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It details a User Story, providing the necessary details for
certain situations that require so.
Given <situation>, when <event or trigger>, then <action>.
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26. A piece of reality

As a visitor I want to login so that I can access my Inbox
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Given the user is authenticated,
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
Given the visitor is not an authenticated user,
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

When the visitor dials www.gulliver-e.com, Then this page is displayed.
When the visitor tries to access a member-only page, Then he gets
redirected to the Main Page.
Given the visitor entered three times in a row wrong
credentials,
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When dials www.gulliver-e.com, Then he gets redirected to the Inbox Page.
When he tries for the fourth time, Then a Captcha is added to the page (to
avoid bots).
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27. And now, some questions for your answers

… or is the other way around? :)
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