Requirements Elicitation & RefactoringGathering business requirements is usually the easy part. What to do with those requirements and how best to leverage them in the broader context of your project, your business processes and your strategic vision is another thing. BeggsHeidt can help you implement your requirements management tools using hands-on pragmatic approaches. We review your legacy line item requirements already gathered, assess how the requirements map back to project vision and associated business processes, then review and provide input how the project plan should accommodate any further requirements gathering activities. As needed, we will facilitate and moderate user workshops to elicit additional requirements and seek further understanding about the requirements given (some requirements are often “aged”).

Once requirements elicitation has reached a steady state, we will analyze the line item requirements against our understanding of the system to be built (design analysis starts simultaneously with requirements elicitation), then refactor the requirements into system requirements. Refactoring removes duplication, ambiguity and adds system context to the requirements. System requirements will be divided into functional requirements and static requirements.

Requirements elicitation and refactoring is an iterative effort. BeggsHeidt will integrate this with the logical design and architectural analysis activities of the project. Several iterations of requirements elicitation and refactoring are usually required, ensuring that the voice of your users is represented and that the users are actively involved in the development of the system. It also ensures that the project architects, designers and programmers have a complete understanding of how to build the system, given the requirements as well as the constraints and priorities of the project.

Advanced Use Case AuthoringUse cases are the elaborations of business and system requirements in a format that many consider a bridge for the user and the designer/programmer. The use case documents the interaction of a user with the system to be built. Because use cases are express this interaction so richly, they are an invaluable tool for any project. However, there are numerous ways to design use case templates and how the use cases themselves integrate with—and support—the other project artifacts.

BeggsHeidt analysts have practical experience designing use case templates, writing use case content, and integrating use cases into full lifecycle tools, such as the Rational Analyst Suite. We design and implement templates that provide the most complete and straightforward understanding for users and project team members. BeggsHeidt has experience using Rational SoDA to build use case templates that reference user line item requirements and the refactored system requirements that apply to the flow of events that use case is documenting. We also integrate all other project artifacts as they are produced, including participating class diagrams, scenario-based sequence diagrams, state and activity charts as well as other criteria and assumptions made in support of the use case.

Further, BeggsHeidt analysts can incorporate supplemental information into the use case model, including business rules, use case dependencies, referential information for suborbinate and superordinate use cases, detailed behavioral modeling, and interface behavior and analysis. Last, we can intergrate the use cases with associated test cases that are developed. We will also assure that the use case environment supports versioning and interative development.